The Council Chamber wasn't a room. It was a storm frozen in glass.
Luna stood at the edge of the voting floor, still wearing the same tunic she'd healed in—now patched with threads of starlight and moss. Her hands were steady, but her pulse hammered like a trapped bird. She hadn't slept since Kael's call. Scarlett's fever had spiked. The medics couldn't explain it. Only that her eyes… they'd gone gray around the edges.
And now this.
Above her, forty-seven crystalline balconies spiraled into a dome of shifting constellations. Each held a representative—one per civilization, chosen not by power, but by who'd been healed last. The ones Luna had touched directly.
She hadn't expected to see them again so soon.
"Order," boomed the central gavel—a sound like a black hole snapping shut.
The Presiding Consul, an androgynous figure wrapped in woven nebulae, floated to the center platform. Their voice echoed without amplification, dry as ancient parchment.
