And the Academy, for once, wasn’t just watching.
It was listening and offering something more.
The hush that followed my step onto the platform surprised me. The vampires settled back into their seats, teacups lowered, murmurs silenced, centuries of attention turning toward the center of the room.
I took a breath and let it steady me.
“Thank you,” I said, my voice carrying easily in the acoustics of the auditorium. “All of you. I know how rare it is for this space to open, and how much it means that you answered when it did.”
A few murmurs of appreciation echoed through the room.
Twobble stood off to one side of the platform, chest puffed out with importance.
Skonk lingered behind him like a very patient wall. Nova and Stella flanked me as I took a breath to ground me.
Lady Limora remained seated for now, elegant and unreadable, her attention taut as a blade wrapped in silk.
My parents sat in the front row, and seeing them there nearly melted me.
My mother watched with open pride, hands folded in her lap, her expression soft but alert. And I imagined myself doing the same if Celeste ever needs to be in my place. The thought should have worried me, but it didn’t.
My dad sat beside her, posture relaxed but eyes intent, like a man who knew something was coming and intended to meet it head-on. Whatever complicated, unresolved conversation existed between them was very much on the back burner, and somehow that felt right. There would be time for that later. Today was about something bigger.
I let my gaze sweep the room once more before continuing.
“As many of you’ve heard, there’s been movement,” I said. “They’re not making their way toward Stonewick, as many of us feared, but toward the Northern Luminary. We’ve confirmed that orc factions are marching, not in conquest, but in displacement. Their homelands are changing and failing. Something is pushing them out of the lands they’ve called home forever.”
A low murmur rippled through the seats, quickly stilled.
“They aren’t marching because they want war,” I added. “They’re marching because they’re running out of ground.”
That landed differently.
I could see it in the subtle shifts of posture and the narrowing of eyes, not in suspicion but in calculation.
If anyone understood displacement, it was immortals.
Vampires knew what it meant to be driven by forces larger than yourself.
“We’ve also felt unrest among the shifter clans,” I continued. “There are movements that don’t align with the end of the Hunger Path the way we expected. Something has replaced that pressure.”
My father’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
“I’m hoping,” I said carefully, “that none of this comes to conflict. That we can speak, listen, and find solutions before things escalate. But I won’t pretend there’s no risk. I plan to speak with the orcs, and I might need some protection along the way.”
I paused and scanned the room.
“If things go wrong, if Stonewick is threatened or others are drawn into harm, I’m asking for your help.”
The room was silent.
I held myself still and didn’t shrink from the weight of what I was asking.
Vampires didn’t offer allegiance lightly. Merely showing up meant something. They chose their causes with care, and they remembered those choices for centuries.
Lady Limora rose smoothly from her seat.
“There is no need to ask,” she said, her voice calm and carrying. “We are already here.”
