Thane's words hung in the chamber.
Not echoing — the room absorbed sound the way old rooms did, the stone and the centuries of decisions dampening everything to the specific quality of something said and heard and irreversible. This is what it's supposed to feel like. Six words from a man who hadn't publicly held an independent position in a hundred and twenty years.
The chamber felt them land.
All of it — the council members, the root systems still carrying the amber-gold frequency through the floor, the specific weight of six hundred years of this room holding important things and holding this one now.
Cassian was the first to speak.
"Councillor Thane," he said carefully. "Your statement—"
"Is accurate," Thane said. He was still looking at his hands on the table. The specific quali
