Chapter 7 - The Banquet of Hypocrisies
Inside the grand ballroom, the string quartet was playing a gentle waltz when the main entrance doors blew inward in a thunderous explosion of splintered wood and flying iron bolts.
Screams echoed through the hall as elite nobles scrambled backward, dropping crystal champagne flutes that shattered into glittering shards across the imported Persian rugs.
Standing at the threshold of the ballroom was a lone figure shrouded in a tattered black cloak.
At the far end of the elevated dais, sitting upon a velvet-cushioned throne, High Patriarch Valen Ignia stood up instantly, his hand resting on the jeweled hilt of his ceremonial broadsword. His silver hair was neatly combed, his aristocratic face set in a mask of stern authority—though a flicker of genuine shock crossed his eyes as he looked at the intruder.
Beside him stood Marcus Ignia. The golden boy looked terrible beneath his heavy makeup and gold-trimmed robes; his skin was sallow, dark purple veins thrummed visibly beneath his neck, and his breathing was shallow and ragged.
"Who dares breach the Ignia sanctuary?!" Valen’s voice boomed across the hall, carrying the weight of a high-tier wind mage. "Guards! Seize this assassin!"
Dozens of elite Sun-Wardens poured in from the side corridors, their weapons drawn, forming a wall of steel between the dais and the intruder.
Aurora slowly lowered her hood.
The golden light in her eyes blazed fiercely, casting long, dancing shadows across the high vaulted ceiling. Her ash-blonde hair drifted around her shoulders as if caught in an invisible, heated updraft.
Marcus gasped, clutching his chest as he took a staggering step backward. "No... no, that's impossible! She died in the sump! We threw her in the sump!"
Valen’s face drained of color. For the first time in his life, the mighty patriarch looked at a ghost and recognized the face of his own unforgiven sin.
"Anna..." Valen breathed, his voice barely audible over the hum of magical energy radiating from her body.
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"Not Anna," Aurora said, stepping forward as the floor beneath her boots cracked under the sheer thermal pressure of her footsteps. "Anna died eighteen years ago on your extraction table. I am what crawled out of the trash to burn your house to the ground."
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