The distinction matters, but my body does not care about distinctions. My skin prickles as though a spotlight has turned on.
I keep my voice even. “That request doesn’t make sense procedurally.”
“It does,” Drax says, “if his intent is to prevent you from being removed before you can finish your reconstruction.”
“If his intent is to manipulate staffing,” I counter, and I hear how brittle that sounds the moment it leaves me, like glass.
Drax’s mouth twitches, almost a smile, though not a warm one. “Yes. That is what the Senate is already saying.”
I blink once. “The Senate?”
“Do not play innocent,” she says, and her tone is flat, but there is a faint edge now, a thread of annoyance drawn tight. “Everyone is speaking about this case, Ardent. That was the point of announcing it as globally broadcast. It is a symbol for factions who have been hungry for a scapegoat since the ceasefire ink dried.”
I swallow. The dryness in my throat feels like old dust.
Drax leans back in her chair. “Tell me, in clear terms, what your connection is to Kirell.”
It is not a question; it is a test. I feel the shift in the room as if the temperature drops two degrees.
“My parents died in the corridor collapse,” I say. The words are clinical, and they sound wrong because my chest tightens as I speak them, as if my ribs are remembering impact.
Drax watches me closely, and I know she is cataloguing everything—the timing of my breath, the steadiness of my voice, the way my jaw tenses at the edges.
“And you did not disclose that in your assignment intake,” she says.
“I was never asked,” I answer, and it is the truth, though the truth does not always sound like innocence.
“You were not asked because tribunal staff are presumed to be transparent,” she replies, and now her tone has hardened into something sharper. “The presumption is that you volunteer conflicts.”
I feel heat climb along my neck. “It didn’t feel like a conflict. It felt like… context.”
“Context is not neutral,” Drax says.
I step closer before I can stop myself, the movement small but involuntary. “With respect, High Arbiter, if context disqualifies staff, then no one who lived through the war can touch these files. Half the tribunal would have to resign by noon.”
Drax’s eyes narrow slightly, but she does not snap. She considers. That is, in her way, mercy.
“You are twenty-four,” she says. “Young enough to have been shaped by this loss more than you realize.”
“I realize it,” I say, and the words come out rougher than I intend. I steady myself, forcing my voice back into controlled cadence. “I realize it every time I open a manifest.”
Drax holds my gaze. “Can you remain impartial?”
The question lands and does not leave. It sits on my tongue, heavy and metallic.
I could lie. It would be easy. I could say yes and hope she accepts the performance. I could say no and watch my career evaporate.
Instead, I let myself breathe once, slow and deliberate, feeling the air fill my lungs and then empty.
“I can remain accurate,” I say. “I can remain procedural. I can follow the evidence even if it points somewhere I hate.”
Drax studies me. “That is not what I asked.”
I meet her gaze and feel something inside me settle, like a blade sliding into its sheath. “Impartiality is a myth. Discipline isn’t. I can stay disciplined.”
For a moment, she says nothing, and the silence between us feels like a corridor itself—long, narrow, dangerous.
Then her compad emits a sharp alert tone.
