Snow dusted Riverbend's colonnades as delegates arrived for the symposium—monks in brown homespun, physician-matrons in white, forge-priests from the northern smelteries whose liturgies blended scripture with metallurgical chants.
The opening address fell to Sister Calliane, a scholar-nun whose ink-black habit was patched from a life among archives. She held aloft a lantern powered by Sharath's mana-battery. "Light once came only with dawn," she intoned. "Would any here curse the candle for revealing scripture at midnight?" Murmurs rippled—some thoughtful, some wary.
Over three days they debated: could wheels turn without outrunning humility? Could presses spread heresy as easily as gospel? Sharath spoke sparingly, letting teachers describe how rolling academies raised literacy, letting midwives recount lives saved by midnight rides.
Yet outside the hall, Aldric's envoys whispered counter-sermons. Pamphlets sketched apocalyptic images of broken pews and idle horses, claiming the road tolls were a "tax on piety." A forged letter, "signed" by Sharath, proposed nationalizing monasteries—a blatant lie that nonetheless spread like frost across courtyards.
Elina confronted a pamphleteer, her voice slicing the cold. "Spread falsehood again and you'll answer before the Royal Tribune." The man fled, leaving prints the snow soon erased—but the slander lingered.
On the symposium's final dusk, a hooded assassin slipped into the candlelit nave. Sister Calliane saw only the glint of a dagger—until a cycle messenger barreled through a side door, tackling the intruder before steel found flesh. The crowd gasped; the messenger, breathless, unfurled a royal warrant exposing Aldric's network of paid agitators.
Symposium delegates departed convinced: opposition had traded honest doubt for deceit. Letters supporting Sharath's reforms left by courier at dawn, racing synod-bound ahead of Wintertide.
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