Above it all, the sky remained indifferent. Clouds drifted. Stars waited their turn. The world, vast and patient, would endure what these people did to one another. It always did. And somewhere, far from the flames, the hall stood silent once more—its purpose fulfilled, its stones forever marked by the night when betrayal stopped being a secret and became a legacy.
Whispers spread before truths ever did. Markets buzzed with rumors dressed up as jokes, and taverns echoed with half-remembered warnings from men too drunk to be taken seriously. People felt the shift long before they understood it. There was a tension in the air, a collective instinct that something essential had been misplaced, like a missing step on a staircase everyone climbed every day.
