CHAPTER 10: ERASED FROM THE SHADOWS

The obsidian doors rumbled open. Cold incense and torch-smoke spilled from the corridor like breath from a sleeping beast.

"Forward," a silver-clad guard said.

Kaelen stepped into the Hall of Whispers. Echo padded at his heel, claws ticking softly on black stone. The runes along the pillars glowed and dimmed in a slow cadence, each pulse releasing a thread of murmur.

"Be still... be calm... feel the energy around you..." A woman’s voice slipped through the whispers.

Kaelen stopped. "Mother?" His breath fogged.

The rune-light fluttered and died. Echo’s ears pricked, then flattened again. The guard coughed.

"This way, my lord."

"I’m not your lord," Kaelen said.

"No, you’re not," another voice answered from the far end. "You’re something I can still use."

Lord Valerius stood beneath a canopy of black silk, robed in deep crimson, the House sigil burning faintly at his breast. On his left, Dame Serenya lounged against a pillar, thumb tapping her sword’s pommel. On his right, Magister Corvain hovered over parchment and quills as if words were weapons.

Kaelen stopped at the foot of the dais. "You summoned me."

Valerius descended two steps, eyes molten-gold. "I called my son home."

"I was banished."

"You were removed from sight. There’s a difference." He flicked his fingers. "Sit."

"I’ll stand."

"Defiance," Valerius murmured. "At least that you kept."

The far doors crashed open. A robed high priest swept in with two attendants. As they walked in the rings flashing, voice magnified by a small cone of glass.

"High Priest Calvess of the Sanctum," Corvain explained without looking up. "The community demanded a hearing."

"The community demanded spectacle," Calvess corrected. He turned to Kaelen. "Confess the name of the demon you bound."

"I am bound to no demon." he answered abruptly.

"Then the spirit? The pact? Which curse did you drink?"

"None," Kaelen said. "I took nothing that was not mine to wield."

Dame Serenya chuckled. "He speaks like a balladeer. All souls, no proof."

The side doors opened again; mages took their places along the semicircle. They all looked down on him coldly, House banners stitched into their collars. Idran of Soltair moved with a staff of glass; Venra of Marrowind wore lightning like jewelry. Others, he could barely see, seemed gray, severe, weighing.

Idran lifted his chin. "Whatever he is, he saved Luminis."

Venra’s lip curled. "And unmade a Revenant with no sigil, no circle, and no law. That is an abomination, not a miracle."

Calvess jabbed his cone toward Kaelen. "Which hidden altar did you kneel to? Answer now."

Kaelen spread his hands. "This city was dying in its own splendor. I unwove a monster that fed on your excess. You’re welcome."

"Arrogance," Venra spat. "You ripped at the Weave itself."

"It was already ripping," Kaelen said. "You just couldn’t feel it."

Idran’s gaze was cool but steady. "Name your discipline, boy."

"Aether," Kaelen said. "The life between. The life beneath. The thing your elements burn to borrow."

A shifting murmur. Valerius’s eyes narrowed.

Calvess boomed, "Heresy. He speaks the old outlawed tongue."

Dame Serenya tilted her head. "Aetherborn." She tossed the word like a coin. "I’ve heard whispers."

"Whispers that will cease," Venra snapped. "This is House Valerius’s chamber, not a gutter for sedition."

Idran tapped his staff. "This is the Conclave’s city. And he saved it."

Valerius lifted a hand; the room stilled.

"You will all be silent," he said. "He is no folk hero and no execution spectacle. He is mine."

Kaelen’s jaw set. "I am not a property."

"You are a problem," Valerius said. "And this House manages problems."

Kaelen stepped closer to the dais. Echo moved with him, a low rumble in his throat.

"Then answer," Kaelen said. "Why did you cast me out? Why did my mother disappear?"

Valerius’s gaze sharpened. "Because an oath was broken."

Corvain drew a brittle parchment from a black tube, the ink sunk into the fibers like old blood. "The Oath of Ashed Crowns," he said. "A binding between House Valerius and the Sanctum that govern for power, blood for stability."

Calvess inclined his head. "An oath your mother tested and your father secured."

Kaelen stared. "Secured how?"

Valerius’s voice was flat. "By removing you from the board."

"Exiling a nineteen-year-old boy?" Idran’s voice carried flint. "That’s your stability?"

"Keeping him alive," Valerius returned.

"He survived precisely because he was gone."

Venra scoffed. "Or because you feared what he is."

"Fear is useful," Valerius said. "It keeps cities standing."

Kaelen took a half-step up the dais. Soldiers tensed; Serenya didn’t move.

"Where is she?" Kaelen asked. "Where is my mother?"

Valerius’s face did not change. "Gone."

"That isn’t an answer." Kaelen boiled in anger.

