Emperor Lucius let the chamber sit in the wake of his words long enough for every House to feel the weight of what had just been acknowledged. The air held that particular stillness that followed truth spoken aloud, when no one could pretend they hadn't heard it. Then, with a controlled shift of posture that made even regality seem procedural, he brought the moment back to law.
"Matters of stewardship," the Emperor said, voice steady, "shall be decided as they always have been, and as they will always be within the Clansmoot." His gaze swept the alcoves, pausing neither on allies nor enemies, as if he refused to dignify faction with special attention. "By vote."
The words were simple.
They landed like a gate dropping shut.
The Imperial Chancellor stepped forward, hands folded, and the chamber's voting apparatus awakened. Light flared along the ring of alcoves as each noble delegation received its sealed voting slate, the device keyed to lineage markers and Imperial authentication. The process was deliberately laborious, not because the Imperium lacked efficiency, but because the Imperium valued ritual as a stabilizing force. Time spent voting was time spent remembering that decisions carried consequence. Tobias watched the mechanism unfold and understood why the Emperor insisted upon it. A fast vote could be called a whim. A slow vote became history.
Within the No'aar alcove, Tobias remained still as the Merwyn representative watched beside him.
The Merwyn were not voting, not within Imperial law, but their presence was a weight on the chamber all the same. Tobias could feel eyes drifting toward the No'aar label, measuring him as if a world could be judged by the posture of the boy who stood beneath its name. In House Hawthorne's alcove, Archimedes held himself upright, cane planted, his face unreadable in that disciplined way Hawthornes learned early. In House Mordred's alcove, Duke Jorgen wore his welcoming smile as if it were a second skin, but Tobias noticed the way his fingers tapped once against the edge of his slate. It was a small sign of impatience, and Tobias filed it away.
The minor houses voted first, because that was how the Clansmoot always began.
One by one, their slates lit, their seals verified, their choices recorded. Some houses announced their vote aloud for drama, while others submitted silently, preferring to avoid leaving emotional fingerprints on the record. Tobias watched the flow of decisions like a tide in a narrow channel, feeling small shifts in momentum even before the numbers were made official. Minor houses were not guided by romance. They were guided by fear, opportunity, and which banner they believed would remain standing when the dust settled.
The Great Houses followed, and the temperature changed.
Each Great House carried ten votes, and their choices did not merely add weight. They reshaped the conversation, because a Great House's vote was a public alignment that could not be walked back without consequences. Tobias knew Sinclair would stand with Hawthorne, because Sinclair's second fleet was already in Castellan's defense grid, and fleets did not lie. He knew Kantreel would stand with Mordred, because their declaration had already been made. Cocytus remained the wild card, the House that lived in the space between certainty and leverage.
Then House Cocytus cast its vote.
Tobias saw it not in Kvasir's face, because Kvasir's expression was always pleasant, always unreadable, but in the chamber's subtle shift. The Cocytus alcove's crest flared with the formal confirmation color that signaled alignment, and the Chancellor's ledger updated in real time. House Cocytus had chosen House Hawthorne.
A faint murmur ran through the hall.
Neutrality had been abandoned.
Tobias felt his stomach tighten, not with surprise, but with the knowledge of what it cost Cocytus to choose a side publicly. Cocytus did not take risks without intending to profit, and Tobias knew the House had just placed itself in a position where it could no longer sell access to both camps. That meant they believed Hawthorne was the better long-term investment, or that Mordred's position had become too toxic to touch safely. Either way, it was a blade placed into Tobias' hand, and he did not intend to drop it.
Finally, the Emperor's votes were recorded.
The Emperor held twenty votes, and though he framed himself as not the sole voice of decision, his votes were still a pillar the room could not ignore. The record confirmed what his earlier words had made obvious. His Imperial Majesty stood with House Hawthorne's stewardship of No'aar, not as a sentimental endorsement, but as a declaration of continuity. Tobias felt the confirmation settle into him like armor.
The counting began in full.
