Authority is expected to show up eventually.
When things get hard, when people falter, when consequences stack too high to hold alone—authority is supposed to arrive like rain. Heavy. Certain. Relieving.
It doesn’t.
That absence becomes the story.
The morning after the burial, the city waits.
Not consciously. Not dramatically.
But there is a pause threaded through the streets, a sense that someone should speak now. Someone with a title. Someone who can translate grief into instruction, loss into order.
No one does.
The circle does not convene.
No proclamation appears.
No leader steps forward to say this is how we proceed.
The day opens anyway.
At the river table, Elen arrives early and stands staring at the ledger longer than usual.
“What now?” someone asks softly.
Elen close
