“Verdan has returned.”
And that name… it wasn’t an insult anymore. Not a chain. It was reverence.
A high court official approached, his robes stitched with ancestral thread and spells older than any of them dared speak aloud. “Lady Lillith Verdan,” he said, bowing low. “The council awaits your presence.”
Dominic glanced at her. She nodded once.
The council chamber still glowed like moonlight on ice—so perfect it made your teeth ache. High-backed chairs carved from glimmerglass, thrones wrapped in ancestral runes. The air was too still, like the chamber itself was holding its breath.
At the center sat her aunt, the High Matron, face unaged, eyes still violet and sharp enough to cut stone.
“Lady Lillith,” she said, voice cool and knowing. “Or shall I say… Breaker of Rules.”
Lillith did not blink. “You summoned me. I came.”
“And you brought a shifter,” a sneering voice cut in from the right.
Lillith turned toward the sound, and the breath caught in Dominic’s throat. He knew who it was before she spoke.
Her father.
Faelar Verdan.
He was tall, dressed in the layers of a court elder, and still handsome in the way power made some men seem taller than they were. But his eyes had aged—gone brittle and guarded. The last time Lillith had seen him, he’d been roaring at her to submit to a marriage contract. To serve the realm. To become what he’d crafted her to be.
She met his gaze. Cold. Clear. “I brought my husband.”
That word cracked the room like thunder.
Faelar’s jaw ticked. “You defied the court, Lillith. You vanished. Disgraced this house.”
“I survived,” she said simply.
“You consorted with a prince who?—”
“Who you once told me to marry.” Her voice rose, still controlled, but sharp as a blade now. “Don’t pretend you didn’t know what Thaloryn was. You offered me up to his house like I was currency.”
A few elders shifted uncomfortably.
“I was a child. And you wanted power. So you sold me to it.”
The High Matron’s voice cut in like a dagger. “Enough.”
She stared at Lillith, unreadable.
“You summoned the Echoes,” the Matron said. “You risked the balance of the realms.”
“They came to me,” Lillith said. “Because I stopped pretending to be small. Because I faced what none of you would.”
“The shadow realm was contained,” her aunt snapped. “Until you broke the boundaries.”
“No,” Lillith said. “Until your prince did. Until Thaloryn clawed through the veil, and I stopped him.”
A murmur stirred through the room.
Dominic stepped forward then. “She saved you all. And you know it.”
Faelar stood. “This is treason.”
