Location:Kael'thoren — War Council chamber (Path-secured)
Date/Time:Late Ashbloom, 9940 AZI — morning
Realm:Demon Realm (Upper Realm)
They sealed the war council chamber through the Common Path.
Not formations. Not warded doors. The Path itself — Ren weaving threads of connection across every entrance, every window, every crack in the stone where sound might escape. The chamber became an island. Cut off from the world. The only communication channel in or out was the one that the hollow ones couldn't touch.
Lyria sat at the table. Voresh beside her — the scout's tarnished copper eyes fixed on her face, reading her the way he read hostile terrain. One hand on her back. The other flat on the table, ready. He hadn't left her side since the vision. Hadn't spoken much. Didn't need to. Thirty thousand years of discipline holding him upright while the woman he was learning to love carried something inside her mind that weighed more than mountains.
