The doors closed and the sound went out of the room all at once.
Aelara exhaled. The first full breath she had managed since early morning, when the hearing convened and she had taken a seat at the long table and fixed her face into something careful. Three hours of careful.
Three hours of the right words in the right order, of watching the council's faces for the small shifts that told her which way things were leaning.
The verdict had gone the way it needed to go.
She should have felt something about that.
She gathered her notes from the table, stacked them without looking at the order, and crossed toward the side door. Most of the council had already filed out.
The clerks were beginning to collect the record sheets. The room was doing the ordinary business of coming undone after a formal proceeding, chairs pushed back, low voices beginning.
Vaelor was still standing near the far wall.
