The dinner table at Raven's Nest was cloaked in a silence so thick it might've been woven from shadows. The only sounds brave enough to puncture it were the delicate clinks of cutlery and the gentle rustle of silk robes and sleeves. Corvin, seated like an unmoved mountain at the head of the grand obsidian table, he was not just dining, he was reading. Not from books, but from minds. He quietly probed the thoughts of Magus Thaelys Silvernight of the Umbral Synod and Magus Kelorien Hearthleaf of the Aurelian Dominion. Every surface smile, every carefully chosen word, was peeled away to expose ambitions, fears, and private goals.