The square trembled beneath the weight of truth.
For a long, breathless moment after Aurelia finished speaking, no one moved.
At first, the square remained frozen—thousands of people standing as though carved from stone, the weight of Aurelia's words pressing into them. Faces once hardened by suspicion now wavered with something unfamiliar. Doubt. Shame. Awe.
A child's voice broke the stillness.
"Mama… she's not scary."
The words were small, innocent—but they carried.
A woman near the front clutched her shawl tighter, her eyes wet.
"She lost her mother," she whispered. "Just like I did."
Another voice followed.
"She fought for her people."
"She didn't hide."
"She stood there and told us everything."
Murmurs spread, softer now. Changed.
Aurelia remained at the balcony's edge, hands trembling faintly at her sides. She had given them her truth—every jagged piece of it—and now she waited, bare and exposed, for their judgment.
