The stillness was too perfect.
For nearly an hour after the Bond Mark's appearance, the D'Cruz estate existed in a fragile bubble of aftermath. The ruined gallery was being tended to by spectral servitors under Thomas's direction, the physical damage slowly knitting back together with whispered spells and stone-memory. The real wound, however, was metaphysical—the violent, beautiful scar of the Dyad bond now pulsing between Ella and Aaron.
They were in the sunroom, a space typically reserved for recuperation, its wide windows facing the undamaged southern gardens. Ella sat with her knees drawn up, watching the light play across the intricate mark on her forearm. Aaron stood at the window, his back to her, but she felt his presence as clearly as if he were touching her—a warm, solid anchor in the shared space of their souls.
They were testing the limits of the bond in quiet ways. Ella focused on a distant rosebud in the garden, and Aaron, without turning, said, "The third from the left on the white trellis. It's infested with aphids." She hadn't spoken her observation aloud. He'd plucked the image from her surface thoughts as easily as picking a leaf. In return, she felt the precise, controlled burn of his power as he subtly reinforced the estate's southern wards—a sensation like watching a master craftsman at work through her own hands.
It was intimate. It was terrifying. It was theirs.
The intrusion, when it came, was not a hammer-blow. It was a sterilization.
First, the birdsong ceased. Not gradually, but all at once, as if a universal mute button had been pressed. Then, the gentle breeze stirring the curtains died. The very air became still and lifeless, robbed of its natural movement. Through the bond with the mansion, Ella felt a profound, offended recoil—as if the land itself had been slapped.
Aaron turned from the window, his eyes already glowing with a cold, battle-ready light. "They're here."
"No," Thomas's voice came from the doorway, strained. He held a crystalline orb that swirled with angry grey static. "They're not here. They're imposing a Protocol Field. They've quarantined this location in reality's ledger. We're not under attack. We're being… served papers."
The light in the room changed. The warm, yellow sunlight from the windows didn't dim; it was replaced. A flat, neutral, sourceless white illumination filled the space, erasing all shadows. It was the light of an interrogation room, a laboratory, a courtroom.
In the center of the sunroom, the air began to fold. It wasn't a portal. It was a procedure. Geometric patterns of authority—gold for solar law, silver for arcane covenant, black for executive order—unfolded layer by layer like a lethal origami, constructing a stable platform for projection.
Seven figures manifested upon it.
They were not physically present. They were high-fidelity psychic projections, but the weight of their will made them feel more solid than the stone beneath their feet. The High Council of Nocturne. Their forms were archetypal, obscured by ritual raiment and veils of conscious power.
Ella recognized the signatures from the Elder's visit, but this was different. This was not a single messenger. This was the jury, judge, and executioner assembled.
A figure at the center, whose robe seemed woven from solidified jurisprudence, spoke. Its voice was a chorus of gavels falling in unison.
"Warden Aaron of the D'Cruz Line. You are summoned to give account."
The words were not sound. They were directives, pressed into the air with the force of law. Ella felt them try to compel Aaron's response, to force him into a posture of supplication. Through the bond, she felt him resist, his will a diamond against the pressure.
"I hear the Council," Aaron replied, his voice level. He did not bow.
"You were granted stewardship of the anomalous entity designated Ella," a second figure intoned, its form shimmering like a heat haze over desert sands. "Your mandate was containment, study, and delivery to Conclave for adjudication. You have breached this mandate."
A third Council form, sharp and angular like cut glass, gestured. A holographic record spun into existence between them—security feed fragments from the attack. Ella defending. The wings manifesting. Aaron falling. The blinding light of the bond's formation. The mark appearing. It was all there, compiled with cold, bureaucratic efficiency.
"You have engaged in unsanctioned metaphysical fusion, creating a Class-9 Sympathetic Dyad," the central figure continued. "This act constitutes unlawful power consolidation, violation of the Guardian Accords, and reckless endangerment of ontological stability."
The charges hung in the sterile air, each one a coffin nail.
"An Elder-sanctioned Executioner squad breached my wards and attempted to assassinate my charge," Aaron countered, his tone dangerously calm. "I defended her. The Dyad formed as a consequence of that defense, preserving a Council asset—myself—and stabilizing the anomaly. The alternative was my death and her subsequent uncontrolled manifestation. I acted within the spirit of my mandate: preservation and control."
A ripple passed through the Council projections. They had not expected him to frame their assassination attempt as the proximate cause.
"The method of preservation is itself the violation," intoned a fourth figure, its voice like crumbling parchment. "The Dyad is an unpredictable vector. It grants the anomaly access to legacy solar power and institutional authority. It makes the Warden vulnerable to convergent corruption. It cannot be allowed to persist."
