Eventually, Kael asked the question that had lingered in his mind since the beginning of the trial. "Who exactly was the Wanderer?"
The old man's smile faded for the first time. His expression became serious in a way that suggested the seriousness was not performative but genuine, an actual shift in what he was feeling rather than a presentation of seriousness for effect.
"The Wanderer was never a Sovereign," he said. Kael frowned. The answer surprised him because the Wanderer had carried an authority that seemed to exceed what someone without a throne would have possessed. The old man continued. "He possessed no throne. No authority in any of the categories that the world recognized as authority. No divine inheritance in any of the formal senses. Yet every Sovereign respected him."
