The truth was a cancer grown in darkness for ten thousand years. Valerius. The name was a tombstone on the grave of the Star Age. The foundational lie of the Tribunal’s sterile empire. Ren stood in the silent vault, the memory of his own murder, a betrayal in a laboratory by his closest friend, searing his soul. This rage was older than the Echo’s pain, a white-hot core of fury sleeping since his rebirth.
Lyra felt the seismic shift through their bond. This wasn't grief or weary acceptance. This was primal, righteous wrath.
“He didn’t just betray you,” she said, her voice cutting the silence. “He betrayed life itself. He’s been trying to correct his mistake by erasing us for millennia.”
Ren’s hands clenched. The golden light of the Sovereign flickered with filaments of their unifying wh
