House Zarthus - The Militant Stronghold

Patriarch Veridia Zarthus crushed the summons in her clawed hand, the parchment disintegrating into ash that fell like snow across her war table.

"Three days," she said, her voice carrying the sculpted cruelty that had made her House feared for centuries. "The weapon demands our presence in three days."

Her second-in-command, General Kael'vor, stood at attention beside the war table.

His expression was carefully neutral—survival in House Zarthus required reading Veridia's moods and adjusting accordingly.

"Will you attend, Matriarch?"

"Of course I'll attend." Veridia's beauty was venomous as she turned from the table. "Refusing would be suicide. That creature doesn't make requests."

She paced, her movements predatory.

"What concerns me is the purpose. 'Mandatory assembly of all House leaders and legion commanders.' Not for consultation or for strategic planning. Instead something that will fundamentally alter the power structure we've maintained for centuries."

"The rumors suggest he intends to claim direct military authority," Kael'vor offered carefully. "That forces will answer to Lord Azra first, Houses second."

"He intends to break us." Veridia's voice was flat. "To eliminate the autonomy that makes Houses powerful. To turn us from independent powers into subordinate vassals who exist at his pleasure."

She stopped pacing, her amber eyes fixed on the destroyed summons.

"I knelt before him at the Council because his power left no choice. I bowed because that creature's authority made resistance physically impossible. I accepted him as the Originator of Sin because the alternative was damnation."

Her voice dropped to something dangerous.

"But kneeling doesn't mean loyalty and bowing doesn't mean faith. Accepting him publicly doesn't mean I've forgotten that not too long ago, he was a desperate fiction Lilith summoned to save her failing reign."

"He's done much for the empire since then."

"Which proves he's powerful. Dangerous. Worthy of fear and tactical respect." Veridia's smile was sharp. "It doesn't prove he's a god. And it certainly doesn't prove he deserves to dismantle power structures that have existed longer than his summoning."

She moved to a cabinet, retrieved a sealed document, and placed it on the war table.

"Contingencies. If Lord Azra attempts to seize direct authority over House legions, we respond with political coalition. House Morwen controls the soul-forges and economy. House Kraz'gul commands veteran legions. House Vex'thar holds the southern territories. United, we represent more power than any single entity—even a Primordial—can dismiss casually."

"And if he dismisses us anyway?"

"Then we discover if his ordained Authority works when five House leaders resist simultaneously."

Kael'vor's expression suggested he thought testing those limits was suicidal.

Veridia noticed and smiled.

"Don't misunderstand. I'm not planning rebellion. I'm planning leverage. There's a difference. Lord Azra has proven it is wise to fear him. What he hasn't proven is that he can rule an empire that depends on complex political structures he doesn't understand."

She tapped the sealed document.

"Three days. We attend. We listen. And we determine if the creature Lilith summoned is salvageable as a weapon or dangerous as an independent power."

---

House Morwen - The Economic Masters

Lord Arcturus Morwen read the summons three times, his expression growing more troubled with each pass.

His wife, Lady Sera, watched from across their study—walls lined with ledgers and contracts that represented centuries of accumulated wealth and influence.

"Mandatory assembly," Arcturus said finally, setting the summons down with careful precision. "No option to decline. No suggestion that attendance is negotiable."

"You expected something different after he forced the Council to kneel?" Seraphine's voice carried the sharp intelligence that had made her Arcturus's equal partner in managing House Morwen's economic empire. "Lord Azra doesn't operate through political courtesy. He operates through demonstrations of power that make courtesy irrelevant."

"Which is precisely the problem." Arcturus stood, moving to the window overlooking Eldhar's merchant district—controlled almost entirely by House Morwen interests.

"Economic power requires stability, contracts honored. Trade routes maintained and systems that function predictably over decades."

He gestured to the city below.

"Lord Azra is chaos. Brilliant chaos, and even effective chaos, certainly. But chaos nonetheless. His existence and actions are not one that follows the rules that make civilization function."

"The rules that were failing before he arrived," Seraphine countered. "The rules that had us losing a war and hours from political collapse. Perhaps chaos is what was needed to break patterns that weren't working."

"Or perhaps chaos will break us entirely." Arcturus turned from the window. "Three weeks ago, we were independent economic power answering nominally to the crown but functionally autonomous. Three days from now, Lord Azra will likely demand we subordinate our resources directly to his authority."

"Will you resist?"

The question mattered in ways that were dangerous.

Arcturus was quiet for a long moment, running calculations that had nothing to do with numbers and everything to do with survival.

"No," he said finally. "Because resistance would be economically catastrophic. The soul-forges depend on stable supply chains. Those supply chains depend on territories that Lord Azra could devastate with a word. We've built our power on the assumption that political leverage matters. But leverage only works when both parties need something from each other."

He looked at his wife directly.

"What does Lord Azra need from us that he couldn't take by force? What leverage do we have against this self proclaimed god? We're wealthy. We're influential. But we're not powerful in ways that matter to something like that."

"So we bow. Again."

"We adapt. As House Morwen has always adapted." Arcturus's voice carried resignation and pragmatism in equal measure. "We attend his assembly. We accept whatever authority structure he imposes. And we find ways to remain indispensable through economic means he can't simply conquer through force."

"That's a dangerous game."

"Every game is dangerous now. The question is which dangers we can navigate and which will destroy us regardless." He picked up the summons again.

"I suspect Lord Azra's assembly will sort the Houses into two categories: those who adapt quickly enough to survive, and those who resist long enough to serve as examples."

"And House Morwen will be in the first category."

"House Morwen will survive. By any means necessary."

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