A ripple passed through the benches. Whispers. One or two sharp breaths.
Celia's expression didn't shift. She continued.
"I have, actually... served as the Lord Palatine's adjutant in all but title these past two years. I have handled dock contracts, levies, arbitration of guild disputes, and the mediation of district labor strikes, without formal recognition, without ceremony, and, more often than not, without support from this chamber."
"And yet the city still functions."
She paced forward a single step.
"In accordance with administrative statute 7-A of the Imperial Palatinate Succession Ordinance, and per historical precedent as cited during the post-Winterfyre transition, a recognized direct heir of a Palatine may serve in interim stewardship when the ruling authority is deemed unable to execute the duties of their office."
She paused and let the words settle.
"That condition has now been met."
Another stir. Councilor Halver leaned forward, jaw clenched. Trade Prefect Aldwyn narrowed his eyes. No one interrupted.
"I claim no title... not today. I do not ask for a coronation. But I will no longer wait while this chamber gnaws itself to pieces over hypothetical succession. If this city is to endure, it must have a voice that speaks, a hand that signs, and a spine that holds."
"Until the Empire sees fit to name another, or until my father speaks for himself... I will act as steward of this city, in all but name."
She turned her gaze across the benches, unblinking, even.
"This is not a seizure. This is a recognition of fact. The Palatine's voice has fallen silent. Until it returns, you will hear mine."
She inclined her head once. Controlled. Regal.
"Those who object may register formal dissent in writing. All others may return to the business of keeping Varentis alive."
A heavy silence followed Celia's final words. Not awe, calculation. The kind of silence that weighed consequences before they took shape.
Then, from the Guild Tier, a figure rose.
Coucilor Vonn Lurell, compact and clean-shaven, his black robes embroidered with silver-threaded markers of civic judiciary. A known loyalist to Ilthor's grain bloc.
"And who confirmed this... that he no longer commands the seat?" Lurell asked, his voice pinched and precise. "No imperial physician. No oversight envoy from Basstadt. Just your word, Lady Varro? Are we to rewrite procedure now by personal sentiment?"
He stepped forward, arms clasped behind his back.
"You speak of tradition, of precedent. But even during the Winterfyre collapse, regencies were ratified. You cannot simply install yourself through implication and dare us to object afterward."
Celia did not respond.
The moment she didn't flinch, Lurell grew bolder.
"This is opportunism disguised as duty. An attempt to clothe ambition in stewardship. But the Council does not bend to suggestion, not even when it is delivered under the gaze of a walking Church weapon."
He nodded slightly toward Kael Draven, who hadn't moved an inch.
There was a hum of agreement from the southern benches.
Then Councilor Relven, tall and richly dressed in the muted tones of old money, stood with a smile like curdled cream.
"We've all heard whispers, Lady Varro," Relven said. "That your father hasn't written a decree in three weeks. That your steward speaks in his name, and your seal is pressed by trembling hands behind a locked door."
He turned, letting his voice drift lazily across the chamber.
"But now, we're to believe it's for our benefit that you've appeared? With no missive. No petition. Just a declaration, flanked by the Pale Blade like some figure from a saga?"
More murmurs. Uneasy ones.
"It looks less like governance," Relven added, "and more like a queen testing the size of her crown before the coffin's closed."
The jab landed. A few stifled laughs broke through, uncertain, brittle.
"And what of the garrison?" Lurell added sharply. "The Marshal hasn't left the barracks in a week. The night watch rotates irregularly. And yet you seem to move freely through the city with armed escort. Are we witnessing a smooth transition, or a veiled coup?"
A current passed through the floor, cold as a draft beneath stone.
Celia met Relven's gaze with the calm of a winter lake.
"The city does not pause while the Council searches for its reflection."
"No, but it does notice when a reflection starts issuing orders," Lurell snapped.
Celia's voice came like silk through glass.
"Would you rather wait until the reflection has you drowned?"
Before either could respond, Draven shifted.
