Chapter 95: The Shrouded Council
—Storms Cast Shadows Too—
Beneath the marrow of the world, where no soul dared scry and light moved with hesitation, the Veil gathered.
The chamber was not a place.
It was an intrusion.
A dead space between folds of reality, woven together with soul decay and null threads. It breathed like a wound that refused to close.
Eight Thrones.
Each occupied.
One forever empty.
Where Cirth the Black King once sat.
In the center—
Mirex.
The Shrouded.
Leader of the Council of Nine.
Now Eight.
A silhouette stitched from entropy, voice woven from a dozen souls—none of them his own.
He stood over the obsidian soul-table, a blackened mirror where current events played like fragmented echoes.
Kamharida.
Still.
Calm.
Returned.
And suddenly—everything had changed.
Mirex did not speak immediately.
His shadows writhed against the edges of the throne circle.
When he finally did, his voice cracked like a dying star.
"She walks the earth again."
Silence.
Then—
Voth, the Hollow Knight, gaunt and silent, adjusted the straps of his void-forged armor. His voice rasped through his helmet.
"Did the Progenitor send her for us?"
Sariah the Ashveil, her body a drifting shell of burning ash and fading skin, hissed gently.
"Does it matter? A shadow like her never moves alone."
Lira the Wraithbinder, cloaked in white chains, spoke next—sharp, concise.
"She hasn't struck. She hasn't even drawn power. She's there to watch."
Mirex's tone remained low, but jagged.
"That is exactly why she's dangerous."
He waved a hand.
The table shifted.
Kamharida's soulform emerged—not fully, only a flicker. A silhouette of subtle movement, cloaked in restraint.
"Most of you weren't born when she last walked the mortal realm," Mirex said. "But I was."
His voice slowed, carrying memory like frost.
"I watched her cut down eight Darkborn Elders—before she even awakened her full cycle. She doesn't just serve the Progenitor. She is her extension."
Voth asked flatly, "Do you fear her?"
The chamber went still.
Shadows stopped moving.
Even the soul-table dimmed.
"No," Mirex said. "I respect her."
Then after a long breath:
"But I will not allow her to unmake what we've built."
The others shifted—none speaking yet.
But the question hung in the air like oil over flame.
What now?
Mirex turned, finally raising both hands. His cloak split into countless strands of darkness, each curling into arcane sigils, runes lost to known history.
"Kamharida is not invincible. But she is precise."
"She won't strike first. She won't move without cause."
Then he let the shadowcraft fade.
"She's a message," Mirex continued. "From the Progenitor. A warning shot—silent, elegant, heavy."
"We need a countermeasure."
Lira tilted her head. "You mean a distraction?"
"No," Mirex corrected. "A challenge. A rival shadow."
Sariah's flame-laced fingers curled. "You want to awaken him, don't you?"
Mirex's cloak went still.
"Yes."
All voices fell quiet.
Even Voth looked away.
Nyel, the Cursed Child, floated above her seat, wrapped in mute chains of sealed corruption. She blinked once—slowly.
"He's unstable," she murmured. "Not even the Veil could fully bind him."
"Exactly," Mirex said. "And yet… he may be the only one Kamharida won't ignore."
"If the Progenitor has chosen to return her Shadow…"
"Then let us return our Phantom."
None opposed him aloud.
But the air thickened with apprehension.
The shadow of a forgotten war now stirred beneath the new one.
Kamharida had returned.
And the Veil would not stay passive.
Mirex turned from the circle.
His final words whispered like a curse too old to be named.
"Let her watch."
"But let her know—we're not the same shadows she buried."
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