Eve's POV
The Conclave hall was older than everything else in the building.
Eve felt it the second she walked in, the air was different, heavier somehow. The stone carrying something that wasn't quite memory but felt like it. Two hundred years of decisions made in this exact room. Two hundred years of people standing right where she was standing now, being judged by the same kind of eyes watching her.
The hall was packed.
Not just the panel. Not just faction leaders. The entire Conclave, every senior Court member, every faction representative, everyone with enough standing to demand a seat and enough interest to actually show up. They'd told her to expect two hundred people. It looked like more.
They sat in tiered rows on three sides of the room. The fourth side was where she stood, open stone floor, no furniture, no podium. Nothing between her and all of them.
Malachai was in the front row.
