The Protectors: Rising from Ashes [Progression Fantasy | Action-Packed | Epic Battles]

The words rang through the chamber like a sword striking stone: sharp, final. And then, nothing. No murmur of movement. No shifting of weight. Just silence, dense and suffocating, like a wall pressing in on every breath.

Morgana didn't move. Her spine was iron straight, fingers locked so tightly in her lap that the blood had fled her knuckles. Her lips never parted, but the glint in her eyes betrayed the storm barely held at bay. Not grief. Not fear. Something older. Sharper.

Beside her, Damien leaned back, slow and deliberate, the scrape of his chair legs a whisper against the polished floor. He folded his arms, jaw tense, his stare flicking across the table of elders. He wasn't watching them. He was dissecting them.

Alaric's composure cracked at the edges. He lowered himself into the chair like every joint resisted. His hands found the carved armrests and held, white-knuckled and motionless, like he was holding himself back from saying what he couldn't unsay.

Near the columns, the Chosen shifted. Just a step. Just a glance. But it was enough. They were no longer alert. They were wary. Suspicion had found its way into the chamber, crawling beneath the skin like frostbite. None of them had spoken, but the question was already there, coiling behind their eyes: Why?

Why had the elite force, the vampires trained to act before anyone even thought to give the order, been absent?

Elias's throat bobbed with a swallow he hadn't meant to make. The pit in his stomach twisted as realization clicked into place. The absence hadn't felt strange at the time. Too much chaos. Too many screams. But now... now it loomed. The elite weren't just late. They never came.

His thoughts raced. Delayed by miscommunication? Or commanded to stand down?
The second thought hit like a cold knife. He didn't want to believe it, but it made too much sense.

Even the lights above trembled faintly, a brief flicker like the air itself was holding still.

And Veyrion, who never could sit still, sat frozen. No tapping fingers. No smug twist of lips. Nothing. Just eyes fixed forward, unreadable, like a man watching a house of cards lean into the breeze.

Then came a voice, dry and biting. "Great leadership as always."

Thorne hadn't spoken loudly. He didn't need to. Not in a room full of vampires whose hearing could catch the drop of a pin, especially not with elders present. The murmur, meant more for himself than anyone else, still cracked through the silence like a challenge.

The elders turned, one by one, their gazes cutting like blades drawn slow from a sheath.

Thorne met every one of them head-on, arching a single brow like a man daring them to speak. None did.

Because they had nothing to say.

Veyrion's gaze snapped, not at Thorne, but to Sentinel. His stare sharpened, not with rage or indignation, but with a cold, calculated focus. The kind of silence that only comes before a strike, measured, poised, and deadly.

And deep inside Sentinel's mind, coiled within the calm fury of his soul, Vaelthar stirred.

You chose your moment well, the dragon's voice whispered across their shared bond. Smooth, darkly amused. Tit for tat... was it?

Sentinel didn't answer aloud. A flicker passed through his eyes, hard and knowing. In his mind, he sent the thought like a blade sliding home.

You taught me to wait for the right moment.

And you've learned. Vaelthar's approval curled like smoke, warm but edged. Now cut deeper.

The tension in the chamber drew tighter, like an invisible thread pulled to its breaking point. Not one elder dared speak. Not one dared shift.

Sentinel stepped forward, his voice calm, but honed to a point.
"Still silent, Lord Veyrion?"

He let the question bleed into the quiet, then followed it with deliberate clarity:

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"Where were your forces? The elite unit trained for one purpose: to strike when others fall. Were they hesitant... or ordered to hesitate?"

A stir. Barely there. Lord Thaeon shifted in his seat, the motion small but tense, as if the weight of the silence had suddenly become too much. Sweat glistened at his temple. Beside him, Lady Vessara kept her gaze fixed on the table, unmoving, as if the grain of the wood might offer her sanctuary from the truth pressing in.

Sentinel's eyes swept across the chamber, steady and unyielding.
"When the Eclipse Heart chose them, it wasn't in secret. Every kind's noble, every elder, every high-born house stood witness. You all knew war was coming, not if, but when. You had time to prepare. To shield your people. So tell me… why weren't your elite forces ready?"

Veyrion opened his mouth, but no words came. Not immediately. When he finally spoke, his voice was smooth, but a beat too slow, like a man spinning his next excuse.

"There was a lapse in signal coordination," Veyrion said, each syllable clipped, rehearsed. "A temporary misfire between the forward units and our command. Nothing more."

