Anwyl and I sat in the half-light of a quiet drawing room as dusk settled over the manor. The air was cool and carried the distant murmur of voices echoing through stone corridors. We were deep in conversation—our voices soft and measured—about the measures we must take to prevent an even greater calamity. Yet even as we plotted our next moves, my thoughts drifted unbidden to that vivid, haunting dream.
"The Four Neutral Houses—you know them, do you not?" Anwyl asked, his tone almost conversational, though laden with an undercurrent of urgency. His eyes shone with a mixture of determination and regret.
I nodded slowly, though a tremor of uncertainty ran through me. Of course I remembered: the Ducal House of Borgia and Windsor, the House of Austenburg, and the House of Bavaria. Anwyl recited their names in a low, rhythmic cadence that seemed to echo the beating of my own heart, each name conjuring shadows of alliances past and betrayals long buried.
