Gareth watched Anya step down from the dais.
The applause washed over her. It was warm. Genuine. He saw faces in the crowd, hardened faces he hadn't seen smile in years, now softened with something dangerously close to hope.
She did it. She actually reached them.
His own presentation felt like a lifetime ago. All cold data and sharp logic. He'd shown them charts of survival. Anya had shown them a… a feeling.
And for a terrifying moment, he felt it too.
The warmth of the hall seemed to seep into his bones. He remembered the young man in the old photograph on Bren's desk. The one with the bright eyes and the unshakable belief that the world could be fair.
I used to sound like that. I used to believe that.
The memory was a ghost, a flicker of a forgotten self. It was a dangerous ghost. It whispered that maybe, just maybe, he was wrong.
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But then another memory surfaced. Colder. Heavier.
The biting wind of a winter street. The sound of crying children huddled under frost-stiffened blankets. The hollow look in a good man's eyes as he watched his family get evicted.
Principles don't fill empty bellies.
The cold of that memory anchored him. It froze the warmth Anya had kindled.
Fear settled in his gut. Not fear of losing the vote. Fear of what would happen if she won. Fear of watching it all happen again.
He looked at the hopeful faces in the crowd.
They don't remember. They've never had to choose between their soul and someone's supper.
He had. The choice had scarred him forever.
He stood up. The movement felt slow, as if he were pushing through deep water.
The murmuring in the hall died down. All eyes turned to him.
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"Twenty years ago," he began.
His voice was quiet. It wasn't the polished, projected tone he'd used before. This was raw. Stripped bare.
He didn't look at the crowd. He looked at his hands, resting on the table. He willed them to be still.
"I believed every single word Anya just said."
He forced himself to look up. He met the gaze of an older weaver in the front row. A man who might remember.
"We held a strike at the Aethelgard Forge. We refused to compromise. We had principles."
He paused. The silence in the hall was absolute. You could hear the dust motes dancing in the sunbeams.
"We were so proud of our stand."
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His throat felt tight. The memory was a physical weight on his chest.
"Three families lost their homes."
He heard a sharp intake of breath from somewhere in the room.
"A man I knew… a good man, a principled man… he couldn't feed his daughter."
The image was crystal clear. A little girl, no more than five, her face pinched and pale.
"She cried. Every night. I heard it through the wall."
His voice cracked on the last word. He didn't try to hide it. Let them hear it. Let them hear the cost.
"I swore to myself, right then and there. I swore I'd never let that happen again. Not to anyone under my watch."
He looked directly at Anya now. Her face was pale, but her gaze was steady.
"I'd rather compromise my soul," he said, each word deliberate, "than watch children cry because their parents were too principled to survive."
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A low murmur rippled through the hall. He saw nods. He saw people looking down at their hands. He had thrown the cold water of reality on Anya's beautiful fire.
"Your foundation is beautiful, Anya," he said, and he meant it. "It truly is."
He spread his hands, a helpless gesture.
"But can it feed those children? Can it pay the rent when the corporate foundries undercut our prices by half? Can it survive when they decide to crush us for getting in their way?"
He leaned forward, his knuckles white on the table.
"Power is ugly. Consolidation is cold. I know that. But it works."
He took a shaky breath. This was the heart of it. The terrible, unavoidable question.
"Can you promise me your way works? Can you look me in the eye and promise me that no one will starve while we try to build your beautiful foundation?"
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The question hung in the air, stark and brutal.
Anya didn't flinch. But he saw the doubt flicker in her eyes. The same doubt that had lived in his own heart for two decades.
She couldn't promise that. No one could.
The room was deeply unsettled. He could feel it. He hadn't given them a rousing speech. He'd given them a nightmare from the past. He'd forced them to choose between a beautiful dream and a safe, if ugly, reality.
The arbiter, an elderly woman named Elara, cleared her throat.
"This concludes the opening statements," she announced. Her voice was weary. "The arbitration council will now convene. We will reconvene in one hour for the final vote."
The gavel came down. The sound was like a bone snapping.
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Garth sat down. The adrenaline drained from him, leaving him feeling hollow. Empty.
He had done it. He had thrown Bren's failure, his own deepest shame, onto the table like a weapon. And it had worked.
He watched Anya. She was surrounded by a small group of supporters—Leo, Kai, Mira from the potters. They were talking in low, urgent voices.
She looked… diminished. The brilliant light she'd carried during her speech was banked, shadowed by the hard question he'd asked.
I had to. I had to make them see.
But the victory tasted like ash.
He had not just attacked her argument. He had attacked her hope. He had forced her to confront the very same terror that had defined his entire adult life.
He saw Bren standing alone near the back exit. Their eyes met across the crowded hall.
Bren's expression was unreadable. There was no approval. No condemnation. Just a profound, bottomless sadness.
He knows. He knows the price of the path I've chosen.
He knows the price of hers, too.
Gareth looked away. The hour of waiting stretched before him, an eternity.
He had won the battle of words. But as he watched the divided, anxious guild, he wondered if there was anything left to win at all.