Days passed.
Selvarad wore its pride like an old, rotting cloak.
The nobles, fattened by flattery, dismissed the whisper of strange omens.
The common folk, ground under law and levy, muttered but did not move.
The Sovereign moved through it all as a shadow wrapped in plain cloth —
the unknown, unwelcomed tide at the edge of a stagnant lake.
And then, the cracks began.
It started with the lowborn.
The forgotten ones, those who had heard "Remember your worth,"
began to gather.
They spoke in hushed tones of dignity, of the ancient right to be human.
An old mother, beaten for selling bread, stood back up — and others stood with her.
A boy, half-starved, refused the soldier's lash — and others lifted him.
Not with violence.
Not with rebellion.
But with the quiet, terrifying strength of those who remember they were never meant to kneel.
The Sovereign, standing atop a shattered fountain, unseen by all, spoke quietly to the wind:
["A single star in the night sky calls forth a thousand more from the darkness."]
---
The court, in its towers of silk and lies, felt it too.
A tremor in the wine cups.
A hesitation in the laughter.
A growing silence between the words of ministers.
The letter — "The tree that shades the mighty is fed by the blood of the unseen roots" —
became a poison in their dreams.
Some plotted greater cruelties to silence the murmurs.
Some spoke of reforms, but only as tools to strengthen their own thrones.
And some, very few, truly began to understand.
That no crown sat safe when the roots beneath it began to rot.
["Fear forces a man to build higher walls," the Sovereign whispered, unseen, "but wisdom teaches him to open his gates."]
---
At the crossroads, the old mason laid his stone.
Bruised, bleeding, he worked alone.
Children threw refuse at him.
The guards mocked him.
Yet still, without hatred, without pride, he set each stone with trembling hands.
A monument no one asked for.
A foundation for something no one yet understood.
["Strength is not measured by the battles fought," the Sovereign spoke aloud to the empty square, "but by the battles one endures without witness."]
Some among the lowest had begun to leave water for the mason.
A loaf of bread appeared at his side one morning.
A child brushed the dust from his stones.
Small kindnesses.
Small lights.
Yet even the smallest light can split a world of darkness.
---
By night, when the city slept,
the Sovereign would sit atop the half-formed monument, looking at the stars —
not as a king, not as a god,
but as a man who bore the endless sorrow of knowledge.
And in that quiet, ancient voice that no wall could silence, he spoke:
["The greatest victories are not sung by minstrels nor etched into stone. They are the unseen wars fought within the hearts of men."]
And Selvarad — proud Selvarad —
shifted, unseen, upon its own buried fault lines.
The Sovereign simply waited.