All eyes drifted toward the throne of House Morge.
Elder Sariel did not move immediately. Having her name called once had been troublesome enough. Four times bordered on insult.
She swept her gaze across the expectant faces with weary irritation. To them, history was a tool — a gavel to be swung whenever convenient. To her, it was the only reality that carried weight.
None of them entered the Archives. None of them looked beyond rows of martial manuals and cultivation records into the suffocating silences beneath — where the world's deepest truths slept.
She detested her fellow Elders.
In truth, she loathed the Council itself.
But power granted access, and access offered her something beautiful: insight. It allowed her to spend her nights living through foreign minds and dying across forgotten timelines.
A sigh escaped her, dry as parchment dragged across stone, and she shifted in her slouch.
Then her eyes — usually dull and obscured beneath the eccentricity the others whispered about — sharpened.
Cold predatory silver.
She rose.
Her gaze cut through the circle and settled upon the dark cocoon at its center. A faint smile touched her lips.
Curious.
Perhaps even proud.
"The Law of Blood."
Her voice carried the measured cadence of a master storyteller, someone who understood that silence itself was punctuation.
"The Third Early Constitutional Reform established the Post-Calamity Era. Year 1050 of the First Cycle of the I.C., under the reign of the Great Dawnseeker himself. Hiel Nyxvalis."
She allowed the name to settle.
"Four thousand, six hundred and eighty years ago, to be precise."
The chamber seemed to shrink.
"As the Council is aware, the Calamity Era was no place for weak hearts or weak hands. The sun vanished. Temperatures collapsed. Mortals were hunted for sport, and resources became myth."
"Law became meaningless. Survival was the only doctrine."
"Blades forged against the enemy eventually turned upon one another. Continuity demanded compromise — a grim one. Authority was surrendered to anyone willing to face the Shai head-on."
Her lips curled slightly.
"Anything for victory they said."
"And victory came."
"But it left behind a fractured world."
"The old hierarchies shattered and were replaced with hollow imitations, placed in the hands of people too exhausted to rebuild what had been lost."
"The Dawnseeker refused to accept such decay."
"He believed in the history that had forged the Nyxvalis. He believed the clan had to be reborn from its roots."
"Thus began his reforms."
"Subtle at first, but increasingly severe — amendments that would later become the Libre Setti."
She paced slowly around the inner ring of her throne.
"His objective was simple: to correct a flaw that neither the law nor the Spiral of Blood itself could resolve."
"A method to sever the rot left behind by war."
Her silver eyes hardened.
"Half-breeds and pretenders had begun swelling the sacred Sphere of Noir, wearing the robes of Evernight with pride."
"Under the old Mantle Laws, they possessed rights in life and death. Even those defeated in the Spiral retained their names within the record."
She gave a small shake of her head.
"A tragedy."
"A stain upon our legacy."
Her pace never faltered.
"At the time, less than twenty percent of Evernight remained pureblooded."
"And worse still..."
"Among them, scarcely thirty were Nyxvalis."
"As the Dawnseeker's amendments grew bolder, the legions of impostors answered with war."
Her eyes narrowed.
"So the Dawnseeker responded."
"He granted the purebloods a title."
"The Crimson Tide."
"They alone washed the land in the blood of pretenders. They struck half-forged legacies from the Spiral before they could take root."
Her voice became almost conversational.
"In more intimate terms — those used to justify the slaughter that nearly erased the Evernight — the Law was described as a celebration of the Calamity's end."
"A righteous decree."
"To purge those who wore Mantles they had not bled for."
"Those who consumed our food, corroded our values, and starved the Evernight from within."
She stopped.
Her silver eyes reflected the dark surface of the cocoon.
"A blessing," she said softly, "that drove hundreds of so-called Lords to the ends of the world to escape the Dawnseeker's final judgment."
Her gaze moved across the Council one final time.
When she spoke again, her voice did not soften.
It sharpened.
"In simpler terms..."
"It's a fragment of an ancient culling."
"Its design is simple."
"Loss equals erasure."