Slowly, almost reluctantly, the attention of the chamber shifted away from the dead and returned to the living, to the kneeling elders, to the conspirators lined in restraint, to the bloodlines still awaiting sentence.
And in that severe afternoon light, with conspirators dragged into the open one by one beneath the weight of their own unraveling, the council understood a terrible truth.
This was no longer an investigation.
This was a purge.
The chamber remained in stunned silence even after the last accused had been dragged forward. No one spoke. No one seemed willing to be the first to disturb whatever terrible shape judgment was about to take. The afternoon light had shifted further across the council floor now, gold turning harsher as it stretched over bloodstained stone, over kneeling conspirators, over elders who looked as though age had found them all at once.
