Responsibility does not arrive with ceremony.
It settles.
It settles into ledgers filled with names instead of numbers.
Into meetings that run long because no one is allowed to leave until every voice has been heard.
Into hands that shake as they sign decisions that cannot be undone by prayer or miracle.
The world does not become quieter.
It becomes heavier.
Kael feels it most in the mornings, when the city wakes unevenly and there is no higher authority to blame for the day ahead. He stands at the long table in the open hall, staring at reports written in different hands, different styles, different fears.
Every one of them ends the same way.
Decision required.
The shadow coils nearby, silent.
This is the weight you asked for.
Leadership changes first in the small ways.
No on
