Chapter 5: Where Voices Gather
881 Words
Liora Valen discovered very quickly that authority did not come with silence.
It came with noise.
“I don’t understand why she gets to oversee this”
“because the notice came with the imperial seal, stop whispering”
“do you think she’ll report us if we speak out of turn?”
Liora paused just outside the review chamber and closed her eyes for half a breath.
So this is my punishment, she thought. Conversation.
She pushed the doors open.
The room quieted not fully, but enough to acknowledge her presence. Twelve students sat around the long oak table, their expressions ranging from curiosity to poorly concealed irritation.
Maribel sat at the far end, hands folded tightly in her lap. When she saw Liora, her eyes widened with relief.
Thank the stars for that, at least.
“Good afternoon,” Liora said. “I’ll be brief. I don’t enjoy meetings any more than you do.”
A few startled looks flickered around the table.
“That’s… refreshing,” someone muttered.
She took her seat at the head, resisting the urge to fidget. “This review panel exists to reassess disciplinary measures issued under procedural ambiguity. Which means” she glanced up “ we are here to determine whether punishment was deserved, excessive, or misapplied.”
Cassira Dorne, seated two chairs to the left, scoffed openly.
“So you’ll just overturn everything you don’t like?” she asked.
Liora turned toward her calmly. “If that’s what the facts support.”
Cassira leaned back. “And if they don’t?”
“Then nothing changes.”
The simplicity of the answer seemed to unsettle her.
Another student tall, sandy-haired, visibly nervous raised a hand halfway. “Are we allowed to speak freely?”
“Yes.”
“Without consequences?”
Liora met his gaze. “Within reason.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
A ripple of quiet laughter moved through the room.
Liora allowed herself a small smile. “It wasn’t meant to be.”
That did it.
The tension eased not entirely, but enough that people shifted in their chairs instead of sitting rigidly upright.
Good, she thought. They’re people again.
The meeting ran longer than she expected.
Not because of resistance but because once people realized they could speak, they did.
Arguments overlapped. Interruptions flew freely.
“That’s not what happened!”
“You weren’t even there!”
“I followed the protocol!”
“Protocol doesn’t mean fairness!”
Liora found herself mediating more than adjudicating.
“One at a time,” she said more than once.
At one point, Maribel cleared her throat timidly. “I um. May I say something?”
Every head turned toward her.
She froze.
Liora noticed immediately. “You don’t have to,” she said gently.
Maribel swallowed. “I want to.”
The room stilled.
“I was accused because it was convenient,” Maribel said, voice shaking but firming with each word. “Not because I was guilty.”
Cassira rolled her eyes. “That’s your interpretation.”
“No,” Maribel said, surprising everyone including herself. “That’s the truth.”
Silence followed.
Liora watched something shift not in the room, but in Maribel.
So this is why I spoke, she realized.
Not to save someone.
But to let them speak for themselves.
The meeting adjourned with more unresolved tension than resolution but that was progress.
As the students filed out, reactions varied.
Some nodded politely at Liora.
Some avoided her gaze.
Cassira brushed past without a word.
Maribel lingered.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
“You did the hard part,” Liora replied.
Maribel hesitated. “They won’t stop, you know.”
“I know.”
“But… I’m not alone anymore, am I?”
Liora looked at her.
“No,” she said honestly. “You’re not.”
Maribel smiled small, shaky, real.
Outside the chamber, Elowen waited.
Not deliberately.
At least, that’s what she told herself.
“Oh,” she said lightly when Liora emerged. “You survived.”
“Barely,” Liora replied.
Elowen laughed before she could stop herself.
It startled them both.
“I heard voices all the way down the hall,” Elowen said. “I assumed something dramatic was happening.”
“Just people disagreeing loudly,” Liora said. “Very dangerous.”
Elowen smiled. Then, after a pause, “You were… different in there.”
Liora raised an eyebrow. “Different how?”
“Less distant,” Elowen said slowly. “More present.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
Elowen studied her. “You don’t like being seen.”
“No.”
“And yet,” Elowen said, glancing toward the chamber doors, “people listen when you speak.”
Liora didn’t answer.
For a moment, they stood together in the corridor two girls occupying the same space, neither hostile, neither comfortable.
Elowen broke the silence first.
“May I ask you something?” she said.
“You usually do.”
“Why do you keep stepping into things that will turn against you?”
Liora considered the question.
Then said, simply, “Because pretending not to care takes more energy than I have.”
Elowen’s lips parted slightly.
She nodded once. “I see.”
She didn’t.
Not yet.
- Writer
