The recess ended without anyone calling it back to order, because the room had already reordered itself around the chair. Nine judges faced a seat that now held a body, and the presiding officer waited for that body to speak first.
Nox took the question the way it had been asked, without heat in it. Marek Sol had said his cities, and the possessive was the part worth answering.
"I took offices," Nox said, standing at the party rail with his hands where the bench could see them, "and the cities kept their gates, their votes, and the right to shut me out the hour I stop being useful."
"You took the answer," Marek said, without raising his voice to the hall, "and the cities kept a gate they cannot hold when something comes through it that eats a district in a night."
The exchange did not sound like a duel opening, and that was the trouble with it. The man in the chair was arguing about response times, and he had the record to argue from.
