As soon as Selene finished, John stood up. It was so fast that his chair hit the floor behind him.
"This is absurd." His voice came out low at first, then climbed higher. "I forbid it. I absolutely forbid it, do you hear me?" He slapped the table in anger.
Selene didn't flinch. She just looked at him. "You can't forbid what's already decided, Father. I'm of age. That means I can choose my own marriage."
"You think this is choosing?" His arm swept out, pointing at Lys. "This boy humiliated you in front of the entire village, and now you're sayin…."
"This is the only way out you left me, father."
Her voice cracked on the last word, just slightly, but she held it together. John stopped hearing that, his mouth still open, the next word stuck behind his teeth.
Selene kept going. "You wanted justice. And here it is. Justice for everyone." She didn't raise her voice. She didn't need to. The room was already silent enough that every word landed cleanly. "For Mitsu, who gets to see me answer for what I did. For me, who gets a future instead of a ruined reputation. For him, who gets to prove he's more than what you keep calling him." She met her father's eyes. "Or you can keep fighting. And keep making things worse. Keep being the man who destroys his own family for just his pride."
John's hands shook as his own daughter was lecturing him. His face ran through things too fast to track. But anybody could see the rage in it, one could even say it was something older than rage, something underneath, he'd spent years not letting anyone see. He opened his mouth. But nothing came out.
He stood there, and the room stood with him, and for a long moment, nobody moved. Like they were waiting for his response.
Then the door opened.
Bezos came inside, Vivian just behind him, both of them leaning in with the cautious look of people who have been standing outside long enough to get cold and impatient. Bezos's lantern was nearly out, the wick burned low, throwing just enough light to show his furrowed brow.
"John." His voice was gruff, uncertain. "We heard you shouting. Again." He looked around the kitchen, taking in the view. Elara was against the wall, wiping her face. Mira in the doorway. Sara by the table. Lys sitting. Selene standing. John in the middle of it all, looking like a man who had just lost an argument he hadn't expected to lose.
"What's going on here? It's been an hour. What's taking so long?"
Vivian stepped in beside him, her shawl pulled tight, eyes moving quickly across the room. "Is everything alright? Did something happen?"
The silence stretched a moment too long. Nobody answered first.
Then Lys turned in his chair to face them.
"Please come in," he said. Not commanding. Just the same tone he'd been using all night. "There's something all of you should hear, I think."
Bezos and Vivian exchanged a look. Then Bezos stepped fully inside, and Vivian followed behind him. The kitchen became more crowded, but somehow, at the same time, more settled, like they were the final thing Lys needed right now.
-----
Lys talked them through it without rushing. The guild, the assessment, the story the village was going to tell when the representatives arrived. The difference between a scandal that lingered and an arrangement he proposed that reframed everything. After that, he also mentioned the council position he should have, which might be a symbol of his connection to the priest's family, a narrative that made sense instead of one that was about to fester John's reputation from now on.
Bezos listened with his arms crossed and his chin down, his beard working slightly as he thought every word of Lys. Vivian stood with her hands folded, her expression moving from skepticism to something more careful as Lys kept going.
When he finished, the kitchen was quiet once again, as all of them started digesting everything up to now.
After a while, Bezos finally cleared his throat. He looked at John, and his voice came out the way a man's voice comes out when he's decided something practical and doesn't particularly enjoy it. "John." He paused in between.
"Maybe we let this settle, what do ya say? Let's do as the boy said?" He shrugged one heavy shoulder. "A year isn't forever, you know. If it goes wrong, it goes wrong. But right now…." He glanced toward the door and the dark yard beyond it. "Right now, I think this is the cleanest way out of tonight."
Vivian nodded slowly, her eyes still on Lys with that evaluating quality she'd brought to every trading room she'd ever walked into. "I also think so, Priest John. The village will talk either way. But a romance is a better story than a scandal, right?" She paused while glancing at Sara once. "It's actually quite clever. The idea of diverting people's thoughts, I mean."
John looked at them. His two allies, the people he'd brought tonight to stand beside him, were now standing slightly apart from him, their faces arranged into the careful pragmatism of people who want the night to end without further damage. They might not be against him right now. But no longer fully beside him. At least that's what it looked like to him.
He looked at Selene, who was looking at the table.
Then he looked at Lys, who was looking at him, calm and still, waiting the same way he'd been waiting since they sat down.
He said nothing. Because he knew at this moment that there was nothing left for him to say that would change anything. Selene had made up her mind. And the ally he was counting on to have his back was saying completely different things from the moment they stepped into the room. As if they were hypnotized.
He pulled his robes straight with both hands, with an automatic gesture, and turned toward the door. But before he stepped out or did anything, he just glanced back a little and said, "Do whatever you want. I'm out of this."
Author note: Come on, guys, why don't I see reviews? There are plenty of readers, so why are there so few ratings and reviews? Please rate the story, and if possible, leave behind a advanched reveiew, guys. That is what pushes this story, and is my source of motivation.