12 Official | Power Vacuum Chapter

When the last chair signaled assent, Jax placed his palms flat on the obsidian table. The scars of old disputes seemed to shift under his hands, as if the stone itself was acknowledging something new.

She was hidden because she was never meant to rule. Power Vacuum Chapter 12 Official

The Broker had no living heirs. Or so everyone believed. When the last chair signaled assent, Jax placed

Jax had expected this. The Broker’s successor wasn’t elected. Wasn’t crowned. Wasn’t voted in by committee. The title passed through a single ritual, older than the city’s spires: the Bloodwright’s Rite. The successor had to present a living heir of the previous ruler, bound and kneeling, before the gathered families. Only then did the chains of power transfer. The Broker had no living heirs

Mira leaned forward. Her augmetic eye spun through a dozen spectrums, as if trying to see through the recording to the truth beneath. “And you just found her?”

He pressed a second chip onto the table.

It felt fragile. It felt temporary. It felt exactly like the beginning of something far more dangerous than war.