The city did not erupt.

That, more than anything, unsettled those who had prepared for chaos.

No riots were tearing through the lower quarters, no mass failures of wards cascading from tower to tower, no desperate crowds gathering beneath council balconies demanding answers. Instead, Varenth absorbed Draven’s words the way stone absorbed heat—slowly, unevenly, invisibly at first, holding the change beneath its surface until the pressure reshaped everything that followed.

The absence of ...