The viewing space was no longer rowdy.
It was dead silent.
Golden lamps still hummed. Shadows still crawled across the circular dais. But the air, once filled with argument, ambition, and amusement, had gone brittle, like glass stretched too thin.
Elder Derek was the first to break.
He did not speak.
His blue eyes, usually burning with confidence, widened as the image on the scrying screen sharpened, Bahamut standing upright, blindfold discarded, red eyes glowing against a shroud of death-dark aura.
Derek's fingers twitched.
"…Caron," he said quietly.
Caron didn't answer immediately. His obsidian eyes were locked on the screen, pupils constricted. When he finally spoke, his voice was hoarse.
"I see it."
They didn't need to clarify what.
Derek swallowed. "My disciple..."
Ren.
The memory surfaced unbidden: a blind boy, feral pressure, aura that didn't behave like aura should. Something ancient peeking through a young body.
