The great hall was packed to the walls.
Not with nobles in fine robes and polished boots. Not with council members seeking favour or league members nursing grievances. With humans. Servants who had scrubbed these floors. Merchants who had traded in these shadows. Farmers who had travelled for days, leaving their fields and livestock behind. Healers who had mended wolf and human alike without distinction.
They filled the benches, crowded the gallery, spilled out the doors into the courtyard where hundreds more stood in the cold spring rain, listening through open windows and relayed whispers.
Seren stood on the dais, alone. No throne behind her. The Triplets were not there. No guards between her and the crowd. Just her, in a simple grey dress, her hands steady on the wooden podium.
The room fell silent.
