The words hung in the armory's thick air, tension creeping into the cracks.
Zykra didn't speak. She only nodded once, slow and heavy, her gaze anchored on Lyra.
Roachaline's presence pressed sharper across the room. Her knife gleamed at her side, and the weight of her coercion bled into the space between them — not fully unleashed, but enough to turn the armory's stale air thin and brittle.
"Show your shard's heart," she said, voice hardening.
No patience left. No shelter for hesitation.
The accusation was clear beneath the words — Federation plant.
Lyra stiffened. Her wind Ikona stirred around her, the cyan shard flaring with a desperate light. She stepped forward, the knife in her hand forgotten, and forced the words out.
"I'm yours," she said, raw and pleading.
The believers' chant roared through the walls outside — "Power reigns!" — the sound crashing into the armory like a living thing.
The dusk outside deepened. Shadows thickened between the broken crates.
