"Saint Julian, please, we beg of you to reconsider," Pope Clement stepped forward, his silver robes dragging in the dust, his hands clasped together in a desperate plea. "The capital... The entire Empire needs your guidance. With the baseline divinity wide open, you could lead the Church into a golden age of unprecedented purity. The council is fully prepared to abdicate all structural authority to you."
"I have already made my mind up, Your Holiness," Julian stated calmly, his scholar's cadence returning with an absolute, unyielding clarity that brook no further argument.
He smoothed down the front of his blue robes, his posture perfectly elegant.
"I am a scholar, and my place is in the North, tutoring the future of the Viremount Empire. I have no desire to sit on a golden throne in a city built on manufactured discipline."
The elders shifted nervously, their heads deeply bowed, completely cowering under the weight of his refusal.
