The antechamber's doors groaned as their hinges swung outward, revealing the council floor. It was a practical, stark space of bare stone lit by smoky torches. No tapestries softened the echoes, no cushions padded the seats. This was no place for pomp, especially at this ungodly hour when most of the town slumbered.

Rhiannon strode in first, chin lifted, shoulders squared in the imperious stance she'd worn as overseer. Behind her, Wyatt kept close, fingers wrapped around his coil of reed rope like a talisman. Beside them, Roddick's hands were clasped tightly behind his back, knuckles bone white.

Veyran rode on Rhiannon's shoulder, his weight barely perceptible through her jacket, yet somehow anchoring her resolve.

The council sat in a tense half-circle, some with hardened scowls, others slouched in boredom. But Head Councilor Regan's gaze pierced like a blade, her eyes narrowed against the urge to snap, or scream, in frustration.

She leaned forward slightly, her fingers drumming an impatient rhythm on the armrest, betraying the cracks in the council's united front. "State your purpose," the head councilor commanded.

Rhiannon didn't bow. To bend now would make a mockery of the weight she had carried, and was striving to shed

"We seek to end the taking of kobold eggs. To shutter the Barn, return every captive to their kin, and forge a true compact with both the Shy and kobolds that acknowledges what we should have seen from the beginning. That they are people, not resources to be exploited."

She let her words settle before adding, "Only through these actions can we save our town from becoming something none of us can live with. Only then can we redeem Greyhold's sins."

A murmur rose from the gallery, buzzing with notes of surprise and indignation.

"Pending proper inquiry," interjected the councilor who had first met with them, "all of you are to be held in custody until—"

"No." Rhiannon's voice rang out, unyielding. "You'll hear us now, while the scars of the truth are still fresh upon the land. Before hearsay hardens into testimony that brands us all as monsters."

The gallery pressed forward. Even in the torchlight, she could see their need to make sense of the recent chaos.

Regan studied her, then nodded curtly. "Speak, then. And understand that every word here becomes part of the official record."

Rhiannon felt Veyran's hand touch her neck, the gesture boosting her certainty in what was about to be shared. "That," she replied, "is exactly what we're counting on."

She stepped back, creating a space. "Wyatt…"

The boy swallowed, a hard lump caught in his throat. He closed his eyes for a moment, finding courage in his memories of the tiny, trusting faces of the Shy children who had called him friend. He held onto that image as he stepped into the circle of judgement.

When Wyatt began to speak, his voice was steady, despite his knees knocking together.

"They told me that working at the compound would help my family, and the town," he said to the assembled faces. "Put food on our table, money in our pockets. They told me not to think too much about how we were treating the Shy and kobolds. Not to think of them like… people, or even pets. To ignore their cries when we punished or overworked them."

A councilor shifted uncomfortably. Someone in the gallery drew a sharp breath.

Wyatt's hands moved to the rope he'd braided from river reeds, holding it like evidence. "I tried looking the other way. But I saw… everything anyway. And I helped… other people do bad things… because I was told that's what I had to do, that it was important work."

He tugged at the reeds, the rope snapping in his fingers, the muffled sound somehow filling the chamber.

"I saw how we… got used to the bad things we did by doing them everyday, over and over, until it felt… normal." Wyatt lifted his chin, meeting eyes that wanted to look away. "That's the truth of what happened here at the compound."

"So what would you have the council do, lad?" pressed the chair, who turned out to be the second councilor who fetched them.

"I ask you…" his voice cracked slightly, then found its strength again, "I ask that we stop doing bad things. Forcing people to work for us, just to make money. Taking away their lives, their… little ones, without giving them a choice. I know I'm just a boy but…" Suddenly at a loss for words, he looked at Rhiannon, then Roddick, to help continue the story.

Roddick nodded and patted Wyatt's head as he stepped forward. With deliberate care, he unpinned his guard badge and placed it on the dais, as if setting down a burden he'd carried for too long. He didn't even make eye contact with the councilors, letting his gesture speak for itself.

