Chapter 34. Kael’s Fracture

The ancient granite blocks of the Council Hall drew in the bitter cold like a living thing and exhaled a weighty stillness that settled heavy as stone upon Kael’s shoulders. His boots struck once against the flagstones—sharp, hollow—and then nothing, as though the corridor itself had swallowed the echo. Sixty paces stretched out before him, each footfall swallowed by the chill. The walls were pocked and streaked with age, mottled in gray and black where damp had seeped through centuries of secrets. Here, they had drunk deep of whispered vows and clandestine confessions, and yet clung fast to every lie etched into their surface. Above him, six faded banners drooped from rusted iron hooks: the proud wolf‐marks of the dominant clans, now threadbare and sun‐bleached, as if even cloth had tired of its claim on power. Pale crests drooped like husks, a silent indictment of a once‐united House grown brittle with suspicion.

When he passed the marble effigy of the First Alpha, her face