LYSSARA
The formal sovereignty declaration was scheduled for sunrise two days out, and I had been carrying the weight of it since Kaevra told me it needed to happen, and I had been doing what I always did with things I needed to carry, putting them behind the door in my chest and turning the lock and getting on with the immediate work and returning to them when the immediate work was done.
The immediate work was done. The door was open, and the weight was exactly as heavy as I had known it would be.
Kaevra had spent the afternoon walking me through the ceremonial architecture with the efficiency of someone who had been preparing for this moment her entire adult life. The founding compact's declaration words. The positioning of the seven territory representatives. The specific order of a
