The First Defection

It was not a dramatic departure. There were no shouted accusations, no grand pronouncements. Tamsin simply walked away. She did not join the Symphony, not at first. She simply found a quiet corner of their shared space and began to work on a project of her own, a small, intricate weaving that seemed to have no purpose but its own creation. Her defection was a quiet tear in the fabric of Joric’s authority, a thread pulled loose that threatened to unravel everything he had built. He watched her go, and for the first time, he felt the cold touch of a future he had not foreseen, a future he had no power to control.