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If Zira expects fear, she will be disappointed. If she expects obedience without negotiation, she has misjudged my capacity for refusal.

Attendance remains unavoidable. A Matron’s command may be challenged. A summons bearing all seven rings cannot be ignored without declaring contempt for the Council. That would invite consequences for every demon and servant carrying the Obsidius mark.

I return the vial to my belt.

The ledger remains open. The numerical error waits beneath my silver mark. I should finish the review before leaving for the Council spire.

Instead, my attention moves to the mantle.

A chipped human cup sits alone on the black stone.

Nothing about it suits this room.

The clay is coarse, fired unevenly, and glazed in a brown too dull to reflect the sigil light. A fracture runs from the rim halfway down one side. Someone repaired it years ago with a thin band of dark resin. The handle accommodates only two of my fingers.

I have discarded ceremonial vessels worth several ipia. Tribute from grateful houses gathers dust in a locked chamber until Vulmar assigns it some historical use. Yet this damaged cup remains on my mantle.

I cannot remember deciding to place it there.

I cannot remember deciding to keep it.

Whenever servants rearrange the study, I return the cup to the same position. No one asks why. A lord’s possessions require no explanation, even when the lord has none to offer.

Human hands shaped it. The uneven rim carries the marks of their pressure.

Ten years have passed since I permitted anything human to matter.

The cup draws a face from memory. Fair skin beneath storm-light. Green eyes meeting mine without the submission every law demanded. A voice treating my commands as openings for argument.

Beatrix belongs to a choice already made.

The King ensured that.

I close the ledger and rise. The obsidian slate lies beside it, Zira’s message hidden inside cold stone. At dawn, the Council will attempt to secure House Obsidius through blood, law, or threat.

I am prepared for all three.

My gaze returns to the chipped cup.

The past should have no place in this room.

It remains anyway.

5

BEATRIX

The western ascent carries me higher than any human is meant to stand without a collar in a demon’s hand.

A Volvath guard climbs ahead of me, his broad back blocking most of the narrow stair. Another follows close enough that the heat from his carapace reaches through my plain wool dress. Neither has spoken since I presented the summons at the lower gate.

The stair winds through the black spire without windows. Crimson sigils glow along the walls, brightening as the guards pass and dimming behind us. Thunder moves through the stone beneath my palm. At this height, the storm no longer sounds distant. It surrounds the spire like a living thing searching for a way inside.

I count the steps to keep from counting possible reasons for the summons.

At three hundred and twelve, the stair opens onto a wide corridor.

Dark metal doors stand at its far end. Seven interlocking rings fill their surface, each large enough to encircle my body. Two Matron guards wait before them with hooked polearms crossed over the seam.