Amberine's eyes are wide, angry and awed at once. Elara's expression is composed, but her hands betray her. Maris watches like she's remembering an old debt.
I don't acknowledge them.
Not on this stage.
But I register them. I always do.
"Now," I say, and the single word is a hinge. "We return to the part you interrupted."
A faint ripple of discomfort. A few nobles glance toward Halric as if to see whether he will stand again. He doesn't.
"Harmony between chaos and necromancy," I continue. "The phrase offends you because you were taught that naming a thing is the same as approving it."
I lift two fingers. The air above the podium folds and the currents reappear—not as spectacle, but as a stripped model: one black-violet lattice of memory, one wild band of variability.
"Chaos," I say, "is unbounded variability. Not moral. Not spiritual. A behavior."
A thin line of turbulence twists into existence, changing shape twice before the audience can settle their eyes.
