The Council Spire always felt taller when you walked in alone.
Raizen followed the Warden through a lobby that made men into ants: iron ribs, a ceiling lost in shadows, light that fell in polite sheets. People with lanyards moved like punctuation in a sentence he wasn't part of. The elevator doors opened without being asked.
"The Ruler is expecting you" the Warden said, and somehow made it sound like both good news and a warning.
At the top floor, another pair of doors - these wrapped in quiet - parted onto a room that refused to pick a scale. A single long table. One wall of glass staring down on Neoshima's petals. A boy in white stood at the far end like he'd been poured into the space and told to set.
Solomon didn't send for anyone else. He only flicked two fingers.
"Leave us."
The Wardens left like trained weather.
