Rebirth: Necromancer's Ascenscion-Chapter 80: Power’s Weight

Air shifted.

No longer just tense — it was combustible.

Every word spoken now was a spark cast over dry kindling.

Lady Morlain had retreated, her failed accusation staining her House’s pride like a wound that would not clot. Yet her shame was not enough to deter the others.

No, the blood had only begun to flow.

And sharks had scented it.

Emboldened, minor lords and ladies rose from their carved benches, their voices sharp and hungry. They clutched accusations like daggers, desperate to wound what they could not outright destroy.

A paunch-bellied Lord Marwick, his robes straining against his swollen gut, pointed a trembling hand at Velrosa.

"I bring forth accusation!" he bellowed, his voice cracked with the strain, spittle flying from his lips. "Princess Velrosa has used her House Guard — including the King-killer Eli and the demon slave Ian Night — to intimidate rivals, manipulate contracts, and force compliance with her demands!"

Another voice joined his, thinner but no less vicious — Lady Harren, a viper of a woman in clinging crimson lace, her mouth a blood-red slash.

"She perverts her authority for personal gain!" Lady Harren cried, voice high and piercing. "She desecrates the ancient rights granted to noble blood! If we allow her crimes to stand, the sanctity of the Council itself is endangered!"

A chorus of agreement surged up, sharp and rising, their voices overlapping, gaining strength.

Ian, standing silent in the shadows near the dais, felt the tide turning — not because their enemies were strong, but because the mob was always easily moved by fear.

And fear was thick in the air now, coiling like smoke in every whispered word, every nervous glance.

Velrosa stood as still as a statue.

Her expression was not anger.

Nor outrage.

It was something harder to define.

Something colder.

It was the expression of a woman who had long ago accepted the weight of a noose around her throat — and had learned to turn it into a chain to strangle others instead.

She stepped forward, just a single pace.

A small thing.

But the effect was immediate.

The chorus of accusations faltered, shivering to uneasy silence.

"My Lords and Ladies," Velrosa said, her voice cold as a winter tomb, "since you accuse me of exploitation, let us ensure no such crimes go unpunished this day."

With a flick of her wrist, she unfurled a scroll bound in black wax, its seals already broken by the Council’s stewards.

The crackle of parchment was louder than a shout.

"Lord Marwick," she said, her tone slicing through the thickening air, "found guilty by my agents — and those of Mistress Thalia — of unlawful trafficking in Relics of Forbidden Artifice. A violation of Accord Twenty-Three of the High Law."

Gasps rippled through the chamber like a wave.

Relic trafficking was no mere infraction.

It was heresy.

A crime whispered of in fearful corners, punishable by dismemberment and exile.

Lord Marwick’s mouth flapped open, a wet, fishlike sound emerging, but no defense formed. His face purpled, sweat blooming across his brow.

Before he could stammer a protest, Velrosa turned, her scroll burning between her fingers.

"Lady Harren," she said, her voice unflinching, "the ledgers of the Saan merchants, bearing your personal seal, detailing the artificial manipulation of food harvests to create false scarcity. Starving out rival holdings for profit."

Lady Harren’s crimson-painted lips parted.

She tried to speak —

—but no sound emerged.

Only the faint trembling of her jeweled hands betrayed her inner terror.

Velrosa’s gaze swept further across the room, a blade seeking more flesh to cut.

"And Lord Fenric..." she said, with a predatory pause.

"...whose letters to the enemies of Esgard were intercepted by the agents of the Ninth Chair. Treasonous correspondence. Should the Council wish to examine them."

The silence broke like glass.

Lord Fenric, a wiry man with a rat’s sharpness, bolted upright. His bench clattered backward with a hollow bang.

"It’s lies!" he shrieked, voice cracking. "Forgery! Lies and treachery!"

But no one listened.

The weight of accusation crushed the chamber like a falling mountain.

Fenric lunged — his body a desperate, flailing thing —

—but guards clad in black seized him mid-charge.

Dragged him thrashing and shrieking from the chamber as his cries — broken, animalistic — echoed down the gilded corridors beyond.

The lords and ladies, once so eager to tear Velrosa apart, now shrank back into their seats, whispering feverishly, as if afraid to draw attention to themselves.

The riotous fire that had nearly consumed her had turned inward, burning through the ranks of her enemies instead.

Above it all, the Council’s nine thrones loomed silent.

Lady Morravel, the First Chair, said nothing — but her hooded gaze glittered with something dangerous. Calculation.

Perhaps even amusement.

Velrosa stood untouched at the center of it all.

Draped in midnight and silver.

A queen without a throne.

Ian watched from the shadows.

He saw it then —

—a flicker.

The exhaustion behind Velrosa’s perfect poise.

The tremor in her gloved fingers, hidden deep within her sleeves.

A single crack in the marble façade.

But she did not break.

She simply lifted her chin higher, her gaze sweeping the chamber with the disdain of one condemned, daring her executioners to strike.

Silence reigned.

Heavy.

Suffocating.

Final.

Until —

A herald in white stepped forward.

Clearing his throat, unrolling another scroll.

The crackle of parchment was a death knell.

"Fourth accusation," he announced, his voice cracking under the weight of what he read.

"Princess Velrosa Lionarde, you stand accused of illegal betting and tampering regarding arena battles, in violation of the High Laws governing blood combat."

The words hit like a hammer blow.

For a moment, even breath seemed to vanish from the room.

The Council members exchanged slow, dangerous glances.

Some in open fury.

Others with the sly satisfaction of predators scenting wounded prey.

Arena battles were sacred.

Holy.

Blood and honor, sanctified by centuries of death.

To tamper with them was not merely criminal — it was sacrilege.

An act that no law could forgive.

Only blood could pay for such sin.

Ian’s mouth tightened to a hard line.

Even Eli, standing coiled in the shadows beyond, straightened. His golden eyes sharpened, cold as drawn steel.

Velrosa moved not at all.

She simply bowed her head by a fraction, the light catching on her silver hair like a fall of dying stars.

The room held its breath.

And Ian knew —

with grim certainty —

This accusation would be different.

This was the one that could draw blood.