The castle was under lockdown. No maids moved through the corridors, carried trays, or changed linens. There was only stone and silence and the steady rhythm of boots.
Guards lined every passageway, armed to the teeth, their armor gleaming under torchlight. Enchanted weapons hung at their sides.
Protection wards had been carved into the walls at every junction, anti-teleportation sigils etched into the floors, scrying wards stretched across the ceilings.
No one could see in, get in, or out without permission.
The Knight Captain moved through it all with his men at full alert, checking blind spots that didn't exist, doubling guards on positions that were already doubled. He was not taking any chances.
Deeper in the castle, further down than the guest quarters and the throne room and the public-facing grandeur of the upper floors, was a room that only convened when something had gone very badly.
Black iron doors, twenty feet high, covered edge to edge in engravings. Noise-cancellation runes, anti-teleportation seals, scrying blockers. Every ward that existed to keep a conversation private had been pressed into that metal.
Dozens of soldiers stood outside it, each one powerful enough to end most threats before they became problems. They stood without speaking, facing forward, hands on weapons.
Inside, the table sat with six people around it.
It was made from a single piece of wood, long and wide, its surface dark and smooth.
It did not look like something joined together. It looked like something that had grown into this shape. With no seams or joints, it was one continuous surface that seemed almost to glow in the low light of the room, the grain shifting slightly depending on where you stood.
Six people sat around it.
At the head, King Tharion Drevane sat with his elbows on the table and his hands locked together, his chin resting just above his knuckles.
The veins at his temples were visible. His jaw was tight. He had not spoken yet, and the room was still, waiting for him to.
To his immediate right sat Luriel, patriarch of House Seraphimon, and the youngest person at the table.
He was twenty-six, slight, dressed in a white tunic with grey hair swept cleanly back from a face that looked older than it was.
His eyes were a blue so sharp they looked right through you, moving constantly. Small round glasses sat on the bridge of his nose. He looked like a scholar who had wandered into a war council.
To the king's immediate left sat Tegran, patriarch of House Igneous, which served Teranos, god of earth and iron and craft.
He was the combination of giant and dwarf bloodlines. Seven feet tall and four feet wide, built like a titan. Every visible surface of him was muscle and vein.
Deep brown hair fell in thick braided cornrows down the back of his skull, each braid threaded with metal beads that caught the light.
His beard was long and braided the same way, heavier, wider, with small pieces of worked metal woven throughout.
His forearms, visible below rolled sleeves, were layered with muscle and covered in dark hair, thick veined rivers running beneath skin that had seen decades of heat and impact.
He wore armbands and forge gloves that he had not removed. He had not spoken since sitting down. He didn't look like he planned to.
Second to the king's right, leaving a deliberate half-seat of distance between herself and the table's edge, sat High Priestess Elowen Ariseth of the Grand Church of Veyloran.
She sat with her hands folded in her lap and her spine perfectly straight, and her expression was trying very hard to be composed and not quite getting there.
Second to the king's left sat Severa, matriarch of House Primal, which served Yarael, god of nature and life and the wild things that answered to neither.
She was six feet three inches of barely contained aggression dressed in deep green, her clothes functional rather than decorative, cut for movement rather than impression.
Her hair was black and enormous, thick and wild and long, spilling over her shoulders and down her back with the kind of volume that suggested it had never been tamed and never would be.
Her canines were longer than they should have been, slightly pointed, visible when she smiled. Her eyes had the stare of a predator, like she was looking at prey.
She was currently looking at Luriel with that expression.
At the far end of the table sat Apti, patriarch of House Cosmos, which served Cosme, the god of space. They were the kingdom's transport and logistics arm.
He was a middle-aged man with light brown hair going slightly thin at the top and a full beard that had started to gray at the edges. Chubby in the comfortable way of a man who ate well.
His clothes were understated but of such high quality that only very wealthy people would notice. The fabric too fine, the cut too precise, the small details too carefully chosen.
No excessive jewelry, nothing that announced itself. He sat with his hands together on the table and looked around the room like he planned to finish the meeting by saying as little as possible.
The table had space for a seventh seat, but it was left empty.
King Tharion finally opened his mouth.
"Elowen. Speak."
Elowen cleared her throat.
"It was not planned," she said, choosing every word before releasing it. "The summoning spell is a divine teleportation. It finds the most suitable bodies within the closest proximity to one another and brings them here. That is its function. That is all it does."
She paused.
"He was dragged into it. His clothing, his manner, the confusion on the other children's faces. None of the chosen knew who he was. He was simply nearby when the spell activated."
Luriel tilted his head very slightly.
"So you had no precautions in place. You planned nothing. You simply trusted the spell entirely and put no countermeasures in place."
Elowen's gold eyes moved to him like she was deciding whether to respond or simply wait for him to stop talking.
"That says quite a lot about the church," Luriel continued, adjusting his glasses.
"The spell is of the divine," Elowen said. "It has never failed."
"Until tonight."
"It did not—"
"A monster walked into your ceremony, was claimed by the god of darkness and destruction, killed several of your guards, and escaped through a window after assaulting a noblewoman."
Luriel folded his hands on the table.
"Did it fail or did it not?"
Elowen's jaw tightened.
She could have destroyed him where he sat and he knew it. The High Priestess burning a twenty-six-year-old nobleman alive in his own seat would create problems she couldn't solve.
So she swallowed it.
Laughter cracked from the other side of the table.
Severa was leaning back in her chair with her arms crossed and her canines visible.
"You talk and talk and talk, yet you've offered no solutions. I thought you were supposed to be the brain."
She clicked her nails together, releasing small sparks.
"Think instead of disturbing our ears."
Luriel turned to look at her with an expression of such precise disdain it looked like he had stepped in shit.
"Eloquence is a learned skill. I would not expect someone of your particular nature to recognize it. It takes a certain dignity and decorum to speak without sounding like something the cat dragged in."
"How about I cut that tongue of yours out and feed it to you."
Her voice had dropped.
"Enough."
King Tharion's voice did not rise.
"Both of you."
He looked between them.
"Your bickering will not find it. Every second you spend arguing is a second it gets further away. Keep your petty squabble outside the war room."
Luriel straightened his glasses and said nothing while Severa retracted her claws.
Apti raised one hand slightly, waiting until the king acknowledged him before speaking.
"Could the church not simply use their resources to locate him? Scrying perhaps?"
Elowen shook her head.
"We tried. The dark god has given him his complete blessing. He is blocking our sight entirely."
Apti nodded slowly and put his hand back down.
Severa leaned forward.
"Then let House Primal handle it. We hunt it and bring you its head by morning."
Luriel suddenly interjected.
"Mind if I offer a solution?"
He was already pulling a map from his storage ring and spreading it across the surface of the ancient table.
"I have the perfect plan."