The room held the silence after the young man's last words.
Atlas did not look away from the eyes that matched the ones he still saw in rare, unguarded reflections. The residual edge of the border crossing sat under his ribs, sharper now that the face attached to the fear stood in front of him.
Lara's presence remained at his back. Eli's shoulder stayed aligned with his. Clara's quieter weight closed the circle from behind. None of them sat.
Eli spoke first. "You wrote that the waiting had grown teeth. Show us the teeth."
The young man—her son, Atlas's blood—nodded once. He moved to the table and unrolled a plain sheet of paper weighted at the corners with small stones. No imperial seals. No formal crests. Only lines and names written in the same careful hand that had filled the letters.
"Three houses have already begun to move," he said. "Two more are waiting to see which way the first three fall. The capital still pretends the fractures are only talk.
