Darian's voice came from beneath the glass, breaking as it reached them.
"Kael, tell me what you used to tell me when we were children."
The sentence hung over the red line. For an instant, all the lights in the Body Room seemed to fade. Elara felt the orange line on her own wrist pulse faintly.
At first, Kael's face did not change. Then his breath caught, as if something inside him had broken loose and fallen. Maybe his childhood. Maybe his brother. Maybe his fire.
Elara saw that with that single sentence, Kael had been pulled somewhere much older than war, doors, rituals, and the red line. Sometimes, the thing that struck a person in their heaviest place was not the enemy's threat, but a tiny sentence remembered by someone they loved.
Kael's lips parted, but no sound came out.
Even Talon did not speak.
