The silence that followed Finnian's words was not the quiet of a debate won or lost, but the profound, humming stillness of a truth being absorbed. It was not a thing to be agreed with, but a thing to be felt. The fire crackled, a mundane, countable sound in the uncountable night.
Kaelen did not leave. He did not concede. He merely watched Finnian with a new, unsettling intensity, as if he were a complex equation that had just rearranged itself into a form he'd never before considered. The challenge had shifted. It was no longer about proving the Shard's existence or power; it was about understanding the nature of the proof itself.
