"The Queen is powerful," Lord Adrian Noctis said, his fingers resting against the polished arm of his chair as he watched the rain slide down the tall windows of the Noctis Embassy, where the evening lamps cast a muted glow across portraits of forgotten vampire rulers and made their painted eyes seem almost alive.
The council chamber had been built to resemble an ancient crypt, with dark stone walls, silver-veined pillars, and a circular table around which the vampire court had debated wars, treaties, betrayals, and succession disputes for generations, yet tonight the room felt colder than usual because Regina's Queen had become the subject of a decision that could reshape relations between vampires and wolves for decades.
