The chamber was silent for a longer interval than it had been after Valeria's filing.
I held the lectern's reading rail and waited. The patriarchal voice had — delivered. The body had carried it. I had not over-rehearsed. I had read the names slowly because each name had earned a beat. The drawing's words had landed at the close because the drawing had earned that line. The body had located Liora at the line of sight and had spoken to her as much as to the chamber, which had been the discipline the matriarch letter had taught and which the body had now applied at scale.
The silence held for approximately fifty seconds.
