LORD ARDANIS POV
"Some power is inherited, some stolen, but the oldest magic sleeps, waiting for blood and betrayal to wake it."
The council chamber echoed with quiet tension, the kind that settles like mist in your lungs and never leaves. I stood at the head of the crystalline table, eyes sweeping over the gathered members. The stained-glass windows cast fractured light across their faces, refracting like the decisions we were about to make, sharp-edged and uncertain.
"Speak freely," I said, voice cool. "This storm was no accident."
High Chancellor Vaelor Thane folded his hands. Always too calm. "Its power was elemental, but it bore the shape of something sentient. It obeyed no seasonal cycle, no spell. It chose to rise."
"Fae magic does not surge like that without provocation," added Lady Saelira Duskthorne, her silver circlet gleaming against her dusky brow. "Whatever it is, it was awakened and it's watching us."
