The shadow folded back into itself, slow, and the shape standing beside Arthur lost its edges, its weight, its legs, until it was just a flat dark patch on the marble again, ordinary, obedient.
Vexis reappeared beside him a second later, hovering the way he always did, visible to no one but Arthur.
'That felt real,' Vexis said, turning one hand over like he could still feel it. 'Weight. Ground under my feet. I haven't felt ground since the culmination.' A beat. 'Do that again sometime.'
Later. Maybe.
The King sat back down, slow, some of the color returned to his face that had drained out of it during the demonstration.
"I've seen what I needed to see," he said. "This audience is finished. All of you — leave my court."
Nobody argued with that.
Arthur let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
It worked.
Against every reasonable expectation, it had actually worked.
