The floating palace rose above the clouds in gold, glass, and pale marble, its curved bridges hanging over endless mist while crystal lamps burned like captured stars. Beautiful from a distance, untouchable from below, and today guarded like a fortress.

Beyond another pair of massive obsidian doors waited the Council Chamber of the Sages.

Unlike the chamber used by the Eight Great Families, this room was built for the Ten Elders themselves. Ten seats formed a perfect circle around the center, each one carved from dark stone and marked with thin silver lines. In the middle waited an open space reserved for visitors, petitioners, criminals, witnesses, and those brought before the Council to be judged or heard.

At that moment, eleven people were inside.

Ten sat around the chamber in black robes edged with silver runes, their presence pressing against the senses of anyone who looked at them for too long. The robes hid much, but not enough to erase the weight each of them carried.

In the center stood a man who appeared to be around fifty years old. He was tall and dry in build, with dark gray hair streaked by white, gray eyes, and a short, carefully kept beard. His clothes looked like reinforced mage robes, practical rather than ornamental, with the faint shape of arcane tools hidden beneath the fabric.

He was Eldric au Veyr.

The future commander of the Council of Sages’ neutral force. The most important person in The Concordant Wardens of the Council, and the man chosen to lead The First Concord.

Around him sat the Ten Elders.

Elowen au Veyrath occupied the foremost seat. She was a tall, elegant elf with a young face, silver hair, and pale green eyes. She was the Elder Leader, the one who opened the sessions and appeared in every formal Council, the most important figure among them.

To her right sat Armand du Morgain, an older human with gray hair, gray eyes, and the kind of severe posture that made age look like a detail rather than a weakness. He was the only Elder who carried the surname of one of the Eight Great Families. Publicly, the reason was simple: he never denied his name, and he never chose to change it.

To Elowen’s left sat Seraphiel au Lareth.

He was human as well, once connected to House Vaelion and officially expelled from that line. He had blond hair and crimson eyes, and even without the Vaelion name, he still looked like the spitting image of that great family of human mages, the most powerful human line alongside the Morgain. A coin rested between his fingers, moving silently across his knuckles while he waited for the meeting to begin.

Thargrim du Bronzhald sat farther along the circle. A broad, short dwarf with a white beard braided through with black metal pieces, a broken nose, and hands too large for the delicate runes on his robes. He wore the Council robes like they were an inconvenience placed over a body made for the forge.

Vaelra di Kharzun sat with her hands folded over her lap. She was a demonkin woman with pale gray skin, small polished black horns, black hair gathered low, and dark red eyes. Thin marks traced the area near her cheekbones like burned writing.

Orselyn di Vharos looked young in the face and ancient in the eyes. A vampire with straight white hair, skin almost drained of color, dark lips, and fangs that barely showed when she moved her mouth.

Mairon di Aurelmar sat with his long fingers resting on the armrests. He was an aquatic humanoid, tall and thin, with blue-gray skin, fine gills along his neck, dark green hair drawn back, and eyes like deep water. The faint scent of salt and damp stone seemed to follow him even here.

Raukan von Harrak looked more like a warrior forced into a judge’s seat than an Elder. A tiger-blooded beastkin with striped ears, a heavy tail, amber eyes, and scars visible along his neck and hands despite the robes covering most of him.

Selyra au Mournveil sat quietly behind a fine ceremonial veil covering her eyes. She was a spirit-touched human with ash-blond hair and a small translucent familiar floating near her shoulder like a moth made of pale light.

Vhaldris von Kaerun completed the circle. A draconic-blooded human with bronze skin, small dark scales near his temples and hands, golden eyes with thin vertical pupils, and two short crests almost hidden beneath his hood.

The chamber held them all without sound. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

Elowen au Veyrath rose from her seat.

Her pale green eyes moved across the circle, making sure every Elder was ready, every record crystal was active, and every seal in the chamber had accepted the beginning of formal proceedings.

This was the three hundred eighty-ninth meeting of the Council of Sages.

A number far higher than the recorded meetings of the Council of the Eight Great Families, and the reason was simple. The Council of Sages met more often because its decisions reached farther. It did not only record the will of powerful houses. It dealt with the laws, consequences, neutral territories, disasters, and disputes left behind when those same powers shook the world.

Elowen’s voice filled the chamber without needing to rise.

"The three hundred eighty-ninth meeting of the Council of Sages begins."

Her gaze rested briefly on Eldric au Veyr in the center.

"The topic for today: the establishment of our neutral force, The Concordant Wardens of the Council."

One by one, the Elders gave small nods.

The meeting began with no applause, no ceremony beyond the words themselves, and no wasted movement.

Even so, everyone in that chamber understood the same thing.

This would be one of the most important decisions the Council of Sages had made in years.

The creation of a force that answered to no single family was not a small matter. Even with its limits written into law, even with its purpose shaped around disaster response and neutral protection, everyone present understood what was truly happening.

The Council was giving itself hands.

Until now, it had judged, recorded, mediated, sanctioned, and preserved precedent. It could summon, pressure, accuse, and condemn. But action had always required others. Soldiers from cities. Aid from minor lords. Permission from houses powerful enough to make refusal dangerous.

The Concordant Wardens would change that.

Eldric au Veyr stood in the center of the room without moving, yet every eye eventually returned to him.

The decree had not been signed yet.

But its shadow was already in the chamber.