NEVA POV
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The council summoned Sable Kael for formal judgment three weeks after the abduction, and the compound traveled once more to the chamber that had witnessed so much of this story's reckoning, this time carrying a complicated weight none of us had fully resolved among ourselves.
Ryke had argued, in the days leading up to the hearing, for the harshest possible outcome — his fear for Ren still raw enough that mercy felt, to him, like a luxury he couldn't afford to extend.
I understood his position completely. I also couldn't fully share it.
"She's dangerous," he said, the morning of the hearing, pulling on his jacket with more force than necessary. "Whatever her reasons, she took our daughter. I don't know how to stand in that chamber and ask for anything less than the full we
