"Testimony from survivors who saw Faith operatives at the site." I'm running on the bitter satisfaction of watching a powerful man realize he's fucked. "Survivors you didn't manage to round up before they talked."
The High Priest's face doesn't change, but his hands drop to his sides, a muscle jumping near his temple.
"Forgeries," he says. "Discord fabrications designed to—"
"The seals are yours." I cut him off. "Your cipher. Your signature authorizations. Your handwriting on the margin notes. Unless you're going to tell this crowd that someone forged your handwriting so perfectly that your own archivists confirmed it?"
I tilt my head. The angle feels familiar, but I don't think about why.
"Go ahead. Try that one. I'll wait."
No one speaks. Then, from somewhere in the crowd—
"Is it true?"
A woman's voice, demanding.
"My son was in that compound," someone else calls. "You're saying Faith—"
"This is a Discord deception—" The High Priest's voice rises, but he's losing them. I can see it in the way the crowd shifts, leaning toward each other, toward us, away from him.
The sheep are looking at their shepherd and noticing the blood on his teeth. It's a beautiful thing, really.
"Show us the documents!"
"Let us see—"
"What about the witness? What did he see?"
The witness on the platform is crying openly now, tears cutting tracks through the grime on his face, his bound hands shaking.
"I saw them." His voice comes out cracked, but it carries. "I saw—I saw Faith priests. At the compound. Before it—before—"
"Silence him!" The High Priest's composure breaks. "He's contaminated, he doesn't know what he—"
"He knows what he saw." Koshin's voice slides through the chaos.
The guards have stopped moving. The crowd is pressing forward. Coin's delegation hasn't shifted, but their attention has—focused now, reassessing, figuring out which way to jump. Coin to the end.
And my father is staring at me with an expression I've never seen on his face before. Not anger. Not calculation. Fear. Actual fear.
Good.
Seris still can't look at me. Not with him right there.
That hurts worse than standing in this plaza performing competence while my body tries to fold. But right now there's a man to save and a House to destroy and a sister to get back.
The High Priest draws himself up for one more attempt. "This proceeding is sanctioned—"
"Come here."
Two words. Koshin's voice, stripped of everything but command.
The plaza goes quiet.
The High Priest's face drains of color. His eyes dart—guards, Coin, crowd—looking for anyone willing to step between him and the god walking toward his platform.
No one moves.
