Chapter 275: Trials Of Death

Kane and Marisa walked the ascending corridors in silence for a time.

The air grew cooler as they left the underground levels behind.

Torches lined the black-stone walls at regular intervals.

Distant sounds of the palace preparing for a formal gathering drifted down to meet them: boots, low voices, the occasional scrape of armor.

Kane glanced sideways at Marisa.

Her dark formal wrap moved with each step, the full lines of her body still impossible to ignore, but something was missing.

"You don’t smell like me."

Marisa kept her eyes forward.

"If Grathak finds out what happened last night, he will kill you without hearing another word. I used an elixir to mask it. Completely."

Kane’s mouth curved slightly.

"You know I’ll be needing a lot of treatment if the trial goes the way I expect."

She did not reply and continued walking, amber eyes fixed on the path ahead, the political mask firmly in place once more.

The brief intimacy of the guest chamber might as well have belonged to another lifetime.

They reached the final wide stair and emerged into the upper hall.

The space was massive, black stone and pale bone rising in brutal, elegant lines, high windows letting in the grey light of day.

A long central table had been cleared for the gathering.

At the far end, on a raised dais of carved stone and old ivory, Grathak sat on a throne that looked built to hold his size and nothing smaller.

He was already eating, tearing into a haunch of meat with casual, messy appetite, red eyes half-lidded but fully aware of every entrance.

The council filled the hall on either side.

Kane’s gaze moved across the faces quickly.

Near the left, a small cluster of southern and river-aligned warriors stood together, Vorra’s people. Their posture was watchful rather than hostile.

One of them, a silver-streaked female who carried herself like a direct extension of the war-chief, met Kane’s eyes and gave the smallest of nods. Limited recognition made visible.

The rest of the hall was less welcoming.

Pure-blood line heads in heavy formal marks.

Older war-chiefs whose scars spoke of decades of unbroken dominance.

A few figures whose presence alone made the air feel tighter, beings that had clearly spent too long near the deeper forest and the guardian’s influence.

Every one of them turned to watch Kane enter. The collective weight of their attention was heavier than the underground corridor had been.

Marisa peeled away without a word and moved to a place along the side wall, leaving Kane alone in the open approach to the throne.

The murmurs started immediately, low, overlapping, assessing.

Grathak wiped his muzzle with the back of one massive hand and fixed his red eyes on Kane.

A slow, amused grin spread across the scarred face.

"You’re here. Welcome to Berakamon, barbarian. I didn’t get to greet you properly yesterday. I didn’t know whether you would be alive to be greeted. I don’t waste words on dead people. You, however, survived a meeting with me."

Fresh murmurs rippled through the council.

A few of the pure-blood heads looked openly displeased that the human was still breathing. Vorra’s representative remained carefully neutral.

Kane stopped at a respectful but unbowed distance from the dais and rested one hand lightly on Mjoldr’s haft.

Grathak leaned forward slightly, still holding the half-eaten haunch.

"So. Tell me your purpose. My sister has been talking about her visions again. I have heard pieces. I want the straight version from the one who walked into my underground and stood back up. What do you want?"

"The devils are coming."

The murmurs rose sharper this time. Several council members shifted.

One of the older pure-bloods let out a skeptical growl.

Kane continued before the noise could build.

"I need your empire’s help. A coalition. Every force that can still hold a line when the sky breaks."

Grathak’s red eyes narrowed with interest rather than immediate dismissal.

"A coalition. For what, exactly?"

"To defeat the Supreme Devils."

Silence held for a beat.

Then Grathak turned his great head toward Marisa, who still stood along the wall, face composed.

"Sister. Are the devils really coming?"

Marisa’s voice carried cleanly through the hall, calm and precise.

"Yes, brother. Approximately seventy days. More or less. The visions have been consistent on the window. The exact day shifts, but the season does not."

Grathak sat back on the throne, massive fingers drumming once on the carved armrest.

He looked over the gathered council with deliberate slowness.

"You heard her. You heard him. The barbarian wants a coalition. My sister’s visions say the sky breaks in roughly seventy days. I want recommendations. Speak."

The hall didn’t erupt into chaos.

For all the reputation of the beast packs as savages, the ones who had earned a place in this room were not mindless.

A pure-blood line head spoke first, voice thick with contempt.

"We should not trust an outsider who already carries the scent of three empires and the emperor’s own sister. He draws blood in the underground and then asks for armies. Reject him. Put him in the pens as a warning."

A war-chief from the eastern ridges answered immediately, more measured.

"Rejecting him does not stop the mutants already pushing south. We have lost three scouting parties in ten days. Something is driving them. If the sister’s visions are even half correct, we cannot afford to ignore a warning simply because we dislike the messenger."

Vorra’s representative spoke next, clear and cold.

"Limited recognition was already extended to this human by the River-Fang after he met the forms and demonstrated control. He is not unknown to us. The southern approaches will not survive another season of increasing corruption without support from the deeper packs. Listening costs little. Refusing to listen may cost everything."

More voices joined, some hostile, some calculating, a few openly curious.

They argued the practicalities of a coalition, the risk of binding Berakamon’s strength to outsider goals, the precedent of letting a human stand in the upper hall and make demands.

Through it all, Grathak ate, listening more than speaking, red eyes moving from face to face with the patience of something that had held power long enough to let lesser voices exhaust themselves first.

Finally the discussion narrowed.

One of the older, scarred war-chiefs who had remained mostly silent until then raised a heavy hand.

"Words are cheap. Visions are cheaper. If the barbarian wants the packs to risk their blood on his warning, let him prove the strength behind it. Formal trials. If he survives what we set before him, then we treat the coalition as a serious matter. If he fails, we lose nothing of value and the pens gain a new curiosity."