The Weight of Yes
The Concord changed tactics the morning after the fractures became visible.
They stopped persuading and began agreeing.
Every proposal brought before the council was met with swift approval. No amendments. No objections. No conditions. Just a smooth, unsettling willingness that left the chamber quieter than dissent ever had.
"Yes," the envoy said, again and again, hands folded serenely. "Of course. That's reasonable."
The want recoiled.
Iria felt it immediately—the sharp, skittish tension of a trap snapping open rather than closed. People straightened in their seats, relief flickering across their faces before unease could catch up.
Too easy.
Kael leaned toward her. "They're letting you take the rope."
"Yes," Iria murmured. "And waiting for us to hang ourselves with it."
By noon, the council had passed three reforms that would have taken weeks under normal scrutiny. Citizens celebrated in the streets. Vendors offered free food. Someone began painting CHOICE across the old watchtower wall in silver ink.
Hope, Iria realized, was heavier than fear.
That afternoon, a delegation of guild leaders requested a private audience—with her alone.
The want around them buzzed with anticipation, tinged with desperation. When the doors closed, one of them spoke quickly.
"We need guarantees," she said. "Written ones. If this openness fails, if trade collapses, if violence returns—someone must be accountable."
Iria swallowed. "Accountable how?"
Silence.
Then another voice: "A central authority. Temporary. You."
The room tilted.
"I won't become what we just dismantled," Iria said quietly.
"You already are," someone replied, not unkindly. "You just don't command yet."
The want surged—relief, certainty, the seductive pull of finally letting someone else decide.
Iria stepped back as if burned.
"No," she said. "That's not choice. That's abdication."
Their disappointment cut sharper than anger. They left with stiff bows and careful distance.
That evening, Lumi found her standing on the ramparts, staring into the eternal night beyond the city.
"They asked you, didn't they," Lumi said.
"Yes."
"And you said no."
"Yes."
Lumi smiled faintly. "Good."
"You don't sound surprised."
"I watched Blake turn down a crown once," Lumi said. "It looks like this. Lonely. Necessary."
As if summoned, Blake joined them, resting his forearms on the stone.
"The Concord issued a statement," he said. "They're praising the council's decisiveness. Calling it a model of post-curse governance."
"That's not praise," Iria said. "That's ownership."
Later, alone again, Iria felt the want settle—not frantic now, but patient. It pressed with the certainty of something that knew it would be asked again.
She understood then.
Power didn't force yes.
It waited for exhaustion to do the work.
She sat at her desk and began drafting a countermeasure—not a decree, not a refusal, but a framework that fractured authority by design. Rotating oversight. Public dissent periods. Built-in delays that made unilateral action impossible.
It would slow everything.
People would hate it.
The want screamed.
Iria kept writing.
When dawnless morning came, she sealed the document and sent it to the council with a single note:
Choice weighs more when it cannot be set down.
As the city stirred, the Concord watched.
And for the first time since crossing the border into Noctyrrh, they hesitated.
Because Iria Vale had done the one thing their systems were not built to withstand.
She had said no—
and made it impossible for anyone else to say yes alone.