The silence was a lie.
The Architect was gone, its final scream echoing into the void. The city, which had held its breath for a year, exhaled in a collective, shuddering sigh of relief. The war, they believed, was over.
In the ruins of the Hamilton Building's throne room, Kael knew better. This was not an ending. It was an intermission. He knelt beside the body of the woman who had bought them this fragile peace.
Arden Vale.
Her eyes were open, but the fire was gone. The cold calculation of the weapon, the defiant flame of the hero all extinguished. What remained was a void. A perfect, terrifying emptiness. The price of her final gambit, of erasing the Codebook itself, had been absolute. She had not just forgotten her name; she had forgotten what a name was.
The body breathed. The heart beat. But the person, the consciousness that had been Arden Vale, was gone. Erased.
