The Three Royal-Tomb Ritual Houses
The three great houses that, for the dynasty, keep the royal tombs, the funerary texts, and the examination of the dead: Greyquill, Silverhall, and the Third House. The corridor of the royal tombs should bear bronze statues of all three — yet the row of the Third House, all 12 of them, stands empty.
The Iron-Capital Dynasty had three great houses serving for generations as the royal-tomb ritual officers, keeping for the dynasty the royal tombs, the funerary texts, and the bodies of the kings: House Greyquill, House Silverhall, and the Third House.
Along the wall of the royal-tomb corridor stand bronze statues of the ritual officers of every era — there should be three rows: 12 of Greyquill, 12 of Silverhall, 12 of the Third House. But the row of the Third House is 12 empty stone bases — the statues gone, the names too erased from the records. The one who has reigned for seventeen years and walked that corridor at least eight hundred times has only recently noticed for the first time: people were supposed to stand there.
No one can bring themselves to speak the surname of the Third House. It is known only that it once existed, that it once stood as an equal to the other two houses, and then, in some era, it vanished from this dynasty altogether — its bronze statues, its name, its every trace. All that remains is an ancient glyph recurring on the stone bases.
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