CHAPTER 415: IF HE INSISTS, THEN WE WILL MAKE HIM PAY IN INTEREST

He touched the rim of the projection, and the image shifted. It didn’t show banners or soldiers, no grand histories carved in flame or steel.

What rose instead was simple: a line of cattle moving slowly across a plain, heads lowered, a single figure walking behind them with a staff in hand.

He tapped once, and the line curved, almost forming a circle, but it left a gap. Circles in the void never closed unless they wanted to, and this one chose not to.

"We are not a clan born to take," he said quietly. His voice wasn’t meant to impress; it was plain, deliberate, steady.

"We are born to stand. Our people count their days by roofs that do not leak, meals that do not fail, and mornings that arrive without disaster.

We are not famous for soldiers and have never asked to be. What we are known for is endurance—quiet, steady, sometimes ignored, but never absent.

For mornings after storms, for families who wake and still find their homes standing. Our elders pass breath along the line, not through conquest but through keeping.

It makes us slow to change and hard to move. But when we lean, we lean rarely, and never in surprise. Those who shout and make noise forget that silence has its own kind of weight."

Mariel’s voice joined his without cutting across him, the sound of someone used to carrying alongside rather than over.

"Because we do not chase, we make a good wall," she said simply. "When others are tired of blood, they invite us to stand between them.

We do not love politics. We love crops that do not fail. It sounds plain, but plain things are what stop the void from collapsing in on itself.

When a god bends the balance too far for too long, when the weight tips where it should not, we put our shoulders under the beam.

And we do not put our names on the work. We only make sure the beam does not break."

The director nodded once, his face steady, his eyes sharp. He had grown up around men who thought endurance was weakness, who spat the word as though patience and strength could not live in the same body.

Once, he had believed them. Not anymore. "You came because you smelled rot," he said. His voice carried no challenge, only recognition.

"And because you do not want to spend the next hundred years patching roofs while the world crumbles beneath them."

Taaros leaned closer, both hands braced against the table, the gold in his eyes catching the glow of the map.

His voice hardened, not loud but carrying like a hammer strike. "We came because if your trap holds, we will not need to set our backs against anything here. Balance will remain where it belongs.

But if it fails, the tilt begins. And when the tilt begins, others will test the edges of the scale. Which way we lean depends not on your speeches but on what your hands prove."

Mariel’s gaze found his. Her face was softer than the room deserved, but her steadiness left no room for doubt.

"If the other races stir," she said, "we will deal with them. Not for flags, not for pride, not for names on banners.

For the whole. For the mornings that must not break. The beast clans will rush at the smell of blood.

The elven houses will sing their old songs just to remind one another who remembers best.

The fallen cults will chase shadows and call them paths until they collapse in their own hunger. We will not let them set the rhythm. Their noise will not decide the dance."

Her words lingered as the map hummed faintly, its projections glowing across the room. The director pressed his fingers once against the desk, not tapping, not restless, but grounding himself, steadying the thought that had already begun to root inside him.

Outside, the city still pretended to sleep. The towers leaned in silence, and the streets held their breath.

The wards wrapped around the mansion purred softly like cats pleased with themselves.

But inside this room, three breaths mingled above the table, and with them came the weight of decisions that would tilt far more than one city.

The director let them speak, and he listened, but he did not let their calm drown his own edge.

He respected them, as well as the long weight of neutral pillars that stood their ground and kept the roof upright when others burned it down.

But he also knew their nature, and the iron taste of that truth was familiar on his tongue. They would hold the line.

They would not crush the problem outright. They would steady it while others worked. It wasn’t weakness, and he didn’t hate them for it.

He didn’t have the time or the luxury to waste on hate. He only made space for the knowledge and kept it from filling the room.

He thought of Sera, her sharp eyes and sharper will, how she would walk into the gate because she said she would and because others would walk behind her, whether she asked them to or not.

He thought of how he would never say her name in meetings like this, never risk it. Names traded like coins in rooms where candles burned too late.

He thought of her, and the thought didn’t soften him. It cooled him.

"If we get him to spend, we win," he said finally. His tone was clipped, certain. "We will not let him spend time on the exam if we can help with it.

If he insists, then we will make him pay interest."

Taaros’s mouth tugged faintly, the ghost of a smile that was closer to approval than amusement.

"Good," he said. He set both hands flat on the table, his weight pressing evenly.

The reinforced tile beneath his boots gave a faint sound, not a crack, not a groan, but like a floor remembering the winter it had once carried more than it should and still held firm.

"We are not here to lend you glory. We are here to make sure the scale does not break when you step on it."