The answer does not arrive as a speech.
That is the first difference.
No platform.
No declaration.
No demand that anyone listen.
It arrives as a table.
Someone drags it into the square before dawn, wood scraping softly against stone. It’s uneven, scarred, clearly repurposed from somewhere else. A second table follows. Then a third. By the time the sun crests the rooftops, there are five of them arranged in a loose circle, not blocking the street, not claiming territory.
Just there.
People stop. Watch. Wait for instruction that never comes.
Kael hears about it when Rowan finds him, eyes bright with something like disbelief.
“They’re setting up,” Rowan says. “No banners. No guards. No symbols.”
Kael nods slowly. “Good.”
The shadow coils beside him, attentive.
This is how answers
