The chamber of the Ancient Elves fell into an instant hush, thick and suffocating like the silence before a lightning strike.
And then—
"The Voidcloaks?"
The voice belonged to Eryndor, the most senior among the Council, his hair pure silver and skin etched with glowing runes of ancient Elven magic. His eyes, which had seen over a millennium of Aetheris's history, now widened in disbelief.
He slowly rose from his seat, his long ceremonial robe brushing the polished root-wood floor.
"You dare speak that name, Velyrian?" he asked with a voice tinged in thunder. "That cursed lineage was annihilated. Purged from existence alongside the banishment of Endless. The seals! The flames of purification! The records—"
"—Were incomplete," Velyrian interrupted, this time without mirth.
He no longer smiled.
"History, revered as it is, is only as true as the quill that writes it. And I've long suspected that some pages... were deliberately ripped out."
Gasps fluttered across the council.