The chair leaned back, steepling his fingers, his neutral mask slipping just enough to reveal a flicker of regret.

Veyran climbed down from Rhiannon's shoulder, using her arm as a bridge to walk up to the council's rail with measured steps. He ascended until he could meet the room's gaze, a small figure seizing the space in a chamber built for much larger bodies.

Torchlight carved his features into sharp relief, highlighting the spirit that had carried him through capture, imprisonment, and now this moment of reckoning.

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"I am Veyran," he began, his voice carrying clearly despite its softer pitch. "I speak for my fellow people who you've enslaved and exploited. We call ourselves the Shy, and we are here to demand what should never have been called into question—our recognition as people."

He let his gaze travel from face to face, his tone remaining conversational despite the gravity of his words. "We demand the end to our capture, the dismantling of all traps and trappers' camps. The establishment of protocols governing our interactions, where consent precedes cooperation, and trade replaces theft."

Someone in the gallery scoffed audibly, the sound sharp enough to turn heads and draw glares.

"You have tried using what we Shy call arclith shards, without truly understanding what they are," Veyran continued, his voice taking on a scholarly precision that commanded attention. "Each clumsy attempt only wastes their energy, leaving you no closer to finding useful applications fit for your scale. If you continue this approach, you will eventually exhaust the limited supply without ever having profited."

Several councilors stilled at that, eyes narrowing, trying to lean forward without being obvious about it.

"The compact we propose is simple," he said, stepping back from the rail but maintaining his authoritative posture. "Fair exchange for mutual benefit. In return for peace and protection, we offer knowledge that could revolutionize your industries. Together we can help rather than harm, build rather than break."

He paused, letting the offer settle. "But first, you must leave the region surrounding the caldera alone. Permanently."

Head Councilor Regan's lips thinned, her expression now clearly pained.

One of the older councilors reached for his gavel, clearly intending to restore what he saw as proper order. Rhiannon moved faster, reaching into her satchel and placing a velvet pouch on the dais with calculated flair.

She loosened the clasp keeping it closed, revealing its contents. Nestled in the velvet were pieces of arclith, shards to the Shy, mere slivers to the humans. Some had grown cloudy with spent energy, others showing hairline cracks.

"These meager fragments are all we've collected from our efforts through the years," Rhiannon said, her voice cutting through the chamber's hush. "A paltry haul compared to what a true partnership with the Shy could offer."

The silence thickened, broken only by shifting feet. Rhiannon leaned into the pause, letting the weight of evidence speak before outlining their proposal in words.

"Three motions for your immediate approval," she said finally, playing up to the more moderate councilors whose rigid postures had begun to soften. "First, suspend all compound operations, until we've come to a firm agreement. Second, release all the Greyhold kobolds to their kin. Third, begin negotiations for the binding compact between our peoples."

She stepped back, letting her words sink in. "The choice is yours. But know that the truth of what happened here will survive whatever you decide tonight. Choose to be remembered as enlightened liberators, not as stubborn slavers."

Vikka approached the Barn's perimeter under cover of the wall, where years of weather had worn away at the mortar. Two humans were waiting in the shadows.

One was the familiar bulk of Garrett, who was crouched behind a rain barrel, his attention split between watching out for patrols and Vikka. The other human, much smaller appeared female, as best as Vikka could make out.

"There you are," Garrett whispered upon catching sight of her. "What's the plan? We go in, we get them, we get out?"

"You can leave it to me," Vikka cut him off firmly. "Go back to your son. You're too big to be helpful"

He opened his mouth to argue. She squeezed his arm, a gesture that came off more as a dismissal than a reassurance. Garrett shrugged and turned to his companion, who had already turned back into the shadows.

