The attempt didn't come during a speech.
It didn't come in public.
It came in the only place Kael had begun to feel briefly unobserved.
Sleep.
He woke to absence.
Not silence—absence. The familiar layered hum of the city's resonance wasn't there. The room felt hollow, like sound had forgotten how to arrive.
Kael rolled out of bed an instant before the window collapsed inward.
The projectile didn't explode.
It erased.
A sphere of null coherence tore through the wall, swallowing material, sound, and momentum before dissipating midair. Dust fell where concrete should have been.
Mira was on her feet immediately, rifle already up. "That wasn't random."
Rae burst in from the adjoining room, pale. "We just lost every external sensor."
Ashveil spoke, sharp.
"Hostile Resonant action confirmed."
They didn't wait.
Kael didn't stabilize the room.
He withdrew presence.
The corridor outside twisted slightly as his field collapsed inward, not violently—precisely. The air stopped cooperating with predictive models.
Another null sphere punched through the hallway, missing Kael by a breath and carving a clean absence into the floor.
Mira fired. Her rounds didn't curve.
They vanished.
"Someone's mapped your avoidance patterns," she shouted.
Kael felt it now—a resonance designed not to fight order, not to bypass it, but to delete the space where order formed.
"This isn't terror," Kael said grimly. "This is removal."
They reached the stairwell.
The third shot came from below.
Kael reacted without thinking.
He anchored.
Not outward.
Not wide.
He fixed a single point—himself.
The null sphere struck the edge of his field and shattered, breaking into fragments of unreal space that collapsed harmlessly into static.
Kael staggered, pain blooming briefly in his chest.
Mira caught him. "You good?"
"No," he said. "But alive."
Ashveil spoke urgently.
"Attacker demonstrates advanced counter-resonant design."
"Orien?" Rae asked breathlessly.
Kael shook his head. "No."
This wasn't persuasion.
This was execution.
They burst onto the street.
The city hadn't noticed yet.
That was deliberate.
A figure stood across the avenue, cloaked in distortion that didn't shimmer—it muted. Their outline blurred as if reality refused to focus on them.
They raised a hand.
"Kael Vorrin," the figure said calmly. "You declined reasonable terms."
Mira aimed. "You're going to regret this."
The figure tilted their head. "Unlikely."
Kael stepped forward, heart steady despite the adrenaline.
"You're not here to convince me," Kael said.
"No," the figure replied. "I'm here to demonstrate consequence."
They moved.
The street peeled.
Not split—peeled, layers of coherence sloughing away as null zones expanded in overlapping arcs. Cars slid sideways into nothing. Sound staggered.
Kael narrowed his field again, protecting civilians instinctively.
The figure smiled.
"There," they said. "That reflex. That's why you lose."
Kael understood.
Every time he chose to protect others, he revealed priority.
Priority could be predicted.
Predicted priorities could be exploited.
Ashveil spoke, grim.
"Your ethics are being used as vectors."
Kael clenched his jaw.
"Then let's change the vector."
He stopped expanding the field.
Stopped anchoring civilians.
For one terrible second, he let the chaos exist.
Mira shouted his name.
The figure faltered.
Just a fraction.
Because their model assumed Kael would always choose the many.
Kael used that fraction.
He stepped forward and collapsed probability, not force—forcing all viable outcomes to intersect where he stood.
The null zones imploded inward.
The attacker screamed—not in pain, but in failure—as their carefully separated spaces were forced into coherence.
They dropped to one knee.
Kael didn't hesitate.
He withdrew alignment completely from the attacker.
The world reclaimed them.
Violently.
When the dust cleared, the street was damaged.
The attacker was gone.
No body.
No residue.
Just absence where a person had been.
Sirens arrived seconds later.
Wardens. Medics. Cameras.
Too late.
Always too late.
Kael stood shaking, breathing hard.
Mira grabbed his arm. "You okay?"
He nodded slowly. "They proved their point."
Rae whispered, staring at the cratered street. "They can kill you."
"Yes," Kael said.
"And now they know how much they're willing to let burn to try."
Ashveil spoke softly.
"First strike doctrine confirmed."
That night, the city didn't argue.
It watched.
The Assembly issued no statement.
Orien said nothing.
Because everyone understood the shift.
This wasn't about governance anymore.
Someone had decided Kael's refusal carried a price.
And they were willing to pay collateral to collect it.
Kael stood on the rooftop again, city lights flickering beneath him.
"They won't stop," Mira said quietly.
Kael nodded. "No."
Rae looked up at him. "So what now?"
Kael closed his eyes.
He had tried transparency.
He had tried distance.
He had tried refusal.
None of it deterred force.
"Now," Kael said, voice steady despite the weight pressing on his chest,
"we stop pretending this is still politics."
Ashveil's voice hardened.
"Conflict escalation accepted."
Far away, unseen hands adjusted strategies.
Because Kael Vorrin had crossed another line.
Not by attacking.
But by surviving.
And survival, now, was an act of defiance.