The chair was intolerably still.

Allira Salo sat rigidly within its gilded frame as it carried him through Council Hall. A masterpiece of engineering, perhaps, but still a chair—and he despised it. Once, power had lived in measured footsteps and silent turns. Now it arrived with the hiss of hydraulics and rolling wheels.

His mobility was diminished.

His influence was not.

Beneath a mural of Piltover's founders, Salo waited, notes resting untouched in his lap as he listened to conversations drift through the chamber. Every word was weighed. Every glance remembered. Pain stirred in his spine as he shifted, but he refused to show it.

He had lost the use of his legs, not his authority.

His fingers tapped the armrest once.

"Go on, then," he murmured, sharp-eyed and composed. "Let's see what you want."