Kael stepped back from the lattice.
The chamber around him slowly reassembled—walls reforming, air thick with stillness. His body felt heavy, not with pain, but with knowing. His breath came slow. Measured.
Lira stood just beyond the edge, her hands clenched. Corren beside her, blade drawn not in defense—but in readiness.
They both saw the difference instantly.
Not in his face.
In his presence.
Lira spoke first.
"What did you see?"
Kael looked past her, past the rebels gathering behind them, past the echoes of war still stirring in the halls.
"I saw what we lost," he said. "And why we let it go."
He stepped forward, every movement deliberate.
"I'm not here to tear down the Houses. I don't need to. The truth will do it for me."
Corren frowned. "You think they'll just fall?"
Kael shook his head. "No. I think they'll try to fight. Rewrite. Erase. But they've spent centuries building themselves on lies they couldn't remember they were telling."
He raised a hand.
In it, a single thread of light pulsed—restored memory, complete and unsealed.
"The first truth," Kael said. "The one Rin buried. The one no one else was ready to carry."
He looked at Lira.
She nodded once.
Not as approval.
As recognition.
Kael turned to the rebels, to the transmission console dormant in the Nexus wall.
And he stepped toward it.