Chap­ter XXVII brings a shift in atmos­phere, as a sim­ple desire for reflec­tion turns into some­thing more omi­nous. I had intend­ed only a qui­et walk with Taee, a soul whose youth made him eas­i­er to speak with than the dig­ni­fied elders of his kind. Yet even in that, the lines between our worlds refused to blur. My sug­ges­tion to revis­it the spot of my first descent was made with a calm curios­i­ty. Taee, unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly seri­ous, agreed with­out hes­i­ta­tion. His solemn nod told me some­thing unknown was begin­ning to stir beneath the calm.

As we stepped out­side the city’s grace­ful arch­es, the world felt eeri­ly tran­quil. We were met by a group of Gy-ei return­ing from the fields, their arms full of vivid blooms, their voic­es ris­ing in song. Their singing, melod­ic and effort­less, seemed to merge with the atmos­phere, as though the air itself had been taught to car­ry music instead of mere sound. They greet­ed us with a warmth both dis­arm­ing and ele­gant. Their man­ner toward me was not patron­iz­ing but gen­tly def­er­en­tial, treat­ing me not as alien, but as a guest of some esteem. Com­pared to the brash, flir­ta­tious airs com­mon in my home­land, their chival­ry felt odd­ly aris­to­crat­ic. Yet even in their sweet­ness, there was an unspo­ken bar­ri­er.

One among them stood out—Taee’s sis­ter, a fig­ure both strik­ing and com­posed, descend­ed with sud­den swift­ness from the sky. Her direct­ness star­tled me. She ques­tioned why I had not joined their gath­er­ings, her tone not cru­el, but pierc­ing in its hon­esty. I hes­i­tat­ed to answer, unsure how to nav­i­gate this social struc­ture that seemed at once inti­mate and dis­tant. But Taee respond­ed on my behalf, gen­tly cor­rect­ing her. His words were not harsh, but firm, remind­ing her of the bal­ance her sta­tion required. The cor­rec­tion, though minor, brought a blush to her cheek and a bowed head.

It was then that the tone of the day dark­ened. The chief mag­is­trate approached with­out a sound, and yet his pres­ence was unmis­tak­able. His face, calm and pale, held a gaze that seemed to strip the world of its soft­ness. There was no cru­el­ty in his eyes, yet some­thing more dan­ger­ous lingered—certainty. His appear­ance was not ran­dom. Though he smiled faint­ly, I felt the shad­ow of judg­ment pass through me. My blood cooled, my heart tight­ened, though no words were yet spo­ken. This was not just anoth­er encounter; it was a sum­mons in dis­guise.

His ener­gy was dif­fer­ent from the others—unhurried, almost holy. And in that moment, I under­stood how pow­er works in this world. It does not announce itself. It sim­ply arrives, and you under­stand its mean­ing with­out expla­na­tion. I had seen such con­fi­dence before in gen­er­als and kings, but here it came paired with some­thing deeper—a moral author­i­ty that claimed to answer not to peo­ple, but to prin­ci­ple. Stand­ing before him, I no longer felt like a vis­i­tor. I felt like a tres­pass­er.

Our ear­li­er joy now seemed like a dis­tant echo. The Gy-ei had gone silent. Even the air felt heav­ier. Though noth­ing explic­it was said, I knew some kind of deci­sion had been made, and I would soon feel its weight. Taee, for all his usu­al bright­ness, avoid­ed my gaze. His silence screamed loud­er than words. There are times when lan­guage becomes unnecessary—when the truth reveals itself by absence. This was one such moment.

Still, I tried to ratio­nal­ize what was hap­pen­ing. I told myself the chief’s appear­ance was coin­ci­dence. But deep down, that com­fort was hol­low. No step in this soci­ety is made with­out pur­pose. Even kind­ness is mea­sured. Even curios­i­ty is eval­u­at­ed. I had been stud­ied, judged, and now, pos­si­bly sentenced—though no charge had been made.

What made it more ter­ri­fy­ing was the civil­i­ty of it all. There would be no out­burst, no dra­mat­ic arrest, no shout­ing. If they were to act, it would be clean, final, and serene. I real­ized then that the most dan­ger­ous force is not chaos, but per­fect order. Chaos can be rea­soned with. But order, absolute and unmov­ing, allows no appeal.

In the moments that fol­lowed, I walked beside Taee with a still­ness I did not feel. My thoughts were rac­ing, but my feet moved on instinct. I did not know what lay ahead, only that the world I had wan­dered into had final­ly turned its gaze inward. What­ev­er patience they had shown, I now sensed its end approach­ing. And still, I held onto hope, thin and trem­bling as it was. Not for escape, but for under­stand­ing. Because to under­stand them—truly—might be the only way to sur­vive them.