The vampires entered the council chamber the way a blade enters a wound — smoothly, precisely, with absolute awareness of the damage they could do and the discipline to not do it yet.
Kael walked through the door first. His silver eyes moved immediately — not in the darting, nervous way of a prey animal assessing threats, but in the slow, methodical sweep of a predator cataloging terrain. The oak table. The maps on the walls. The crystals humming in the stone. He absorbed the room the way a sponge absorbs water — quietly, thoroughly, missing nothing.
Behind him, his delegation filed in like a single organism — six bodies moving with the coordinated precision of beings who had been together long enough to share a rhythm without thinking about it. Elara claimed the chair at the far end of