Ella could stay silent no longer. She rose to her feet, her own presence, though younger, pushing back against the sterile field. "You call me 'the anomaly.' I have a name. And this 'vector' saved the life of your Warden. Are you more invested in your rules than in the lives bound to enforce them?"
A profound silence greeted her words. A living human, let alone a "variable," did not directly address the High Council in a summons.
"Your designation is not relevant to these proceedings," the central figure stated, dismissing her. Its attention returned to Aaron. "The Dyad presents an existential precedent. It suggests bonds can form outside our sanction. It undermines the hierarchy of control. Therefore, by the authority vested in this Council, you are hereby commanded to present the Dyad at the Conclave for formal Trial of Severance."
The final two words landed with the gravity of a tombstone sealing shut.
Trial of Severance.
Through the bond, Ella felt Aaron's soul recoil in visceral, primal horror. She saw a flash from his memory—an ancient, forbidden text describing the ritual: a metaphysical vivisection performed by a chorus of Elders to tear apart intertwined souls. It rarely worked cleanly. It usually left both parties shattered, insane, or hollowed out.
"You would invoke the Sundering?" Aaron's voice was a whisper of pure fury. "For the crime of survival?"
"For the crime of rewriting the rules of engagement," the sharp-angled Councilor corrected. "The bond will be examined. If it can be safely dissolved without significant degradation to either party, it will be. If it cannot…"
The implication hung, unspoken but clear: then the degradation would be an acceptable loss.
"They are one," Thomas spoke up from the periphery, his scholar's courage overriding his fear. "The Sympathetic Brand is soul-deep. A forced severance isn't a dissolution; it's an amputation. You would cripple two powerful beings who have, until now, acted in defense of your stated order."
"The opinion of the archivist is noted and disregarded," the central figure said without looking at him. "The summons stands. The Dyad will present itself at the Hall of Whispers upon the rising of the full moon. You will submit to the Council's examination. Failure to appear will be construed as secession from the Accords, warranting immediate and unconditional eradication of the D'Cruz Line and all assets within this estate."
The ultimatum was absolute. Appear and face possible soul-rape. Refuse and face total annihilation.
Aaron looked at Ella. Through the bond, there were no secrets. She felt his turmoil—the Warden's duty to obey the Council warring with the man's instinct to protect what was his, what was them. She felt his calculation of their chances in open rebellion (slim) versus their chances in a rigged trial (slimmer).
She also felt his unwavering core: he would burn the world before he let them take her apart.
She sent a pulse back through the bond: calm, resolve, unity. Together.
Aaron drew himself up to his full height, the solar energy within him not flaring in defiance, but burning with a steady, unbreakable intensity. "The Dyad hears the Council's summons," he said, each word precise and deliberate. "We will attend the Conclave."
A sense of cold satisfaction emanated from the projections.
"Wise," the central figure said.
"However," Aaron continued, his voice cutting through the satisfaction like a blade, "we attend not as passive subjects for your scalpel, but as a new political entity invoking the Right of Dyadic Representation. We will face your trial. And we will answer your charges. Not with pleas, but with demonstration."
The Council's sterile field wavered. The Right of Dyadic Representation was an obscure, ancient clause, almost mythical. It acknowledged a bonded pair as a single sovereign entity, entitled to plead their case not just with words, but with a display of their unified nature and purpose.
For the first time, the Councilors looked unsettled. Their plan had been to put a rogue Warden and a dangerous variable on trial. Aaron had just reframed it: putting a new sovereign power on trial, a power with rights.
"You invoke a dangerous precedent," the parchment-voiced Councilor hissed.
"We live in dangerous times," Ella said, stepping forward to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Aaron. She let her wings manifest, not in threat, but in full display—the Covenant made flesh. The Bond Mark on her arm glowed in sympathetic resonance with Aaron's. "You wanted to see what we are. At the Conclave, you will. All of you."
The staring standoff lasted for ten eternal seconds.
"So be it," the central figure pronounced, its tone now devoid of any emotion. "The Conclave will witness your demonstration. And then it will render its verdict. Prepare yourselves, Dyad. Your very souls are now entered into evidence."
With a final, silent implosion of light, the Protocol Field collapsed. The Council projections vanished. Real sunlight and birdsong rushed back into the room, the sudden normality feeling like a slap.
The summons was delivered. The trial was set.
They had just escalated a political showdown into a cosmic courtroom drama where the stakes were their fused souls.
Aaron let out a long, controlled breath. Thomas slumped against the doorframe.
Ella looked at the sunlight on her marked arm, then at the man bound to her for eternity or oblivion.
The Council had threatened to cut them apart.
Their response would be to show the world just how deeply they were woven together.
The game was now in the open. And the next move was theirs.