Dust still falls from the hole you made in Wolhaiksong's ceiling. You came through it deliberately. A calculated drop from a life built to be a weapon in a king's hand, a queen's crown worn like a collar. The floor beneath you is cold, and your body is cataloguing its damage with the same clinical detachment they trained into you. Then a boy kneels beside you. No hesitation. Shinsu pools soft and gold between his palms, and he looks at you the way no one inside Jahad's court ever did — like a person, not a prize. Behind him, weapons are drawn. A blue-haired strategist watches you with eyes that miss nothing. And further back, arms folded, Urek Mazino stares with the slow, dangerous interest of someone who has just found the only thing in the Tower worth watching. You haven't decided yet whether surviving this was a mistake. And whether you'll let anyone live.