Selene takes her place not at the margins now but near the oversight bench, within the circle of those who will carry the findings forward. Visible. Impossible to hide. Impossible, at least tonight, to erase.
Drax ascends the central platform.
The room rises with her.
My claws rest lightly against the arms of the chair. Not digging in. Not braced for impact.
Just ready.
Pellorin leans down one last time, his voice barely more than breath.
“Whatever happens next,” he says, “do not let your face do anything heroic.”
I look at the bench. “That seems manageable.”
“It never is with you.”
A corner of my mouth shifts before I can stop it.
Then the chamber goes fully quiet.
And I wait for the verdict to enter the air.
CHAPTER 29
SELENE
When the chamber goes quiet, it does not feel peaceful.
It feels hunted.
The noise doesn’t vanish so much as pull itself inward—every cough swallowed, every chair stilled, every drone holding position with that faint insect hum that somehow makes the silence worse. The lights above the central bench burn white enough to flatten shadows, but they don’t flatten tension. Tension lives just fine in bright places. It clings to the backs of throats. It tightens fingers around compads. It settles into the line of a jaw and stays there.
I stand near the oversight bench with my hands clasped in front of me because if I let them hang loose, they’ll shake.
The chamber is too warm after the archive level. The heat from bodies and equipment and all this live-broadcast machinery presses against my skin, but my palms are cold anyway. My mouth tastes faintly metallic, like adrenaline and old coffee. The fabric of my tribunal jacket feels suddenly too stiff across my shoulders, like it belongs to a person whose life still makes sense.
Across the chamber, behind the transparent partition, Rhyx sits with Pellorin at his side and his guard detail posted like ornamental threat. He is very still.
Still, and alert, and carrying the room in that infuriating way he does without ever reaching for it.
Drax ascends the central platform.
The polished floor catches the light beneath her and turns it into clean silver bands that look almost ceremonial. Her robe moves in one dark, controlled sweep behind her. She does not hurry. She does not hesitate. She looks like a woman walking into a knife fight she intends to chair.
The oversight chair settles beside her. Clerks take their places. Screens recalibrate. A red live-indicator pulses in the corner of the nearest chamber projection.
Everything becomes official all at once.
Drax places both hands on the bench.
“Let the record reflect,” she says, and her voice fills the chamber with that cool judicial force that always sounds one breath away from exhaustion, “that the tribunal reconvenes under expanded emergency transparency authority following evidentiary review of the Kirell evacuation sequence, associated override chain, and the strategic framework identified as Sacrificial Stabilization Doctrine.”
No one moves.
A senator in the gallery shifts, the tiny sound of fabric against stone somehow loud as a shout.
Drax continues. “This body has reviewed the reconstructed command chronology, civilian telemetry, convoy routing packets, retained Coalition command fragments, subpoenaed directive material, and oversight authentication findings regarding authorization origin.”
