Night settled over the mansion like a benediction withheld.
The air was heavy with candle smoke and the faint perfume of incense that Amber had lit herself—an act of contrition, of ritual habit.
The others had left. The new council's echo still clung to the hall: the scrape of chairs, the murmur of disbelief, the scent of ambition.
Aiden stood at the long window, half in shadow, half in the shimmer of moonlight that poured through the glass like melted silver.
He had dismissed them all with that quiet, deliberate tone that promised control, that promised consequence. But when the door shut behind the last of them, when the hush fell fully, he remained still, watching the night beyond the glass.... thinking.
The city below was a sea of sleeping roofs. Lanterns trembled in the wind. Somewhere, a church bell struck the hour—a hollow, mournful note that seemed to ask who among you dares to pray?
