Nyra.
The name was a ghost. A wound that had never healed.
The last of the other two missing bloodlines. The one he had failed to save.
Axton stared at the name scratched into the cobblestones, and the world went silent.
The sounds of the city, the distant sirens, the hum of the factories—they all faded away.
There was only the name.
And a rage so cold it burned like liquid nitrogen.
This was not the Heptarchy's work. Armies were faceless. They killed for territory, for ideology.
This was personal.
This Inquisitor, this ghost in a silver mask, had dug into his past. It had found his deepest failure and was now using it as a weapon against him.
It was a declaration.
I know who you are. I know what haunts you. And I will use it to break you.
From the window above, Grak and Veyla
