Chapter 32 - The Call of Judgment

The heavy silence of the estate's courtyard was shattered only by the distant clatter of hooves and the murmuring wind. I stood beneath a waning moon, its pale light carving jagged shadows across the worn cobblestones, while the chill of uncertainty seeped into every fiber of my being. The messenger from the High Order had arrived as promised—a figure cloaked in austere authority whose eyes burned with a quiet fury. His arrival was no mere formality; it was a summons, a call to answer for the events that had unfolded in the ruined temple and for the power that now pulsed in my veins like a second heartbeat.