The words hung in the stale, recycled air of the library like a physical weight, cold and immovable.
It shall all be fixed. It was a phrase of such simple, terrifying utility that it seemed to hollow out the room as soon as Soren spoke it.
The silence that followed was not uniform. Each person occupied it differently, their minds racing down diverging paths toward a truth that only one of them actually possessed.
Ellyn's pen had stopped mid-word, a blot of ink blooming on the parchment like a bruise.
Aldwin's face was a map of deep, calculated lines as he turned the phrase over in his mind, finding no clean edge to grip.
Soren looked between them, his confusion raw and jagged. He was a man of action, of steel and strategy, and he was searching for a frame that could hold such an abstract promise.
"Fixed," Soren repeated, the word sounding like a curse. "What does that mean? Fixed how? Fixed from what? Is the world broken? Is the sky falling? He spoke as if we were… errors."
