The massive doors of the throne room creaked open with a sound. Every last one of them had the same look when the representatives of House Sarphie entered.
The Sarphies didn't wear their old noble regalia. They wore robes of elven silk. The House emblem, once proudly stitched into every garment, was replaced with a neutral spiral, which was a common elven motif signifying harmony. Hipel Sarphie led them, his silver hair tied back in a ceremonial knot. He wore no jewelry, no medal of honor or sigil of fealty. His walk was calm, his chin held high, but the room could taste the scent of his exile like blood in the air. Behind him were fourteen others. Two were unknown, but one caught Anamorsia's eye immediately.
Alexis Sarphie.
She was the very same Alexis who had returned with Elyonari after the Epoch Cycle. Anamorsia remembered the day they stumbled out of Minafallen, their eyes dazed from the shift. Alexis had stood beside Elyonari and that was odd. She had never forgotten her.
Anamorsia didn't rise. She crossed her legs on the throne of her brother, acting as the Monarch in his absence.
"So, House Sarphie returns from the edges of ash and obscurity. I ask you, not as the sister to the Monarch, but as the voice of this Dynasty. Why? Better yet, why did you leave?"
Hipel didn't flinch. He stepped forward.
"You already know why, Supreme Commander."
But Anamorsia's hand lifted. Her eyes flicked to the four ruling seats.
"You will not speak so casually in this hall. You do not address me. You speak to them. You speak to the Houses whose silence kept your name from being erased."
The room stiffened.
"We... left because love, unlike loyalty, does not follow House Law. I fell in love with a Fox Therianthrope. Her name was Teyali. She was never going to be accepted in these walls. You all know it. We both knew it. And so we left."
He glanced over his shoulder, and Teyali stepped forward. Her silver eyes were slitted like the moon behind fog, her fox ears twitching under a cloak that couldn't hide her Therianthrope lineage. Her tail, wrapped around one leg, uncurled as she stood tall. Then Alexis moved beside her, her hands folded.
And the reaction was instant. House Maximilian's patriarch slammed a metal fist into the armrest of his seat, and the tremor ran through the marble.
"You abandoned your oath for the whims of the wild?!"
"Disgusting," muttered the Viaca patriarch. "Our forge made your blades. Your ancestor was chosen by the Blade Nexus herself. And you left us... for what? Fur and instinct?!"
The Levenees patriarch's lips curled. "And the child is half-blooded? Does your love justify tainting the bloodline of one of our founding Houses?"
Even House Obligatio's matriarch, usually cold and measured, narrowed his eyes.
"This is not love. This is cowardice in the skin of affection. The Monarch before allowed unions beyond blood. You ran not for love but because you did not believe this Dynasty worthy enough to fight for it."
Hipel opened his mouth but he never got the chance to speak. Anamorsia stood.and suddenly, the weight in the room shifted.
"You didn't leave because of love. You left because you believed that Dynasty Richinaria wasn't good enough to deserve your sacrifice. That the Nexuses, my parents, were the exception and not the rule. That our history, our unity across species, our meritocracy… was a lie."
Her eyes flashed toward Teyali, then Alexis, then the four behind them.
"That belief alone… is sacrilege."
At this, the twins stepped forward from their thrones. Leon spoke.
"Dynasty Richinaria is the only one in Spheraphase that dares grant paradise to the undeserving the unawakened and the unbroken. Even Lower Rise, where the unascended dwell, is heaven to those who have nothing."
Leones's voice sharpened as Leon stopped.
"And you dare say it was not good enough?"
Leon's tone grew darker.
"Then what realm is? The demons? The elves? You left behind the one dynasty where lineage is earned, not stolen."
The Four House leaders were already murmuring, some demanding death, some exile, some suggesting public shaming. Anamorsia raised one hand and silence returned. She stepped down from the throne until she stood before Hipel Sarphie.
"There are those who betray for power, and there are those who betray for pride. I cannot yet decide which you are, Hipel Sarphie, but I do know this."
She turned, her eyes raking over the four exiled returnees.
"You are no longer House Sarphie. Not until the Dynasty says otherwise. And not until you kneel."
Her golden gaze fell on Alexis Sarphie, who bowed her head.
"Were you part of the Epoch Cycle?"
"Yes... I served under Lady Elyonari Mintheris during our time in the Erna Isles, Supreme Commander."
"And when she found out you were from Richinaria?"
Alexis hesitated, then said it with a guilty drop of her gaze.
"She exiled us. She said… if we betrayed our Dynasty, we had no right to live under another."
A quiet coldness swept the chamber. The patriarch of House Maximilian did not even flinch. The mages of Levenees looked on with a mixture of contempt and scholarly intrigue, as if watching the remnants of a failed experiment. Obligatio's leader drummed his fingers once on his scepter, uninterested in sentiment. Anamorsia's smirk was bitter.
"Exactly. So now, with nowhere to run, you come crawling back?"
There was no answer. She turned her gaze to Hipel Sarphie, whose head dropped low as he fell to his knees before the throne.
"Please… we only seek to return. Show us mercy."
Anamorsia laughed. Her voice curled with irony.
"Mercy? And why should we offer that, Lord Hipel? You forget, the only House Head still holding their seat from the time you were loyal… is Viaca's Matriarch."
Her eyes moved toward Duke Landle, whose arms were folded.
"The others? They are heirs chosen long after you abandoned your place. You have no more allies in this room than ghosts in a mausoleum."
The hall held its breath.
"So you, Lord Landle, are were the only one who stood when they still wore the Sarphie name in honor. What say you?"
Duke Landle did not rise, nor blink slowly.
"House Sarphie, in those days, received healing inscriptions. Now, with my brother's Circlecraft, he gifted advanced Healing Circles to the Levenees. We no longer require your return. There you have it. You are no longer welcome."