Chapter 55 — The Weight of Being Heard
Elowen learned what it meant to be visible the morning after the amphitheater.
It began with silence.
Not the Hollowing's absence not the dangerous quiet that stripped intention and blurred the edges of thought but a human silence. A silence that rearranged itself around her. Conversations did not stop outright; they softened, bent, shifted key. Like music lowering when a door opens.
When she entered the eastern market, baskets of late pears and woven cloth lined the stalls as they always had. Bakers argued over grain prices. Children chased a hoop through the dust. Nothing was outwardly different except the way attention traveled.
Eyes found her. Stayed.
Some were warm, almost relieved. Others wary, calculating. A few sharp with resentment, as if her very presence accused them of something unnamed.
She felt it settle across her shoulders like a cloak she had never asked to wear and could not easily remove.
