"What would be the point of rebellion if it was only silence?"
His voice curled around the edges of the air.
"There's no pleasure in eternity if nothing fills it. I built this tower to house work. Records. People. And her…"
He gestured toward Emma, who had returned to the side console, adjusting something silently with a slow precision.
"…she didn't start here. She was meant to die."
The smile faded.
"Targeted by a Zeionsit cult on her homeworld," he said.
"They wanted to see if her soul type could adapt to planetary manipulation—if it could influence evolution on a scale they could weaponize."
His gaze darkened slightly, the red glow beneath his skin brightening by a shade.
"The Cube maker worked with them. Briefly. That version of him needed test subjects. And they fed her—alive—into a shard designed to simulate a monster world. They wanted to clone the soul type. Turn it into food. Into coding. Into a tool."
He looked back at Elias.
