Chapter 12
Five Stones, Six Witnesses
The coalition needed six witnesses: two royal, two workers, one foreign power, and one officer of law. Rowan was imprisoned, Mara was hunted, and Cael's council ordered him home.
Liora proposed using Venn as the sixth. Elara thought it madness until Senna explained the oath required testimony, not consent.
They built the counter-coronation around a trap: every denial Venn made would authenticate the record he had altered.
Mara recruited the women whose names survived in cloth. Cael delayed his ship by staging an inspection. Tavin entered the vault in chains.
At midnight, the sixth oathstone woke beneath Venn's private chapel.