CHAPTER 85: THE BLADE IN JUDGMENT (1)

Night had fallen by the time they came for him.

Soren stood at the window of his small chamber, watching torches burn in the courtyard below. The air tasted of smoke and tension. After the disaster of the hunt, House Velrane had drawn in upon itself like a wounded beast retreating to its den. Guards patrolled in doubled numbers. Servants moved with the careful efficiency of those who knew their masters were in dangerous moods.

The knock at his door was sharp, authoritative. A single rap that expected immediate response.

"Enter," he said, not turning from the window.

The door opened to reveal one of Callen’s personal guards, a tall woman with a face like carved granite and eyes that gave away nothing.

"Lord Velrane requires your presence," she said. "Now."

Soren nodded, his stomach tightening into a hard knot. He had been waiting for this summons since their return, knowing it was inevitable. The shard against his chest remained cold and silent, Valenna withdrawing as she often did when House Velrane demanded his attention.

He followed the guard through corridors lit by iron sconces, their flames throwing long shadows across stone walls adorned with tapestries depicting wolf hunts and ancient battles. Each step echoed with grim finality.

They descended a spiral staircase, moving deeper into the manor’s heart than Soren had ever been permitted. The air grew cooler, drier, like a tomb sealed against the passage of time. No servants moved in these halls. No decorations softened the austere stone.

The guard stopped before a set of double doors carved from dark wood and banded with black iron. Wolf heads formed the handles, their silver eyes catching the torchlight.

"Through here," she said, pulling one door open.

Soren stepped into the Velrane family’s private council chamber.

The room was a perfect reflection of its master, austere, functional, devoid of unnecessary embellishment. A long table of polished obsidian dominated the center, its surface so dark it seemed to swallow the light from the hanging candelabras. High-backed chairs of black wood and silver filigree surrounded it, each bearing the wolf’s head crest of House Velrane.

Lord Callen Dathen Velrane sat at the head of the table, his ash-silver hair gleaming in the candlelight. He wore a high-collared coat of deepest black, the only ornamentation a single silver pin shaped like a wolf fang at his throat. His pale gray eyes fixed on Soren with the detached interest of a butcher examining a side of meat.

To Callen’s right sat Ayren Velrane, the lord’s younger son. Where Callen’s presence commanded through cold authority, Ayren radiated a different kind of danger. Tall and lithe, with elegant features that seemed crafted for courtly intrigue, he watched Soren with eyes of deep amethyst that missed nothing.

His black hair carried that distinctive violet sheen that marked him as truly Velrane. Unlike his father’s austere attire, Ayren wore a high-collared coat with subtle embroidery, understated yet clearly costly.

"The survivor returns," Ayren remarked, his voice carrying the cultured accent of extended education in the southern courts. "How fascinating."

Soren felt a presence at his side and turned to find Veyr standing closer than expected. He moved with the silent grace that had first caught Soren’s attention during training.

Tall and gracefully built, with sharp features that seemed caught between boyhood and maturity, Veyr carried himself with a deliberate elegance that carefully masked a slight limp. His pale skin and ink-stained fingers betrayed long hours in the archive rather than the training yard.

Veyr’s proximity felt significan, not protective, but possessive. A statement to the room: this one belongs to me.

"Sit," Callen commanded, gesturing to a chair directly across from him.

Soren obeyed, feeling the weight of three Velrane gazes upon him. The chair was harder than it looked, offering no comfort, no place to hide.

"You know why you’re here," Callen began, his voice as cold and precise as a winter morning. "The nobles whisper of curses and marks. They say Sylas recognized you. Spared you. They suggest conspiracies and dark pacts."

The lord leaned forward slightly, those pale eyes boring into Soren with uncomfortable intensity.

"I have no interest in superstition," Callen continued. "Fear breeds excuses. Excuses breed weakness. My house tolerates neither." His fingers tapped once against the obsidian table. "You are not cursed, boy. You are either sharp steel, or you are rust."

The words hung in the air between them, cutting through the rumors and accusations that had swirled since their return. Callen didn’t care about mystical explanations or supernatural forces. He cared about utility. Value. Return on investment.

"Lord Ashgard’s expedition failed spectacularly," Ayren observed, leaning back in his chair with the casual grace of a cat stretching in sunlight. "Yet you alone emerged relatively unscathed, while better-trained knights fell. Why is that, I wonder?"

The question carried a thousand barbs beneath its velvet surface. Soren felt each one pricking at his skin, searching for weakness.

"I can’t explain why I survived," he replied, choosing his words with painful care. "Sylas cut down anyone who faced him directly. I... didn’t."

"Didn’t face him?" Ayren’s perfect eyebrow arched slightly. "Or didn’t seem worth his effort?"

"Both, perhaps," Soren admitted. The truth felt safer than any lie he might construct under these penetrating gazes.

Ayren’s lips curved in what might have been a smile on a warmer man. "Interesting. And when you disappeared into the forest afterward, what did you seek there?"

The shard against Soren’s chest pulsed with sudden cold. How had Ayren learned of that? The nobles had whispered accusations, yes, but this was specific knowledge. Someone had been watching him more closely than he’d realized.

"I thought I heard something," Soren replied, the half-truth sticking in his throat. "It was nothing."

"Nothing?" Ayren tilted his head slightly, those amethyst eyes gleaming with predatory interest. "How disappointing. I’d hoped for a more... creative explanation."

Callen watched this exchange without comment, his face revealing nothing of his thoughts. Only his eyes moved, tracking each response, measuring each hesitation.

"Tell me," Ayren continued, fingers steepled before him, "how do you view the noble houses after witnessing their... performance during the hunt? What insights did you glean from watching them face true danger?"

The question was a trap, elegantly constructed. Answer honestly, admit he’d seen cowardice and incompetence, and risk insulting houses whose influence could crush him. Lie, claim admiration for their bravery, and Ayren would know instantly, marking him as either a fool or a sycophant.