Chapter 42 The Child Of Silence

• Some ghosts haunt rooms. Others walk into them and ask for a name. Zero-One approached Caelon with no army. No sound. No warning. Just a child-sized silhouette with no consistent face, no known origin… only a pulse that echoed with every rebel death ever recorded. By the time the sirens blared, it was already inside the gates. And every surveillance camera it passed stopped working. Not from sabotage. But from recognition.
• They didn’t know what they were looking at. Only that it belonged.
• Eron stood in the plaza waiting. He’d refused armor. He’d refused a gun. He wore a coat with the names of the fallen stitched into the lining—names he’d never dared to speak. Layla watched from the tower. Gavik stood beside her.