A beat of silence.
Then my compad buzzes again—an incoming secure message. I glance down and my stomach drops.
Garran Hale requesting meeting — urgent.
I stare at it, thumb hovering.
Drax watches my face. “That is him.”
“Yes,” I say.
“Go,” she says, brisk. “But do not meet him in unsecured areas. People are hunting for leverage.”
I swallow. “Where should I?—”
“Archive level,” she says immediately. “Cold, quiet, and surveilled. If someone tries anything, it will be logged.”
“Great,” I mutter. “Romantic.”
Drax’s mouth twitches again—almost humor, almost not. “Try to stay alive, Ardent.”
I blink at her. “That’s… a new vibe.”
“Do not get used to it,” she says, and then she turns away, already moving back toward the tribunal’s core like she’s stepping into fire on purpose.
I leave the antechamber and head toward the lifts.
As the doors close around me, sealing me in a glass box of my own reflection, I finally let my shoulders drop a fraction. My palms are damp. My heart is still racing. The building hums beneath my feet like a living thing.
I look at the message from Garran again.
Cleared of malicious intent.
The panel said it. Drax said it. The press heard it. The record holds it.
But I know Garran. He doesn’t ask for an urgent meeting because he wants closure. He asks because something is wrong—because he’s scared, or angry, or both.
And if the Oversight Panel has teeth now, if subpoenas are flying toward Vol’s vaults, then the people who benefited from silence are going to start biting back.
The lift descends, and the lighting shifts cooler with every level, washing the world into pale blues and sterile whites.
I step out into the archive corridor, where the air smells like cold metal and stored history, and I walk toward the vaults like I’m walking toward the only place left where the truth doesn’t care who’s watching.
My compad vibrates again—another incoming alert—this one from tribunal systems.
SENTENCING RESCHEDULED — NEW DATE PENDING. INVESTIGATIVE AUTHORITY EXPANDED.
I stare at it for a long beat, then lock the screen and shove it into my pocket.
Because I can feel it: the ground shifting under all of us.
And if I’m smart, I’ll stop thinking about what this means for my career, for my reputation, for my life.
If I’m smart, I’ll focus on the only thing that matters:
The record is finally moving.
Now we have to survive what it shakes loose.
