Around him, several councillors lowered their heads in agreement.
Even those whose expressions remained carefully neutral did not object.
Arik recognized ambition among them. Some had held emergency authority for decades. Some controlled ministries that would lose influence the moment sovereign command returned. Others had built entire political identities around interpreting Goliath's final laws.
They would not surrender that power without negotiation.
But none of them was foolish enough to voice a desire to control Arik while the imperial crest above him burned with his ether.
More importantly, their private ambitions were smaller than the boundary surrounding Nuria.
Authority inside a sealed empire remained authority inside a prison.
They wanted trade restored. They wanted access to the territories beyond the Gate. They wanted to know which families had survived, which nations had risen, and whether the old roads of Nuria existed beneath the new borders Arik had described.
