The hearing moderator, pale and stunned, looks at the camera.
“This session will recess pending medical stabilization of the witness and formal statements from Alliance oversight bodies.”
Morazin is alive.
The Councilor is publicly removed.
The audits are in motion.
The Nine just lost their cleanest bridge.
Not destroyed.
But cracked.
Jordan steps closer to me, voice low.
“This isn’t over.”
I meet her gaze.
“It never was.”
Above us, the stream numbers keep climbing.
The world saw a witness shot.
The world saw a Councilor removed.
The world saw the rot flinch under light.
I feel the weight of it settle.
This wasn’t a battle for territory.
It was a battle for who pulls the strings.
And tonight, for the first time in a long time?—
We cut one.
I exhale slowly.
“Secure Morazin,” I say. “Lock the vault tighter. And start mapping what the Nine does next.”
Because they will.
They always do.
But now?
Now they’re bleeding too.
CHAPTER 39
JORDAN
Gur doesn’t heal like a person.
