Chapter 21: The Council and the Heart
The silver platter was set down with a soft, deliberate clink.
I hadn’t even seen Luc carry it in. One moment I was helping Bada cling to life in the blood-slicked lobby and the next, I was seated here - at the far end of a long, polished obsidian table that stretched like a blade through the chamber.
The Senior Council Room.
If I was told before that I would be coming here, or attending any sort of meeting that had the word ’senior’ in it, I would have freaked out. But at this point I just felt numb. My mind wasn’t even trying to process what happened earlier. It all felt like a surreal dream, but the fear that lingered deep inside me told me that it was as real as anything can be - or worse, even more real than anything can pretend to be.
In the chamber, everything was dark stone, glass, and old gold trim. High ceilings. No windows. Just a central candlelit chandelier, and shadows that flickered like creatures that were once alive.
Shadows and darkness will never be the same for me again.
Luc stood right next to me. Just one step to the left. Her hands were clasped behind her back, her eyes scanned the room, fixed on everyone - and on no one - all at once.
She hadn’t said a word since we entered. Neither had the nine others seated before us. All dressed in ceremonial black with silver pins shaped like the Roen sigil. Seven men and two women. They had the air of people who’d witnessed too much, and dreaded yet another sighting.
Then she lifted the silver lid.
It was the heart that Nabir brought earlier.
But it was no longer red or pulsing with the impossible beat I’d seen in the darkness. It was blackened, shriveled, its veins hard as charred roots. It looked like it had burned from the inside out until all its life was consumed. The heart didn’t look like it will ever rot and wither. Instead, it seemed that this dead heart will remain in its form for eternity, fossilized.