Phei's mouth hung open.
Not the calculated stillness he usually wore like armor—the careful composure of a boy who had learned to hide every weakness from predators who circled constantly, waiting for the slightest flicker of vulnerability.
This was raw, unguarded shock: the slack-jawed bewilderment of a man who had believed he understood the game, only to discover the board possessed thirty more unseen dimensions than he had ever imagined.
"It's—" He stopped. Tried again. "It's—"
The words refused him entirely. Too many implications crashed through his mind like dominoes toppling in patterns too complex to track.
Bloodlines that devoured one another. Children who died screaming as their own heritage ripped them apart from the inside out. Generations of meticulous breeding engineered to safeguard supernatural dynasties that had ruled from the shadows since before history was written.
