Moments later,

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Four days later, the great council chamber of the High Citadel was packed to the rafters.

Three of the most senior legal scholars in the Northern Kingdom sat at the long central table, their faces lined with skepticism as they stared at the stack of parchment Aria had placed before them. Behind them sat the lords of the clans, the elders of the line, and the high commanders - all of them waiting to tear the proposal apart, to find the flaw, to prove this outsider did not understand the ancient laws that had bound the Volkov line for a thousand years.

Aria stood beside Malphas at...