The twelve elders, their faces composed, their spiritual senses scanning the boy, the void energy, the developing body, bowed. The motion, synchronized, formal, was the acknowledgment of a lineage claim.
"Indeed," the lead elder, an old man with a long white beard and sharp eyes, said. His voice was deep. Resonant. The voice of a being who had lived for centuries. "The bloodline is confirmed. The Vermillion Tribe's last heir. We have waited three hundred years."
He paused. His sharp eyes, on the boy, narrowed.
"Now we just have to wait for the decree of the royal palace," he continued. "The king is bedridden. The mortal world's fate is in paradigm. The succession, the minister positions, the factions, all of it, is in flux."
