"You're not what I expected."Elowen stood in the doorway of the palace garden, her arms crossed over her chest, her sharp eyes fixed on Lincoln with an intensity that made him feel like a specimen under glass. She had changed out of her formal gown into something simpler, but no less regal. A warrior's tunic, fitted and practical, with a blade at her hip."What did you expect?" Lincoln asked, turning from the fountain he had been staring at for the past hour."Someone taller." She walked toward him, her boots clicking on the stone path. "Someone more... polished. The stories make you sound like a god. The reality is more interesting.""I'll take that as a compliment.""It wasn't one." She stopped a few feet away, close enough that he could see the faint scar above her left eyebrow, the calluses on her hands. "But it wasn't an insult either. It was an observation. You're real. That's rare in this palace."Lincoln studied her

"The ritual is complete."Cressida's voice was a thousand voices, layered and discordant, echoing through the chamber like a choir of the damned. The vortex around her had expanded, its edges now touching the walls, its energy pulling at the stone itself. Lincoln could feel the corrupted Elders pressing against the barrier, their hunger a physical weight in the air."The prison is open," she said. "The Elders are free. All that remains is the final step.""What step?" Lincoln demanded, though he already knew the answer."The destruction of the physical world." Cressida smiled, and it was the most terrible thing Lincoln had ever seen. "Your world will burn, and from its ashes, the Elders will build a new civilization. A better one. One without suffering, without pain, without the endless cycle of slavery and death.""You're talking about genocide.""I'm talking about rebirth." She raised her hands, and the void energy surged.

The Elders came out of the void like refugees, not conquerors.Lincoln watched them emerge from the rift he had opened beings of pale light and trembling shadows, their forms flickering uncertainly in the physical world. They were not the monsters of legend. They were survivors. Broken, terrified, blinking against a sun they had not seen in a thousand years."What do we do with them?" Kaela asked quietly."We help them," Lincoln said."Help them? Lincoln, half the people out there want to kill them on sight. The other half are too scared to think straight.""Then we teach them not to be afraid." He turned to face her. "That's what this was all for, Kaela. Not just stopping Cressida. Not just sealing the prison. Building something better. If we can't do that, then we've lost."She stared at him for a long moment. Then she sighed. "You always did have a way of making the impossible sound simple."He managed a small sm

The tribunal chamber was cold and silent, the air heavy with the weight of judgment.Lincoln sat at the front of the room, his hands folded in his lap, his eyes fixed on the woman chained to the chair across from him. Cressida looked smaller than he remembered. Her crimson gown had been replaced by a plain gray shift. Her hair was dull. Her face was pale. But her eyes were still sharp. Still defiant. Still burning with the fire that had consumed everything Lincoln loved.The tribunal sat in a semicircle behind her resistance leaders, royal officials, Elder representatives. Sylara was there, her form dim but steady. Elowen sat beside her, her expression unreadable. Kaela stood near the door, her hand resting on the hilt of her blade.The charges were read aloud. Murder. Conspiracy. Enslavement. Genocide. The words echoed through the chamber like hammer blows.Cressida listened without flinching.When it was Lincoln's turn to speak, he rose slowly. The void energy hummed beneath his ski