Caelan waited. His face was stone. His heart was not.
"In the matter of the forest skirmish, the Council accepts your account that the engagement was defensive in nature, given the unauthorised presence of Lord Aurelion's forces in Ravenshade territory. The charges of unlawful assault are suspended pending further investigation."
He took a breath. Unnecessary, technically — he did not need to breathe — but the human habit of it steadied him, the way it always did, a relic of the man he had been before the teeth and the hunger and the centuries.
"The Council has stripped me of my seat, my command, and my authority. My title remains, but it is hollow — a word without weight, a crown without a kingdom. I am, in every way that matters, powerless. And the condition of my continued existence — the only thing standing between this family and a Blood Hunt that would burn Blackwood to the ground with everyone inside it — is that I publicly court Lady Valestra of House Ashborne."