A subtle motion, one hand resting lightly on the pommel of his sword. He didn't unsheathe it. He didn't speak. He simply reminded the room, in perfect stillness, what he was.
Silence again.
Sharper this time.
The stillness broke like thin ice.
Magistrate Lurell recovered first, drawing a rolled document from the sleeve of his robe with dramatic precision. He held it aloft like a priest offering scripture.
"Imperial Administrative Statute Forty-Nine, Subsection Three," he intoned. "In the event of contested authority within a Palatinate, no regency may be assumed without written confirmation from a designated Oversight Prefect or a majority quorum of the sitting council."
He unrolled the scroll, slapping it flat against the top of his bench. "We have no prefect. We have no quorum. Your declaration is null."
Celia's gaze flicked to the scroll in Lurell's hands, then back to his face. A slow, knowing smile curled at the edges of her lips.
"Ah. Of course."
Her voice was light, almost amused- but the words cut like a whetted blade.
"How fortunate that Magistrate Lurell keeps Imperial Statute Forty-Nine tucked in his sleeve at all times. One might wonder, was this document prepared for me? Or for whoever else might have dared step into this chamber today?"
A beat. The air in the hall thickened.
She turned, just slightly, addressing the room now, her tone shifting from mock admiration to something colder.
"While the good magistrate was busy drafting his rebuttals, who was approving the grain shipments? Who was negotiating with the Worker Guilds? Who was ensuring the Watch hadn't sold their boots for silver?"
Her fingers brushed the edge of the Speaker's pulpit, her voice dropping to a near whisper-but the silence in the chamber was so absolute it carried like a shout.
"This city is choking on its own bureaucracy. You debate precedents while the docks rot. You cite statutes while the gutters flood with blood. And now—" She gestured to Lurell's scroll.
"you reveal just how much effort you've put into fighting one another instead of fixing a damn thing."
A muscle twitched in Lurell's jaw.
Celia leaned forward, just enough to make the entire room lean with her.
"So by all means, Magistrate. Cite your statutes. Wave your scrolls. But ask yourself, when the riots reach these steps, when the first guild warehouse burns, when the people outside these doors finally decide they've had enough of your paperwork—"
Her smile vanished.
"who do you think they'll come for first?"
From the opposite side of the hall, Councilor Relven raised a gloved hand with that same infuriating calm.
"A stirring speech, Lady Varro," he said, his voice dripping with false sympathy.
"Truly, one might almost forget we govern by law rather than... emotional appeals." His fingers steepled before him. "But while your concern for the common folk is touching, the rule remains the rule."
"Furthermore… let us not forget Regulation Clause 12 of the Lang Concords, ratified after the Winterfyre collapse: 'No municipal transition shall be recognized if security assets are used to coerce or imply force during proceedings of civic determination.'"
He gestured toward Draven, his tone oily. "That armor may be Church-sanctioned, but it does not exempt him from the perception of intimidation."
There were nods from the middle benches—reluctant, but real.
Celia didn't blink. "How interesting that you cite coercion, Relven, when just last week three of your factory's warehouses mysteriously gained new ownership." Her head tilted slightly. "Tell me, was that paperwork also conveniently tucked in someone's sleeve?"
Relven's smile froze.
"The law you love so much," Celia continued, "also prohibits extralateral property transfers during succession crises. Or did your copy of the statutes omit that page?"
A beat of silence. Then, from the back benches, someone snorted. Relven's carefully maintained composure cracked just enough for Celia to press her advantage.
"You want to debate perception, Councilor? Then let's discuss how it looks when a man who hasn't set foot in the lower districts in a decade suddenly develops such passionate concern for procedural purity." Her smile turned razor-sharp.
Relven stood up and addressed the rest of the council, trying to find an advantage. "Perhaps we should call for an Inquest from the Viceroyalty of Blackmount. Let the Viceroy's Office of Regional Integrity send a delegation. If your claim is as stable as you say, Lady Varro, then surely—"
"The Viceroy," Celia cut in, her voice quiet but slicing, "is months from answering even a clear-cut heresy charge. You think they'll dispatch bureaucrats over the illness of a man not yet cold?"
