His council did not take it well.
Not catastrophically — these were not small people, not people given to performance over function — but they did not take it well, and he had not expected them to, and he gave them the space to not take it well while maintaining the particular quality of composure that had always been the thing they oriented around when everything else was moving.
Councillor Davan asked the most incisive questions, as expected. The records. The secondary archive. The execution order with Kael’s name on it. He wanted documentation and Kael provided it, and watched Davan’s expression move through disbelief and land, reluctantly, somewhere adjacent to acceptance.
Councillor Preth — older, loyal to structure above everything — asked about Rennick’s presence. What precedent