"It’s the only one that will keep you breathing long enough to hear the rest." his father said unmoved.

The torches hissed; a veil of silence fell, as if the hall itself drew breath.

Another door at the rear opened; Tiara strode in without bow or announcement, cloak sweeping dust. Two guards moved to intercept; Echo slid between, teeth bared. The guards froze.

Tiara’s stare found Valerius. "You never learned to close your doors."

"I never bothered for ghosts," Valerius said.

She reached Kaelen’s side. "We leave. Now."

"No," Kaelen said, eyes on his father. "Not yet."

Tiara’s voice lowered, blade-smooth. "He wants you contained. They all do."

Idran’s eyes flicked between them with interest. Venra’s with contempt.

Valerius descended to the floor and stopped an arm’s length from Kaelen.

"You came for answers. You’ll have them under my roof, under my rules. Stay." He didn’t blink. "Or go, and watch every House hunt what they fear."

Kaelen’s throat worked. He lifted his chin. "I’ll stay."

Tiara’s breath left her like a struck note. "Kaelen..."

He didn’t look at her. "I’ll stay."

Valerius turned, satisfied. "Good. Corvain, prepare the..."

"Bring the Ember Ledger," Tiara cut in. "If he stays, show him what you’ve stolen."

Valerius’s eyes cooled. "We are not airing House records for a stray’s comfort."

Corvain’s quill had already stilled. He glanced at Valerius, then at Kaelen. "My lord... it may be cleaner to show him now."

"Cleaner." Valerius’s tone held dust-dry amusement. "Very well. Fetch it."

Corvain hurried through a side arch. The room hummed with restrained appetite. Idran folded his hands. Venra’s lightning dimmed to a hiss. Calvess looked almost pleased.

Minutes dragged. Echo sat, ears forward, tail still. Tiara’s knuckles whitened on her dagger hilt.

Corvain returned with a book wrapped in ash-gray silk. He laid it on a black pedestal. The cloth sloughed away to reveal a codex bound in scaled leather, names chiseled into its spine with coals.

"The Ember Ledger," Corvain said, reverent now. "All blood that bears the Flame Crest."

He opened it. It was created with lines of copper script that breathed faint light: births, pacts, deaths. Corvain turned to the proper generation; the page trembled under his fingers.

"Here," he said softly.

A line where Kaelen’s name should have been was now blank. It was not crossed out but gone. The paper subtly warped as if something had been lifted from it and the world had adjusted around the absence.

Kaelen’s voice was very calm. "That was my name."

Corvain nodded. "It was."

Tiara’s voice cracked with anger. "You erased him. Not banished but erased from your protections, your rites, your rights. He has no right to be in this city. He would never be honored."

Valerius’s expression didn’t flicker. "A formality."

"A murder," Idran said.

"An administrative caution," Venra countered, though her eyes burned with greedy curiosity. "Against contagion."

Calvess raised his cone. "The Ledger obeys sacred rights. The only way to scorch a name is through dual sanction, the House and Sanctum."

"Dual?" Kaelen’s gaze snapped to Corvain. "Whose seals?"

Corvain swallowed. He turned the page. Two black rosettes pressed into the parchment glowed faintly with bound Aether.

"The first." He pointed to a crest of a burning crown, Valerius. "The House itself." He pointed to the second: a pale lily circled by a ring of moons. "The Sanctum’s Silent Seat."

Calvess stiffened. "The Silent Seat is ceremonial."

"Then who bears its seal?" Tiara demanded.

Corvain’s eyes flicked to Valerius.

Kaelen’s voice sharpened. "Who?"

Valerius’s reply was flat. "Your mother."

The room went very still.

Tiara stepped forward. "You lie."

Valerius didn’t blink. "The lily and the moons were hers. She served the Sanctum’s hidden council before she served this House."

Calvess’s cone wavered. "The Silent Seat binds oaths unseen."

Idran’s jaw tightened. "And erases heirs?"

Venra’s smile returned, thin and cruel. "How elegant."

Kaelen set his palms on the pedestal. "She erased me?"

He felt doubtful that his own mother would erase his name from his family register.

Valerius’s tone was clipped steel. "She ordered it. I permitted it."

"Why?" The word scratched raw.

"Because you would be hunted for what you are," Valerius said. "Because I could not protect you inside these walls without starting a war that would burn them down."

Tiara’s laugh was a low rasp. "So you burned him out of your own book."

"Do you prefer he be dead?" Valerius asked.

Tiara’s stare didn’t move. "I prefer he knows the shape of the knife."

Kaelen’s hands didn’t leave the Ledger. "Where is she?"

"Gone," Valerius said again. "By her own command."

"To where?"

Valerius’s silence lengthened.

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