Big John took control of the meeting with a low, commanding rumble.
"Now that we have your unbiased opinions," he said, sweeping the room with his gaze, "and the missing context laid bare, I have a confession from the Queen."
He paused, letting the silence stretch until every eye was on him. Only then did he continue.
"The Queen and I held information back from you. We did it to see where you all stood on the anomaly that is Sheut."
A ripple of shock moved through the gathered elders and ministers. Albert's eyes burned with sudden, predatory curiosity among the stunned gazes of the others. He was the first to find his voice.
"Interesting," Albert said, leaning forward, fingers to his beard. "The fact that information was held back suggests that the weapon… uhhh, I mean Sheut… is more intriguing than we first thought." He smiled thinly as he stroked his beard, clearly amused by his own correction.
Big John took a heavy step closer to the table, his shadow stretching long under the mag lights.
"The context, Albert," he said, "is his lineage. Our records of the old world are incomplete, scrubbed on purpose by those who feared the dark. But Sheut is not just an anomaly from a failed ritual. He is the last of a Demon Lineage, the Shadow Walkers who once guarded the threshold between the Void and the Light."
This time, the gasps were not murmurs but sharp intakes of breath. Even Albert stopped stroking his beard, his eyes narrowing.
"A demon?" the Southern Elder whispered, his face paling. "You've brought a demon into the heart of Kongo? Under the Elder Tree?"
Before Big John could answer, Queen Nandi raised a hand, her bracelets chiming softly.
"Careful with your words," Nandi said. Her voice was calm, but it cut through the room with the precision of a blade. "Sheut is not a full demon. He is a demi-demon, just as demihumans and beast kin walk our streets and serve in our guard. His nature is mixed, not absolute."
She let her gaze move from elder to elder, pinning each in turn.
"If you call every trace of demon blood an abomination," she went on, "then you would have to cast out every demi-human touched by the Fae, every beast kin born under an omen star. We did not build Kongo to repeat the same purges that shattered the old world."
Albert's lips twitched. "Demi demon, full demon, shadow born aberration," he said lightly. "Whatever label you prefer, Your Majesty, his bloodline remains what it is."
"A Saviour," Nandi corrected, her eyes flashing. "One who has already bound his soul to one of our own. Sister Adah did not simply heal him. She merged with him through the Third Occurrence."
She leaned in slightly, voice steady and clear.
"If we treat him as a prisoner, we lose the only bridge we have to the primordial power we need to face the coming necromantic, dungeon, and beast tides. If we treat him as a weapon, as Albert so clumsily suggested, we risk a fire that will consume us all."
Nandi settled back, but her presence only seemed to grow.
"There is more," she said, her tone dropping to an intimate whisper that somehow carried to every corner of the room. "Sheut and Adah are connected through the Third Occurrence. That makes him Adah's person as much as she is his. He looks at her and sees the queen of his future kingdom. I believe he called it 'Shadow Clover.' I would be far more concerned about his ambition if it were not for that connection."
Her gaze shifted to the surveillance crystal resting at the center of the table.
"After watching the footage, I want to know what that wrath-looking woman, the one ripped from his soul, truly was to him. The attachment there went deeper than magic. But even if we wanted to ask him directly, he cannot tell us. He suffers from memory loss. At first, I thought it was a calculated lie. Yet hiding his true intentions from Adah would be impossible. She would have sensed the deception long before now. And besides…" Nandi's expression tightened faintly. "He strikes me as someone who sees no need to hide petty lies."
Albert let out a sharp, mocking bark of laughter, leaning forward so that his face crossed the edge of the mag lamp lights.
"A Saviour?" he repeated. "Please, Nandi, let's not dress up a strategic asset in religious prose. A demon is a demon, demi or not. They are born of chaos, and chaos cannot be tamed. It can only be directed or destroyed." He flicked his fingers in a dismissive gesture. "And as for his memory loss, how wonderfully convenient. A blank slate that conveniently forgets its past sins while building a 'kingdom' under our very noses."
He fixed Nandi with a keen smile.
"You say hiding a lie from the Sister is impossible because of this Third Occurrence. But what if the anomaly is not lying at all? What if he truly believes his own delusions because his mind was fractured during the backlash?"
"Fractured or not, he commands a power that bypasses our most ancient prophecies," Elder Bernard cut in, his voice stripped of its usual jovial lilt, carrying a heavy, warning weight. He leveled a steady look at Albert.
"You speak of containment and direction, Albert," Bernard said, "but you ignore the fact that the world bends strangely around this man. If he sees no need for petty lies, it is because a predator has no reason to deceive sheep. He is honest because he does not fear us."
Bernard turned his gaze toward the Queen.
"But the woman, Nandi," he went on softly. "The spirit torn from his soul during the summoning backlash. The surveillance footage showed a bond that went deeper than spellwork. If she was his missing half, and we are the ones who ripped her away, then we have not simply brought a demi-demon into Kongo. We have brought a grieving, vengeful force that is missing its anchor."
High Priestess Mbeki, who had remained as still as carved marble, finally shifted. The soft rustle of her white and gold robes was the only sound in the tense silence.
"If Sister Adah's soul is merged with his, then the balance of our city's life force is already shifting," she said. Her cloud grey eyes, heavy with centuries of ritual wisdom, lifted to the circle of faces. "The Third Occurrence is a sacred vow of the cosmos. It cannot be undone by council decrees or mages' chains. If Sheut looks at Adah and sees the queen of his future, then Kongo's fate is already tied to his ambitions."
She inclined her head toward the suspended image of the wrathful woman.
"We must see the woman from the rift not as a separate threat, but as the echo of what he becomes when darkness takes everything from him. She is the shape of his grief, given form."
Big John remained at the head of the table, his massive frame unmoving. He looked around at the gathered ministers, elders, and mages whose fear was beginning to drown out their reason.
"Then let the record reflect our reality," Big John rumbled, his voice cutting through the rising murmurs like an iron gavel. "We stand at a forked path. We can treat Sheut as a prisoner and watch the shadows of this kingdom turn against us in revolt. Or we can accept the bridge Adah has built between him and Kongo."
He nodded once to Nandi, then continued.
"The Queen and I have made our stance clear. He remains under palace protection, residing in Adah's quarters under strict wards and observation. But as for his missing memories and the wrathful woman…"
Big John leaned over the polished dark wood of the table, his golden aura flaring against the embedded sigils.
"We will find out what she was to him," he said. "Because if Sheut ever remembers what we took from him before he met Adah, the coming necromantic tides will be the least of our worries."