By the third day, the forum had transformed into something permanent. What began as a platform of protest was now a rotating parliament of lived truth. And the nobility—long insulated by parchment, gatehouses, and ceremony—could no longer claim ignorance.
I stood at the edge of the square, watching as a local weaver introduced a proposal for fair wage oversight. Behind her, a butcher and a clerk were transcribing testimony, not for posterity—but for policy.
"It’s moving faster than we thought," Mina murmured beside me.
"Faster than they can stop," I replied.
"They won’t try to stop it with policy," Correnne added. "They’ll use fear. Discredit one speaker, and they can undermine the whole movement."
"Then we prepare," I said. "We root ourselves deeper. We shift from testimony to struct
