An hour later, the dust of the training grounds was completely washed away, replaced by the heavy, tense atmosphere of the Starling Estate council room.

The heavy iron doors groaned open as the trio—Rune, Vane, and Percy—stepped inside. At the head of the long war table sat His Majesty the King and the Crown Prince of Estora. The air was thick with the scent of factory smoke and cold suspicion. The King looked down his nose at Rune, fully expecting a lying, knowledge-eating outsider.

"So," the King spoke, his voice cutting like breaking iron. "This is the Silaxen 'princess' my vanguard brought across our borders. Tell me, girl, why should we trust a single word of your theories when our own records state your people initiated this chaos?"

Before Vane or Percy could step forward to defend her, the Crown Prince raised a hand, his eyes shifting toward the back of the room where Alden was standing silently near the Duke. The Crown Prince noticed the fresh, deep marks on Alden’s armor and the tight grip on his sword hilt.

"The King expects a fabrication, Vane," the Crown Prince stated smoothly. "But I trust my commander's eyes. Alden... what is your assessment of our guest?"

All eyes turned to the General. Alden swallowed hard, his hand instinctively brushing the spot where Rune's fist had cracked his defense. He looked at the tiny knight in her shimmering quartz armor, his pride entirely gone, replaced by absolute respect.

"She is no fraud, Your Majesty," Alden declared, his voice tight but echoing clearly through the hall. "And she is certainly no fragile princess. If she wanted to destroy Estora from the inside... I wouldn't be standing here to tell you about it."

The Crown Prince sighed, leaning back in his chair. "Alright then. I will give you... say... a week? To prove this 'whispers' theory of yours."

"I have already backed up the structural data, Your Majesty, exactly as she predicted," Eliot spoke up, stepping forward. Facing the Crown Prince's sharp, intimidating gaze, the young scholar stood tall, firmly defending her research.

The Crown Prince looked coldly at Rune, his eyes never leaving her visor. "If I may ask... why are you going through all this trouble? And for what? For people you don't even know? As far as my court is concerned, no one risks this much without aiming to gain something massive at the end."

"Oh, I stand to gain a great deal of things, Your Majesty," Rune said, a dangerous smirk audible in her tone as the King's eyes sharpened. "For a start... knowing that no child will ever have to go through what I went through growing up. I don't care about the politics of the Seven Crowns, but I do care about people. If the shadows end my life out there, I can rest knowing no other child will suffer from their malice. After all, I am a princess with zero magic, no power, and no kingdom behind me to protect. That makes me the perfect vanguard... because I have absolutely nothing left to fear losing."

Her response sent a shockwave through everyone in the room. Eliot stared at her in pure admiration, completely awed by how incredibly strong and determined she was for a populace she had never even met. He felt physically larger than her, yet in her presence, his spirit felt small and cowardly compared to her immense grit.

Suddenly, Vane caught a visual anomaly out of the corner of his eye. A dense, unnatural shadow pattern began weaving through the floorboards.

Vane’s eyes widened in sheer horror. He lunged across the platform toward the royals. "Your Majesties! Look out!"

He sprinted forward, slamming his hands down to form a massive obsidian shield, reinforced a second later by a brilliant defensive barrier Percy threw around the entire council.

A split second later, a deafening screech tore through the room as massive, ink-black shadow octopus arms burst through the floorboards. Instantly, a heavy psychological pressure flooded the hall, and everyone began hearing their own darkest thoughts echoing in their ears.

"Whatever frequency you are hearing, do not let it compromise your consciousness!" Rune commanded loudly, her voice cutting through the panic as she immediately engaged the thrashing appendages.

She ran along the walls, trying to locate a structural weakness in the mass. The elite royal knights and the Starling guards were completely collapsing, struggling to fight as the proximity to the entity caused the whispers to violently assault their deepest insecurities.

Percy aggressively snatched Rune’s helmet, channeling a surge of his magic directly into the visor tech before tossing it back to her. "Princess! Catch! This will calibrate your visor to scan for the central core serving as its power matrix and weakness!"

Rune caught the helmet, snapping it back into place.

Meanwhile, Eliot’s breathing turned shallow as a squad of guards tried to shepherd him and the royals toward the secure bunkers. He tried desperately to resist the psychological assault, but the heavy density of the shadow was too much for his anxious mind.

"You are completely useless," the shadow whispered directly into Eliot's consciousness, its dark tendrils slowly wrapping around his limbs. "A coward who forces everyone else to bleed for his safety. You are entirely invisible to them."

As Eliot's resolve crumbled, believing the malicious words, the shadow mass tightened its grip, wrapping around him layer by layer to swallow him whole.

Through her upgraded visor, Rune saw the pulsing core of the entity, but it was buried deep within the thrashing mass. With the other knights and Vane completely occupied protecting the King and the Crown Prince from the primary vanguard arms, she was the only one left with a clear line of sight.

Wasting no time, Rune sprinted straight into the darkness.

The shadow monster screeched as Rune’s sword drove straight through its core, shattering it into a brilliant explosion of light balls. But the cost had been heavy. Without her chest armor—which she had strapped onto the Crown Prince to shield him from the darkness—the shadow's parting strike had torn deep into her side.