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Someone laughed sharply from the side of the hall. “We’ve contained Fracture bleeds before. Surely this is another cycle of panic?”

Murmurs of agreement followed quickly, relief replacing some initial panic.

“It is different this time,” he said. “The process has already begun. Human intervention and our initial Guardian strategy are no longer enough to keep the Fracture at bay.”

A woman near the front rose half out of her seat. “My son was with the contingent sent to the perimeter,” she said, her voice cracking on the word contingent, as though she’d been saving it for exactly this moment. “Three weeks. Not a letter. Not a name on a casualty list. Where are they, Master Orell?”

Orell’s gaze found her, held a moment, then moved past her, the way a man’s eyes move past a debt he has already written off. “The contingent’s status is still being assessed,” he said. “Losses were… significant.”

The word landed and stayed there. No one in the hall repeated it, but no one looked away from her either.

“Then what of our Guardians? The Vow?” someone else shouted, filling the silence before it could settle into what it meant.

Orell smiled. “That is what we have brought you here for. There now remains but one choice if Eryssan is to survive this time.”

Julen leaned slightly toward Maia. “And there it is,” he muttered.

Maia didn’t respond. Her eyes stayed on Orell. He gestured once, and the Umbralyn behind him shifted subtly, like a door being unlocked without movement.

“The only way that we can now fully protect you and the city is to set aside what we believed we knew about the ones who live alongside us. So, your choice is this. Those who accept Umbralyn governance will be relocated to protected sectors,” Orell said. “Stabilised zones. Survival pathways.”

“And the rest?” someone called out.

Orell did not hesitate. “Will remain where they are.”

He paused. “And be left to what follows.”

The hall broke out in cries. Voices overlapped now, no longer unified disbelief, but fear and chaos.

“This is ludicrous!”

“You expect us to just accept that? We don’t side with Umbralyn, we’re human! They work for us! What about the Vow?”

A man pushed forward from one of the central tables. Broad-shouldered, a merchant’s cloak still visible beneath the black they’d dressed him in. Elgar Harren. Maia recognised him; he traded in the northern quarter, had a wife who sang in the temple choir, two sons still young enough to be carried.

“No,” he said, his voice shaking. “No. You don’t get to stand there and tell us the world ends in three days, and the only option is to kneel.”

Orell regarded him with the patience of someone who had expected this and had already decided how it would end. “It is not kneeling, Mr Harren. It is our only option for survival.”

“Survival under them?” Elgar gestured toward the Umbralyn lining the walls. “They’ve been chained since before my grandfather was born. Now suddenly they’re our saviours? And you— you’ve spent your entire career keeping them at arm’s length. What changed, Orell? What did they promise you? Where are the Elders?”

A murmur of agreement rippled through the hall. People were straightening in their seats. Someone near the back called out, “He’s right!”

Orell’s expression did not change. “I understand your concern—”

“Concern?” Elgar’s voice rose now, and the hall rose with it. “My family has lived in this city for four generations. We built it. We bled for it. And you want me to hand it to the creatures who’ve been lurking in our shadows, eating our food, taking our women to their ruins—”

“Mr Harren—”

“No!” He slammed his hand on the table. Cups rattled. The whole hall flinched. “I’d rather die in my own home than live in theirs. And I’m not the only one.”

Voices surged behind him. Agreement, fear, defiance all tangled together and feeding on each other. For a moment, the hall felt like it might tip into something the Umbralyn couldn’t contain with blocked doorways and calm voices.

Maia saw it before it happened.

The nearest Umbralyn had shifted his weight. Not toward Elgar, but toward his own cloak. His hand moved inside the fabric with the unhurried precision of someone reaching for something he had already decided to use.

“Elgar—” she started.