The chamber was draped in shadows, its towering walls heavy with silence. A great circular table sat at the center, etched with runes too old for any current scholar to translate. The air reeked of myrrh and something darker, blood magic burned into the stones.
Around the table sat the true powers of Eldoria. Not just nobles or lords, but those who ruled from the shadows: magicians, generals, seers, and a few whose faces had been hidden from the world for centuries.
Leodora knelt before them, her cloak still stained with the blood of her victims. Her face betrayed no fear.
"It is done," she said.
Murmurs rippled through the council.
High Chancellor Verian, robed in black and gold, leaned forward. "You are certain?"
Leodora met his gaze. "Kael and his wife fell into the Veil."
The words rang out like a spell.
A silence followed, deeper, more final.
Duke Aleric scoffed. "Then it is finished. The boy never wanted the throne. A waste of talent."
"And the woman?" Verian pressed.
Leodora hesitated. "Gravely injured. Bleeding heavily. There is no way she could've survived the fall, let alone give birth."
No one replied.
But fear crept into the chamber like fog.
The prophecy.
It was never truly about Kael or Elira.
It was about what their union could create.
"The child," Verian whispered. "Born of fire and frost. The one who would unite the void."
Leodora frowned. "You think they lived?"
"Can we afford to believe otherwise?" Aleric asked.
An elder, hooded, voice like old parchment, finally spoke. "The prophecy names no survivor. Only a birth. And a choice. One that shatters the void or seals it."
Verian turned to the council. "We will send word. To every kingdom. Every hunter, every mage who values gold over fear. If the child breathes, we will find it."
"And kill it," Aleric said flatly.
Verian nodded.
"Before the prophecy begins."