Incense drifted through Yuren Sun’s private study, coiling like smoke around memories. Scrolls lined the walls, each one a lifetime of knowledge, and on the table lay the ceremonial robe he would wear tomorrow, gold threads woven to blind the guilty and reassure the pure.He hadn’t moved in hours. The holo-screen before him looped the footage again: the patient’s dying gasp, the surge of golden light from Rick’s hands, the flare of the rune. Every time he paused it, the frame caught Rick’s face, desperate, alive, far too much like his younger self.A ghost of a smile crossed Yuren’s lips before bitterness returned. “You touched the mystery too soon, my son.”Footsteps echoed; Elder Liang entered, robes whispering. “The tribunal expects your statement at dawn.”Yuren didn’t look up. “And if my statement disagrees with theirs?”Liang’s tone was smooth as glass. “Then you lose your seat, and the academy dissolves under investigation. Do not let one boy’s arrogance destroy what took cen