The Council chamber had been designed for convergence.
Not symbolically.
Structurally.
The ley lines beneath Silver Fang did not stop at the garden. They extended inward, woven through stone and foundation, guided into deliberate channels that allowed those gathered within the chamber to perceive alignment—not directly, not visually, but as an underlying coherence that tempered disagreement before it escalated into fracture.
It had worked.
Until now.
Seraphina stood at the center of the chamber.
Not elevated.
Not separated.
Positioned where every line of sight intersected.
Representatives had already arrived.
Not all.
Not yet.
But enough.
The room held the quiet density of contained attention—fae delegates along the eastern arc, human observers and convergence monitors to the