Back inside the perimeter, Vikka sought her sisters out using her sense of smell, but the barn carried different scents from what she remembered. The straw had gone moldy from too much moisture. The metallic tang of iron or, was it something else? Vikka paused by the side entrance and tapped an old kobold cradlesong's tempo against the wooden sill: soft-soft-soft, pause, hard, soft…

It took a few repetitions, but an answer eventually came from within, fainter and more hesitant, but unmistakably the same rhythm.

She let her breath out. At least one sister still inside wasn't completely conditioned.

The guard at the corner post had already fallen asleep on his stool, snoring loudly with his chin tucked into his chest, his spear leaning against the wall just out of easy reach. Vikka had wiggled her way just past him, then decided to double back and gently shift his helmet visor down over his eyes. A risky move that might buy them precious seconds later.

The door bolt slid out with barely a sound. Slipping in, Vikka came upon rows of low partitions and the quiet sounds of her kin, the soft rustle of their bodies trying to find comfort on the rough hay.

Grilsha stood beside her makeshift throne—a wicker chair that was cluttered with the small tokens of her privilege that she'd gathered like armor against any doubters. She had braided ribbons all around both the wicker slats and the horn-spikes on her head in an effort to make either look more regal than they truly were. But it came off as more costume than crown.

"Vikka," she spat out the name like a piece of gristle stuck between her teeth. "Nice to see the humans managed to drag you back. Oh, be a dear little kobold-in-waiting and remind them that we'll need thicker bedding. It's been getting rather chilly in the morning. And if they could please keep the noise down from all that construction work. I don't see how anything would be worth putting up with all that racket—"

"It's over, Grilsha," Vikka said simply. "We have the humans' overseer on our side now. And she's telling their council to tear this twisted place down."

"Prove it," the corpulent kobold huffed. "I don't believe you even got to meet her…"

Vikka held up a fist-sized lump of hardened clay into which an impression of Rhiannon's seal had been embedded, with a sliver of arclith glowing from its center for good measure.

Cowed by the emblem, Grilsha's claws clutched at the string of beads around her neck, seeking solace in what they symbolized. "They… they said if I kept everyone calm," she stammered. "If I… kept the eggs coming..." Her gaze dropped to the floor, voice dropped to a whisper. "They said we could earn our way to something better. That this was a temporary nest. That they would help us build our own cradle..."

"I've noticed how the humans tend to make hollow promises, craft plans for their own gains," Vikka agreed, her tone carrying no comfort. "But you would never really be part of them."

She turned her tail towards Grilsha, heading to where her sisters were confined. "I've come for the others. All who choose to, can leave with me. You may join us and face what comes, or you can stay here and explain to your own conscience how well you managed their lies."

A low sound rose from one of the pens, the sound of grief held too long in the throat. "My egg! It was my first one!"

Another kobold shushed the mourner softly. "Not now."

Grilsha's chin trembled as she snapped the string around her neck, a few beads scattering on the floor next to her feet. She flicked them away with a claw, as if their proximity caused pain.

Vikka kicked the baubles in her path to the sides, moving quickly to the first partition to lift the latch herself. A kobold stepped out, then another, then finally a sister carrying a freshly laid egg.

Vikka didn't need to explain what was happening. The very sight of her symbolized escape to those they left behind the last time.

The barn began to hum with hatching songs. The shared, sincere music releasing real emotions of siblinghood and solidarity, finally breaking the dam of feigned pomp and pecking order that had been keeping them at bay.

"Do you need me to…" Grilsha began.

"No, we don't need you," Vikka said, not unkindly but with absolute finality.

The barn began to empty out, the kobolds exiting nervously at first, then with growing excitement. Grilsha crumpled into the space behind her throne. She watched familiar feet pass through the gaps between the wicker and ribbons, familiar faces she'd tried to cajole and control, but now she couldn't even meet their eyes.

She was still lying there, curled up like a stunted hatchling stuck in a dud egg, when the last of the captured kobolds crawled out of the barn, leaving her alone with her trinkets and lies.

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