For a long moment after the speech ended, I just stood there.
My hands were still shaking from holding the podium. The noise of the crowd washed over me—applause, murmurs, the shifting of feet. I saw faces turned toward me, but they were just a blur.
Then the first person broke through. A woman with kind eyes and work-rough hands reached for mine. "Thank you," she whispered, her voice thick. "My sister... she was sent away to the Onyx Club years ago. She had always wanted to speak out. But she didn't have a voice and we never saw her again. You spoke for her tonight." She squeezed my fingers and melted back into the crowd before I could even respond.
That's how it began. Not with the powerful elders in their fine suits, but with the people.
They came to me one by one—a young man who bowed his head as he passed, a woman who touched her daughter's shoulder and pointed at me, an older server who paused while clearing glasses to give me a small, firm nod.
