I keep my eyes on them. “Yes.”
“They’ll be trying to build a finding that doesn’t humiliate either side into retaliation.”
“Can that be done?”
He grimaces. “Depends how much humiliation each side can tolerate while pretending it feels like justice.”
Drax says something. Tarev answers. She does not react outwardly, but the envoy’s brow tightens. Then he glances—not at me—but across the chamber toward the oversight cluster where Selene stands.
I feel the movement in my spine before it becomes thought.
Pellorin notices. “Easy.”
“I am sitting.”
“Your definition of easy remains terrible.”
I make myself stay still.
Selene does not see the glance. She is bent over a display while Mirov and the Pi’Rell analyst walk through something line by line. She nods once, then points to a timing sequence and says something sharp enough that Mirov actually pauses before answering. Her hand moves as she speaks—clean, exact gestures, no wasted motion. Not the posture of a frightened junior aide anymore. Something else now. Something forged under pressure and held together by fury.
The light from the displays washes over her face in shifting blue-white bands. It catches at the edges of the strain there, under her eyes, at her mouth. She looks young for one instant and dangerous the next.
Pellorin follows my gaze again and sighs. “This is going to be a problem.”
“It already is.”
“I mean a different kind.”
I say nothing.
He lowers his voice further. “You know what comes after this, if the finding goes the way we think.”
“No.”
“Yes, you do. She becomes useful to reformers and radioactive to everyone else. You become acquitted enough to calm the Coalition and disgraced enough to satisfy League pride. Neither of you returns to the lives you had.”
The binders hum faintly as my hands tighten.
“I know.”
“Good,” he says. “I’d hate to think one of us was being stupid.”
That almost earns a laugh from me. Almost.
The chamber doors open at the rear and a small wave of cool corridor air spills inward, carrying the faint hiss of press chatter from outside, the dry paper smell of fresh printouts, the distant bitterness of overheated caff. Another team of clerks comes in with sealed packets and moves directly to the closed side chamber where deliberations are being staged.
The doors shut again.
Time changes shape.
That is the only way to describe the next stretch of waiting. It does not move normally. It dilates and contracts around fragments of motion.
A guard shifting his stance beside the partition.
Drax still speaking with Tarev, their conversation now joined by Merrow and two oversight counsel.
A side screen updating with international market fluctuations responding to de-escalation signals.