Relven bristled.
"Besides," she added, "a delegation from the Viceroy would arrive with a Brightblood retinue and a dozen scribes. Would you care to explain to them why half your office's ledgers are written in ciphered merchant-code and not standard scriptum?"
A wave of restrained tension passed through the gallery. Several aides looked down at their tablets. One clerk began scribbling with a bit too much urgency.
Lurell sensing opportunity, jumped in. "Lady Varro makes a good point. Then perhaps you'd prefer Basstadt make the ruling."
That got the room's attention.
Basstadt. The capital of the Eastern Lang. Seat of imperial bureaucracy. Cold marble and colder laws. A place where decisions came wrapped in wax and ended in disappearances.
Celia tilted her head.
"Oh yes," she said, her voice edged with velvet, "let's summon the Audit Courts. I'm sure they'd love to pore over the canal restoration contracts from the last three cycles. Especially the ones signed by absent clerks or ghost firms routed through Grandmark all the way to Quillhaven."
Now even Lurrel faltered.
"How many of you still think Basstadt sends investigators?" Celia asked softly. "They send recordmen, and they don't knock."
The room shifted. Small movements. Some defensive, others curious.
Then, from the rear tier.
"Enough."
Chief Arbiter Malken Vos, the oldest sitting member of the Council, and a Brightblood of the Seventh Circle, stood slowly. His robes were dark brown, cut in the old style, severe, sharp, unadorned. A man from the pre-Newfyre era, kept on not for influence, but for memory.
"You lot fling statutes like knives and call it law. You speak of procedure, but only when it suits your standing. And now you—" Pointing towards Celia. "would drag the gaze of the Empire upon us like moths toward open flame."
His pale eyes staring at Celia.
"Lady Varro. The chamber does not accept your claim. But it cannot ignore it, either. Not until the Empire rules. Not until your father dies. Or names his own hand."
Then to the others.
"Until that time, we record her declaration."
He looked at Lurell. At Relven. Then finally at Yorr, the Speaker.
"And we return to the city's business. Before the city decides for us."
No one spoke.
Celia nodded once in acknowledgment, she remained at the front of the chamber, gazing across the benches.
"I offer continuity. Not ambition. I offer stable contracts. Regular levies. Food shipments, uninterrupted. Dock inspections, garrison rotations, magistrate pay, all handled as they have been these last months under my hand."
Then the edge crept in.
"But if anyone in this chamber, or outside of it, seeks to exploit this moment, to destabilize the city, to raise syndicates above law, to trade short-term profit for long-term ruin, know this: I will not let Varentis be ruled by cowards with coin or blades drawn in alleyways."
Her tone chilled.
"Work with me, and the city endures. Work against me, and you will learn that a dying Palatine can still cast a long shadow."
No applause followed.
Only the creak of a bench. The scratch of a stylus. The sound of unease pressed flat beneath ceremony.
Ilthor's seat remained empty. But his name passed through lips in quiet murmurs. His agents had listened. At least one scribe had jotted down every word she spoke. Another, a courier in a merchant's cloak, was already making for the exit.
Chief Arbiter Vos sat with eyes closed, hands folded.
Magistrate Lurell looked down at his parchment and no longer read aloud.
Celia turned.
She did not bow. She did not wait.
Her cloak caught the air as she descended from the pulpit, trailing behind her like the standard of a sovereign not yet crowned. Draven stepped into motion beside her, neither rushing nor waiting, his armored steps a steady drumbeat to her exit.
The doors parted once more.
The noise of the hall did not follow her out.
Outside, the wind curled through the stone portico like a living breath. The sky above Varentis was colorless, the sun choked by smog and mountain ash, yet bright enough to sting the eyes.
Kael spoke only once.
"You've stirred the nest, time to double your security before you end up with a knife between your ribs."
Celia didn't look at him.
"Good," she murmured. "Let the wasps wake, and… triple my security."
Kael chuckled as he opened the carriage door. "—my Lady."