Chapter 783: Within The Archives
Chapter 783: Within The Archives
After nearly an hour, Tharionson’s patience began to sharpen into anger. He stood over a table with three open ledgers before him, tracing a finger down an index of suspended decrees, when his eyes stopped on a thin entry half-faded near the bottom of the page.Severance Authority, Joint Ratification, Restricted Moral-Bloodline Statute, Ref: SD-20-C/S.
His pulse slowed.
The title was not exact, perhaps deliberately softened, but the reference code carried the kind of classification used for documents removed from public circulation without being destroyed.
"Zion," he called, his voice controlled but immediate.
Zion looked up from the opposite row and crossed the chamber. Tharionson turned the ledger toward him and tapped the entry. Zion read it once, then moved to the shelf marked by the corresponding code. The folio was not where it should have been at first glance, which only deepened the silence between them, but after checking the lower section, Zion found a narrow black-bound volume tucked behind several broader records, as though it had been stored without concern for easy access. He carried it to the table, placed it down, and carefully opened the cover.
The first pages were official, clean, and brutal.
Tharionson read them in silence, though every sentence seemed to scrape against something inside him. The decree had been jointly ratified by Crescent and Solara under the authority of King Valemir Granger and King Tharion Magna. The language was cold enough to feel inhuman.
It defined dark mage intimacy as any confirmed romantic, sexual, marital, reproductive, protective, or oath-bound relationship with a dark mage, whether publicly acknowledged or concealed. It extended guilt to any noble, royal, military, or administrative figure who aided the preservation of such a bond.
It declared that the involved party would be executed upon confirmation, with no exemptions granted for rank, gender, pregnancy, noble blood, royal blood, coercion, claimed ignorance, political status, emotional attachment, or prior service to the kingdom. It gave authority for immediate containment of any offspring, suspected offspring, or protected bloodline issue pending investigation by royal and Crescent-appointed examiners.
Tharionson’s hand slowly curled against the edge of the table. He could feel the anger, but beneath it was something worse.
Grief had many forms, and this one felt like discovering a hidden blade still lodged in a wound everyone had insisted was already scarred over. His sister had not merely been condemned by rage. She had been processed through this. A decree written to be merciless before it ever reached her. A document designed to remove humanity from the decision so no one would have to hesitate when the accused had a face, a name, a family, a brother.