The next morning, she ordered the formation of a permanent ward-keeping order, not a religious body and not an arm of the throne, but a civic one. Mages, scholars, and builders would work together to maintain the seal and monitor the land. Records would be kept. Rituals would be documented. The work would belong to the kingdom, not to one person.
The ministers hated how practical it was. The mages hated how accountable it made them. The soldiers hated that it gave them no glory.
Elara approved it anyway.
By the time the first bells rang at dusk, the kingdom had already begun to change again.
And far beneath the earth, in the quiet place where hunger had once stirred, something listened.
It had not risen.
Not yet.
And now, for the first time in a very long time, it understood that the world above was no longer careless.
A few weeks after the ward order was formed, the kingdom settled into an uneasy peace.
