The throne room was silent, heavy with the weight of too many secrets and too many ghosts. Cambria stood before the fractured obsidian throne, the ancient seat of Vale, now a symbol not of glory, but of betrayal. The shattered fragments of the once-pristine court floor still bore the marks of the last battle Knox's final gambit, Evelyn's fall, and the storm Cambria had unleashed when she merged with the remnants of the God Engine.
She should have felt victorious.
But as her eyes traced the blood-darkened runes etched into the columns and the fading whispers of power clinging to the air, all she felt was the echo of truth and the lie it had been built upon.
"The people await your word, my Queen," said General Maeron quietly from her right. His armor bore the scars of the final rebellion, and though his voice was steady, there was a tremor in his eyes. "They need assurance. The resistance is fractured, but not fully broken. If we don't move now…"
Cambria raised her hand.
"I know."
