The king's emergency council convened within the hour.
It was not the Royal Council ...that body remained suspended, its chambers closed, its membership under investigation. This was a war council, assembled by King Aldric from the only people he trusted: the four lords of the oversight committee, Sir Willem, Father Aldwin, Sister Veressa, and the three Academy scholars who had examined the amulet. They gathered in the king's private chambers because the council chamber's wards had failed along with everything else, and the privacy enchantments that normally ensured the confidentiality of state discussions were no longer functional.
The room felt exposed. Vulnerable. As if the walls themselves had lost their substance and the world outside was pressing in.
"Report," the king commanded, and the word carried the authority of a man who had spent three days making decisions that were genuinely his own and had rediscovered the taste of sovereignty.