The silence that followed wasn't agreement, it was survival.

Lord Thaeon and Lady Vessara exchanged glances. Their nods were brief and hesitant, like fragile shields raised too late after a storm they hadn't expected.

Sentinel didn't move.

His posture was relaxed, but there was weight in the way he stood, like the earth had chosen him as its anchor. His voice, when it came, was calm. Too calm.

"A misfire," he repeated, quiet as breath, sharp as a blade. "That's what you're calling it."

He took a step forward. Not rushed. Not forceful. But every inch of it carried intent, like a tide advancing before a storm.

"That doesn't excuse the fact that the Chosen Ones fought alone while your forces did nothing. You're blaming them for a threat none of you were prepared to face, when it was your duty to stand beside them. To protect the people. But you didn't. You failed them. And now, to cover that failure, you place the weight on their shoulders."

Veyrion's fingers curled on the polished table. His knuckles went white, and the corner of his mouth, once curved in quiet superiority, twitched, as though the mask was beginning to crack.

"Watch your tone, Sentinel. You forget who you're addressing."

Sentinel didn't blink. Didn't flinch. The overhead lights reflected faintly off his black cloak as he stood steady, unmoved.

"No. I know exactly who I'm speaking to. But don't forget, this war coming to our doorstep, it won't spare names or titles. Protecting Zephyros isn't a favor the Chosen Ones owe you, it's a burden we all share. Including you."

The tension in the room coiled tight, like a wire drawn to snapping.

Alaric scoffed, loud and bitter, shoving his chair back a few inches. The legs scraped sharply against the stone floor as he threw a hand in the air, exasperated.

"You speak like they saved us," Alaric said, each word laced with venom. "Like they're the reason we're still standing. But they're not. They weren't even close. They may wear the title, but they don't carry even a sliver of the protectors who came before."

A ripple of unease moved across the table, too quiet to be called movement. Just the tightening of jaws, the tension beneath cloaks, and the subtle shifts that betrayed a chamber cracking beneath words left to echo too long.

Lord Thaeon leaned back, fingers steepled in practiced calm. Light from the chandelier gleamed across his features, casting sharp shadows beneath his eyes as he studied the Chosen, cold, unreadable.

"Words cost little when spoken after the danger has passed," he said, voice even but scraped clean of warmth. "You speak of courage, but what we saw were flames, blood, and failure. You call them shields? All I see are cracks."

Lady Vessara's lips barely moved, but her fingers betrayed her, tap. Tap. Tap. Three times against the table, each beat like a blade being drawn. She leaned forward, her voice smooth as silk stretched thin over steel.

"Many dead. Duskveil Mall turned to ash. And yet… here they are. Among our kind's weakest, and still not a scratch deep enough to bury. One must ask, how?"

The tension across the chamber cinched like wire.

Morgana's gaze hadn't left Elias. Her stare was glacial, so still it seemed carved from obsidian. Then, finally, she breathed. A single inhale, drawn slow and sharp.

"If this is what passes for defense now," she said, tone colder than winter steel, "then perhaps the people were better off without it. The true defenders fell. What remains is... convenient."

The blow didn't land on Elias alone, it struck the entire line of Chosen Ones like a silent tremor.

Thorne stood taller, shoulders snapping into place like iron doors slammed shut. His jaw clenched, a muscle twitching near his temple. Lyric's fingers curled tighter into her sleeves, her lips parting slightly, then closing again. She was coiled, not in fear, but fury restrained. Alice's head dipped, hair veiling her face, but her hands clenched at her sides like anchors against the tremble. Aiden didn't flinch, but his eyes blazed, a fire stoked by silence, not words.

Then Elias moved.

Just one step. No dramatic flourish. No raised chin. But the chamber felt it, like the air itself had shifted toward him, drawn in by gravity that wasn't his to command, yet obeyed anyway. The soft lighting dipped against his frame, casting shadows that cut clean across the stone floor.

He didn't raise his voice.

The room leaned in anyway.

"We're still breathing," he said, steady as bedrock, "because we didn't run."

The words hit the silence like a drumbeat in a funeral procession.

Every eye turned to Elias. Even the Sentinel's gaze locked onto him, piercing, unreadable. There was a flicker of surprise, subtle but unmistakable, as if Elias had spoken with a strength no one, not even the Sentinel, had anticipated.

And that was the moment the ground quietly tilted.

The moment everything began to change.