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The house was quiet except for the ticking of the clock and the faint drip of rain on the eaves. Emil sat at the table, the ledger open before him. Its newest page held Priya’s careful script: “Governance is a stake in the ground. Mercy, justice, and trust are what climb upon it.” He traced the words with his finger, wondering how long such a fragile thing could last.
Grandfather came in, carrying his cup of tea. He studied Emil’s face for a moment before sitting across from him.
“You are troubled,” he said.
Emil nodded. “We built something… but it feels delicate. Like a trellis in the wind. What if it breaks the first time it’s tested?”
Grandfather stirred his tea slowly, the spoon ringing soft against the cup.
“A trellis is never judged on the day it is raised,” he said. “It is judged on the day the storm bends it. That is when you see whether the joints hold, whether the stake is deep enough, whether the vines cling because they trust its strength.”
Emil frowned. “But what if the storm is too strong? What if people panic? They’ll demand punishment, quick answers, someone to blame. They won’t want patience.”
Grandfather’s eyes grew heavy with memory.
“That is the temptation of Absence Two—vengeance disguised as justice. The crowd will cry for fire. A leader who lives only in the present flame will give it to them, and in so doing, set the whole garden alight. But a keeper must remember: storms do not only test plants. They reveal roots. They show you which bonds are shallow and which are deep.”
Emil looked back at the ledger. “So the test isn’t just whether our rules work. It’s whether we can hold steady when everyone else wants to burn.”
Grandfather nodded. “Exactly. A trellis is not built to stop the wind. It is built to give the vine something to cling to through the wind. Your Accord is not meant to silence storms. It is meant to teach your people how to bend without breaking.”
The rain outside deepened, tapping harder on the panes. Emil sat with the thought, the weight of what lay ahead pressing on him. For the first time he understood: the storm was not something to be feared, but something necessary—without it, they would never know if their trellis could truly stand.
Later that night, lying awake, Emil turned the words over again. The storm, he realized, was not far away. It might come tomorrow, or next week, but it was coming. He thought of classmates quick to anger, of parents who demanded swift punishment, of Marco watching for cracks with his mocking smile. The trellis they had raised looked thin against such forces.
And yet, as he stared at his soil-stained hands, another thought rooted itself: the trellis was not the wood or the joints alone. It was also the trust that had been bound into it—the mercy Lara had shown Ben, the patience Mateo had offered Sofia, the record Priya had written into the ledger. Those bonds were deeper than he had realized.
The storm would shake them, yes. It might even snap branches. But if they held true to the purpose of the Accord, perhaps the storm would not destroy them. Perhaps it would show them what they truly were.
For the first time, Emil did not dread the storm. He braced for it.