The doors to the council chamber closed without ceremony.

  No guards remained inside. No scribes lingered to record words meant to be forgotten later. The long table bore the marks of age and repair, grooves worn by generations of hands that had gripped it in moments like this.

  King Alaric Torvain sat at its head, posture composed despite the bandages beneath his coat. He said nothing.

  Eva Brimholde stood before them, unadorned, hands relaxed at her sides. She waited.

  “Begin,” the king said at last.

  “The escort departed at first light,” Eva said. Her voice was steady. “No hostile contact. Approximately an hour beyond the outer road, a civilian collapsed. Internal injury. The summoned intervened.”

  No titles. No praise.

  “He stabilized the man,” she continued. “Not fully. Enough to survive transport.”

  “And how,” Marshal Durn Halbrecht asked, fingers steepled, “did he manage that?”

  Eva met his gaze without flinching. “By refusing to pull away.”

  A pause followed.

  Then she added, “There was light.”

  The word settled heavily in the chamber.

  “How many saw it?” Inquisitor Kaelen Rhyse asked immediately.

  “Six,” Eva replied. “Including myself.”

  “Six becomes sixty by nightfall,” Rhyse said. “If we allow it.”

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  “Or it becomes reassurance,” Councilor Brannic Vale said quietly. “Which the city could use.”

  “Reassurance turns into expectation,” Rhyse replied. “Expectation becomes leverage.”

  Archivist Liora Venn had not spoken yet. Her eyes were fixed on Eva—not her face, but her hands.

  “Describe the light,” she said.

  Eva considered her answer carefully. “It was unstable. Uneven. It did not spread. It did not burn. It remained focused.”

  Liora inhaled slowly. “That rules out every known offensive structure.”

  “And every recorded healing construct,” Halbrecht added.

  “Yes,” Liora said. “That is precisely the concern.”

  All eyes turned toward the far end of the table.

  Elder Maerwyn had been silent, gaze distant, as though listening to something beneath the stone.

  “When the last one was summoned,” Maerwyn said softly, “they burned brightly. Too brightly. They believed force could mend what was broken.”

  Halbrecht leaned forward. “And this one?”

  Maerwyn’s eyes lifted, sharp and clear. “This one hesitates.”

  The chamber fell silent.

  King Alaric spoke.

  “He acted without instruction,” he said. “He asked for consent. He collapsed afterward.”

  “He is untrained,” Halbrecht said. “That alone makes him dangerous.”

  “He is human,” Vale replied. “Which makes restraint possible.”

  “He is visible,” Rhyse said. “Which makes secrecy temporary.”

  Liora folded her hands. “We do not yet know what he is. Only that precedent does not apply.”

  Alaric nodded once. “Then we will not force one onto him.”

  Halbrecht’s jaw tightened. “Your Majesty—”

  “There will be no confinement,” the king said calmly. “No forced deployment. No public declaration.”

  “And if rumors spread?” Rhyse asked.

  “Then we endure them,” Alaric replied. “As we always have.”

  Eva shifted her weight slightly. “He does not want this,” she said.

  Several councilors looked at her.

  “He will act when he must,” she continued. “And it will cost him every time. If you turn him into a weapon, you will break him. If you hide him away, people will suffer without knowing why help never came.”

  Vale nodded, slow and grave.

  Liora remained unreadable.

  Maerwyn closed their eyes.

  The meeting ended without satisfaction.

  As the council dispersed, Maerwyn lingered.

  “It is not the power that decides what comes next,” they said quietly. “It is how afraid we are of it.”

  Alaric watched the chamber empty, the echo of those words lingering longer than the rest.

  Elsewhere, far from sealed doors and measured fear, Sei slept through the afternoon, unaware that decisions had been made around him—decisions that would shape the path he was already walking.