The council chamber had never felt so large, or so cold, as it did the morning of the hearing.
Yuan had barely slept, arriving before dawn to find the chamber already being prepared — extra seating arranged along the walls for the officials who'd requested to witness the proceedings, the heavy formality of it all pressing down on him before a single word had even been spoken. He'd dressed carefully that morning, at Lei's insistence, in robes formal enough to suggest a man who took the proceedings seriously without appearing so anxious that his nerves alone might read as guilt to a watching court.
