The golden column resolves within the ancestral hall, spilling light across carved pillars and the assembled surviving branches of House Uth Matar. Kitiara’s mother, an adult woman with a sturdy build, warm brown skin, braided black hair, and a deep-red matriarch’s coat, stands at its center, rigid beneath the family banners.
Beside Vael Uth Matar’s sealed confession, a second script appears in silver fire: Seressa Thornmere’s sworn record, bearing the unmistakable mark of witnessed testimony.
The two accounts align line by line. Vael’s admission names the theft, while Seressa’s record confirms the pact, the betrayal, and the deliberate concealment that followed.
Kitiara’s mother
No branch will call this forged. Vael’s seal and Seressa Thornmere’s oath stand together before us.
Uneasy murmurs pass through the hall, then die beneath the matriarch’s raised hand. Some heirs stare at the testimony; others lower their eyes from the banners above.
At the edge of the golden manifestation, the vow-bound paladin remains visible through drifting motes, still holding the library’s closing wards. She does not cross the threshold or speak.
Kitiara’s mother
The testimony has reached us. Let the final heir decide whether this house receives judgment, restitution, or silence no longer.