"Now, Elders — the third stance."
She slid another parchment forward. "The Thirty-Eighth and the masses."
A murmur stirred through the chamber, low and uneasy.
"Seven hundred and thirty-one Cadets. One hundred and twelve either directly related to, or sponsored by, fifty-five of the sixty-seven members of the Thirty-Eighth."
Her gaze lowered briefly.
"Twenty-seven survived. Seventy-six point four percent of the Thirty-Eighth were affected."
The figure landed softly. It struck hard.
"An additional six hundred and nineteen were tied to Highblood Vassals and other significant figures — the very backbone of the clans' elite combat and administrative structure."
"Only twenty survived."
Several Elders inhaled sharply. One exhaled through clenched teeth.
"Every one of them now possesses a stake in this trial. Even those whose cubs were always destined to die regardless of the boy's actions will still claim grievance. None will willingly look beyond the convenient image of a glorified sinner."
The chamber did not murmur this time.
"That," Myra said calmly, "is what one calls a logistical and bureaucratic catastrophe waiting to happen."
She allowed the words to settle, unsoftened.
"To silence one voice is trivial. To silence ten is manageable. Beyond that, suppression ceases to be enforcement and becomes exposure."
She leaned forward once.
"If the Council executes the boy over the death of a dead vassal, questions will be asked. Records will be unearthed. Testimonies demanded from us. We will be exposed. The honour-bound will cry injustice, while the bitter — those already cultivating fantasies of spilling his blood themselves — will turn their blades toward us instead."
Her eyes swept the chamber.
"We would be overwhelmed. Undermined. Perhaps even murdered, should we fail to contain what follows."
her hand gestured subtly.
"So we turn to the next-best option."
"The Blood Trial."
She drew another parchment free.
"The first necessity: High Lore Viren of the Iron Veil."
Her next words came without mercy.
"The same man we victimised through our own underestimation of the boy."
"Because of us, his vassal was killed. His authority was publicly undermined. His competence questioned and his name implicated in an assassination attempt by an unknown figure hiding within the 39th."
Several jaws tightened around the chamber.
"We enlisted his aid when he held no personal stake in the matter, and assured him no further complications would follow the death of his vassal."
Silence answered her.
"To grant the Blood Trial now is, in every conceivable sense, a betrayal. And even if retaliation from Viren himself remains unlikely, the possibility still exists — particularly should those surrounding him catch wind of the farce we have dragged him through."
The silence stretched longer.
"Unfortunately, betrayal is not the true danger in invoking his name."
She lifted her gaze.
"The danger lies in the outcome."
"If — and I repeat, if —" her eyes swept slowly across the chamber, already anticipating the outrage her words would provoke, "Viren succeeds... if he kills the boy during the Blood Trial, then yes. Half our current problems disappear overnight. If fate proves especially indulgent, perhaps even two-thirds."
A murmur rippled through the thrones. Myra allowed it.
"The Thirty-Eighth would have little choice but to accept the result. The trial would have been initiated by the boy of his own accord. Responsibility would transfer cleanly. The masses would accept the narrative provided to them, and the immediate crisis posed by the boy's anomalies — both present and future — would be extinguished."
Her fingers pushed the parchment forward by an inch.
"Control would be restored."
"The Patriarch would remain a complication," she continued, "but a manageable one, provided we proceed with wisdom. Honeyed apologies. Symbolic concessions. Small favours extended to Viren in recompense for fractured trust. Quiet warnings issued to any who might draw inspiration from the boy's defiance."
On the surface, normalcy would return."
The chamber remained still.
"But that is not the outcome that concerns me."
Now they leaned inward.
"Let us examine the less pleasant scenario. The one none of you wishes to voice aloud."
Her gaze sharpened.
"Viren loses the Blood Trial."
A sharp intake of breath answered her.
"You will swallow that possibility regardless."
"If Viren falls, this Council will have achieved something far worse than failure."
Her voice lowered.
"You will have created a monster without a leash."
"A cub who defeated a veteran. One who survived provocation, sanctioned slaughter, and the full weight of institutional hostility."
"Not merely a figure of fear — but of revelation."
"One capable of radicalising the young against the very authority that has held the Evernight together for generations."
She let that settle before continuing.
"And that does not yet account for the immediate consequences."
"The death of Viren would collapse the House of Iron Veil."
The weight of the statement descended slowly. Dreadfully.
"As the Eighteenth of the Thirty-Eighth, Viren's authority anchors an entire population. His death strips that authority of legitimacy."
She raised the parchment fully.
"Three hundred thousand people."
"Displaced."
"Three Mantle-Bearers. Thirty pureblood heirs. Two wives of House Noctis. One thousand knights of House Artyr. Countless Highblood Vassals."
"All rendered politically homeless."
She turned the parchment slightly.
"And thirty square kilometres along the northern bulwark of the Dead Sea..."
Her eyes lifted.
"Handed to a child."
The silence was no longer heavy. It was suffocating.
"The remainder of the Thirty-Eighth — whose territories already stretch across northern and central Noir — would be forced to absorb the refugees. Resources would strain. Borders would harden. Resentment would metastasise."
"Foreign powers would notice."They always do."
"The Council would then be forced into the humiliating position of bargaining with the very child it attempted to execute — merely to prevent the exile of purebloods and highbloods alike."
Her voice dropped even further.
"Or worse."
"Should he lawfully demand their extermination for refusing to abandon his territory, we would have handed him the ultimate bargaining chip."
"One he could use to torment this Council for decades."
The chamber had gone utterly still now.
"And all the while," Myra continued, "Viren's surviving kin would be asking themselves the same question every clan across the continent would inevitably begin asking."
She lowered the parchment at last.
"Civil war."
Silence.Then finally:
"I trust," Myra said evenly, "that the Council now understands precisely what I am implying."