No crown rules the city. Only seven Houses, each holding its own piece of power, watching the other six as closely as they watch the dark.
Dominion blood makes a promise permanent the moment it's sealed. What gets sworn there doesn't bend, doesn't blur, and doesn't get forgiven, not by the Houses, not by time, and not by the Dominion elder who spoke it either. They don't rule the Order's table. They're the reason nothing said at it can ever quietly stop being true.
Sigil: a wax seal stamped with a single black flameThe Binding Word · The Ledger
Hollowmere blood never bargained and never fought. Their ancestor simply let go, trusted whatever was happening completely, and never came back from that surrender. What's left is a permanent awareness that's never faded, every scent, every lie, every silence in a room that shouldn't be silent. It isn't discipline and it isn't strategy. It's the only way a Hollowmere has ever known how to exist since that first night, so they watch, not because the Order asked them to, but because they've never once been able to stop.
Sigil: an ornate iron lantern burning with a pale white-blue flame, mist drifting outward from the lightThe Tell · The Long Watch
Beauty is their currency and their weapon. The Velmarq command the art world, high society, and the desires of anyone foolish enough to look too long. Behind every gallery opening and every masquerade in the city, there is a Velmarq deciding who gets to be seen.
Sigil: an oval mirror, cracked down the center, with a rose blooming from the crackThe Claim · Heal at Will
Psychic, prophetic, unmoored. What sets the Gifted apart is not a talent but a burden: every vision pulls them a little further loose from their own place in time, until past, present, and future stop staying where they belong. Every gift has its price, and the Gifted are still paying theirs.
Sigil: two crescent moons overlapping slightly out of alignment, joined by a single thread of bloodThe Drift · The Shared Sight
Masters of the old rites and the forbidden histories, older than the city itself, the Corvaris remember what everyone else has been made to forget. Knowledge is their House's true bloodline, passed down, guarded, and occasionally weaponized.
Sigil: a chalice with a single eye reflected in its dark surface, an open grimoire resting beside itThe Craft · Blood Memory
Anarchic and impatient, the Ashvane have no use for the old order and even less patience for anyone still defending it. Every generation, someone predicts the Ashvane will finally break the balance for good. So far, the balance has held. So far.
Sigil: a shattered fragment of stone armor, deep cracks glowing with molten crimson light, growing tougher wherever it has been struck hardestThe Refusal · The Severing
Contracted killers, led by tradition by an outsider to their own ranks. The Serathe serve no House, only the contract, and the contract is always fulfilled. Being asked to lead them is not an honor most would want, and even fewer are offered.
Sigil: a dagger, its blade reflecting a single watching eye, with a small brand etched near the hiltThe Killing Eye · The Mark