Numbers assembled slowly, deliberately, each tally verified, each slate cross-checked for authenticity. The process took long enough for tension to become a living thing in the chamber. Tobias watched minor houses' faces as the count neared completion, watching those who had tried to remain quiet begin to calculate whether their choice would be remembered kindly. Duke Jorgen remained smiling, but the smile had become fixed. Archimedes did not move at all.
At last, the Imperial Chancellor raised a hand for silence.
The chamber stilled as if a single breath had been cut.
"The vote stands," the Chancellor declared, voice crisp and mercilessly formal. "Seventy for House Hawthorne's continued stewardship of No'aar." He paused, allowing the number to strike, then continued. "Seventy for House Mordred's petition to resume stewardship."
A tie.
A perfect, maddening equilibrium.
Tobias felt the room react in layers. Some minor houses stiffened, realizing their vote had not purchased certainty. Others looked relieved, because a tie meant no immediate retaliation from the winning camp. Duke Jorgen's smile sharpened into something almost satisfied, because a tie could be weaponized. Archimedes' gaze remained steady, but Tobias saw a subtle tightening near his jaw. Tobias himself felt a cold clarity settle. This was not indecision. This was engineered balance.
The Chancellor, without emotion, read the detailed breakdown into the record.
"By voting power," he announced, "the tally is as follows." He looked to the hololith ledger, and the numbers flared into view for all to see. "House Hawthorne's side: twenty votes by His Imperial Majesty. Ten votes by House Sinclair. Ten votes by House Cocytus. Thirty votes by aligned minor houses." The ledger marked the total with unyielding brightness. "Seventy."
He shifted his gaze, and the ledger displayed the opposing block.
"House Mordred's side: ten votes by House Kantreel. Sixty votes by aligned minor houses, including the twenty previously absentee or temporarily abstaining Houses." The total matched like a mirror. "Seventy."
Tobias understood the shape of it immediately. The twenty that had waited on the Emperor's speech had not waited for truth. They had waited to see how to maximize leverage, and then they had leaned into Mordred's camp because Mordred's petition offered the promise of stability without the inconvenience of reform. Tobias felt contempt rise and forced it down. Contempt was an indulgence. He needed focus.
The Imperial Chancellor lifted a second slate, older, bearing the seal of codified Imperial law.
"In the event of a hung Clansmoot resolution," the Chancellor intoned, "the Imperium does not permit paralysis." His voice remained flat, procedural, which made the words more frightening than drama ever could. "By statute, a trial by warfare shall be announced." A ripple of reaction ran through the hall, part excitement, part dread, because war was a language every House claimed to understand even when they feared the cost of speaking it.
The Chancellor continued, voice precise.
"Each side may put forward a commander." His gaze swept the alcoves as if already measuring who would step forward. "Each side may field up to four warships, forming a single task group." He lifted one finger, then another. "Each side may field up to three lances of WarMechs." He paused, then completed the clause. "And up to one hundred soldiers for ground engagement." His voice hardened by a fraction, the only hint that even he felt the gravity of the law he read. "The wargame shall be conducted under Imperial oversight. The side that emerges victorious shall be considered as having won the Clansmoot vote and thus the stewardship decision."
The chamber held still again, but it was not the stillness of ceremony.
It was the stillness before teeth showed.
Tobias felt something in his blood ignite, not recklessness, but readiness. This was the language House Hawthorne had been built to speak. He sensed Archimedes' attention shift toward him, silent, firm, trusting. In Duke Jorgen's posture, Tobias saw satisfaction sharpening into ambition, because Mordred would relish a battlefield where casualties could be blamed on law rather than intent.
In the No'aar alcove, Tobias stood very straight.
The Merwyn representative beside him remained calm, but Tobias could sense the deep's attention in that calm, as if No'aar itself was listening. Tobias' prescience flickered at the edges of his perception, not giving him clear visions, but offering the faint sense of branching violence ahead. He did not chase it. He did not need it.
Because the Imperium had just done what it always did when politics became too tangled.
It turned law into war.
And now Tobias Hawthorne would have to choose a commander, a task group, three lances, and one hundred lives, and win, not just for No'aar, but for the idea that stewardship could be earned without blood-soaked cruelty.
The crown, for the moment, hung perfectly balanced.
Then the Imperium tilted it toward battle.