The blast rocked the corridor.
Kade barely moved. His armor absorbed most of the heat, but the shockwave knocked Marei against the wall. She recovered fast, ducking behind a shattered pillar as debris rained down.
Footsteps followed.
Not erratic. Not rushed.
Precise.
The kind of walk that belonged to someone with a purpose—and a grudge.
Smoke filled the corridor, laced with streaks of red light. Someone moved through it slowly, shoulders squared. She didn't need to speak again. Kade already knew.
He stepped into the open, gun lowered.
"Arden," he said.
The smoke parted.
She looked older. Sharper. Like time had stripped the softness from her face and carved anger into the lines that remained. Her eyes, once warm, now glowed with system-stained hatred. On her shoulder: the insignia of the Reclaimers—a rogue faction Kade had once commanded… and betrayed.
"You shouldn't be alive," she said flatly.
"You shouldn't remember," he replied.
"I remember everything."
She raised a weapon built from stolen tech—spliced Catalyst components fused with alien engineering. Its core pulsed.
"You sat on that throne," she said. "You claimed it. You erased us, Kade."
"I didn't choose the Reset."
"You didn't stop it either."
Marei emerged behind Kade, weapon ready. "Hostile confirmed. Reclaimer Commander, Arden Vael. Ex-enforcer. Thought to be dead in Reset Wave Two."
"I lived," Arden snapped. "Because I made myself unerasable."
She fired.
Kade moved before the shot left the barrel, rolling behind cover as the blast incinerated the wall where he'd stood. Marei countered with a precision burst, but Arden deflected it with a phase shield, the same tech Kade had once designed to protect children during urban evacuations.
Now used against him.
He growled. "She's not here to kill me."
"No?" Marei asked, ducking another shot.
"No. She's here to expose me."
Arden's voice echoed again. "They'll know what you did, Kade. You called yourself the Forgotten King. But I was there when you gave the final order. I watched you sacrifice twelve cities to hold the line. You don't deserve a crown. You deserve chains."
Her next blast collapsed the corridor, forcing them back toward the inner sanctum.
Kade slammed his fist against a nearby panel. "Seal the breach."
The system responded instantly, barriers slamming down between them and Arden—but not before her last words slipped through the gap.
"Every time you sit that throne, someone dies."
Then silence.
Kade stood in the dust, chest heaving.
Marei stepped close, voice low. "She's not wrong, is she?"
He didn't answer.
He couldn't.
Because he remembered now—what he'd tried to bury. The last order. The desperate silence. The cost.
And it wasn't over.
He turned toward the heart of the Citadel, voice quiet and steady.
"Prep the defense grid. We're not done."
Behind them, the Citadel lights dimmed.
And the war for truth began.