Passing the Weight
The first responsibility Iria let go of felt small.
Almost insultingly so.
A dispute over lantern oil distribution—minor shortages, uneven pricing, accusations of favoritism. The kind of issue she would have resolved in a single meeting, clean and quiet.
Instead, she didn't touch it.
She routed it to three mediators, none of whom had worked together before, and instructed them only to document the process, not the outcome.
The want flared—irritated.
Power hated inefficiency.
The mediators struggled. They argued with each other. They nearly asked Iria to intervene twice. The process took four cycles longer than it needed to.
And when it ended, the solution was imperfect but owned.
Iria read the report carefully, then archived it without comment.
The second responsibility she released was harder.
A border incident. No violence, but a tense standoff between two settlements over patrol authority. Kael brought it to her personally.
"They're expecting your voice," he said.
"I know."
"And you're going to…?"
"Stand behind theirs."
She attended the meeting—but sat at the edge of the room, silent. When eyes turned toward her, she looked down. When her name was spoken, she did not answer.
The want surged, confused and angry.
Eventually, the settlements spoke to each other.
They reached an agreement that Iria would never have drafted—messy, conditional, full of escape clauses.
It held.
Word spread quickly.
Some called it abdication. Others called it wisdom. Most just called it strange.
"You're becoming harder to find," Lumi observed one night as Iria declined yet another request for direct intervention.
"I'm becoming less necessary," Iria replied.
"That's not the same thing."
"No," Iria agreed. "But it's close."
The weight shifted—not vanishing, but redistributing. Mediators grew steadier. Councils learned when to decide and when to wait. The city began to fail in smaller, more recoverable ways.
The want adapted, stretching thinner, less focused on Iria alone.
She felt lighter—and lonelier.
On a quiet rooftop, Kael asked, "Do you miss it?"
She didn't pretend not to know what he meant.
"Yes," she said. "The clarity. Being the last answer."
"And now?"
"Now I'm one voice among many."
He watched her carefully. "That scares you."
"Yes."
He smiled, gentle. "Good."
Passing the weight wasn't clean. It wasn't celebrated.
But each time Iria stepped back and the city didn't collapse, something fundamental rewired itself.
Noctyrrh was learning not just how to choose—
but how to carry the choice, together, without leaning on a single set of hands.
And Iria, standing just off-center now, felt the strange ache of growth—
the pain of becoming something that no longer fit entirely where it began.