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The archive shows a group of scholars in a clean white research chamber, faces lifted toward a projection of partial origin records. At first, they look stunned. Then frightened. Then some begin arguing. One falls to her knees. Another laughs until blood runs from his nose. The sequence accelerates through days, then weeks.

“Three killed themselves within the first month,” Rolaev says. “Twelve joined emergent nullity cults. Thirty-one rejected the data as manipulation and triggered violent purges against colleagues they believed had fabricated blasphemy. The rest fractured into factions over whether meaning should be preserved, reinvented, or destroyed.”

My hands curl at my sides. “That was one test group.”

“Yes.”

Her agreement is unbearable.

“So I tried again,” she says. “Better screening. Stronger support. More gradual exposure. Cultural adaptation frameworks. The second trial lasted longer.”

The archive shifts.

This time, the records show a settlement under a red-gold sky. Kelratha Minor, I assume, though the name on the display translates only as Civilian Test Cohort Three. The collapse is slower and worse because it looks ordinary at first. Work slowdowns. Empty temples. Schools dividing over curriculum. Political leaders seizing the records to attack rival institutions. Young people forming groups that embrace absurdity as permission for cruelty. Priests declaring emergency doctrines. Soldiers refusing orders because honor is propaganda. Other soldiers becoming brutal because morality is propaganda. Families breaking not in dramatic violence, but in kitchens, courtyards, and hospital rooms, as shared language fails under the weight of the same impossible fact.

Rolaev watches it without blinking.

“Meaninglessness does not remain philosophical at scale,” she says. “It becomes policy. It becomes permission. It becomes a market, a weapon, a fashion, a plague. Some respond with despair. Some respond with ecstasy. The worst respond with appetite.”

I think of the archive labeling full origin disclosure an existential social hazard.

I think of my own certainty breaking inside my chest.

I think of Ghar standing in the side chamber saying everything built upon accident must be false.

Rolaev turns back to me. “You understand now.”

“I understand enough to be horrified.”

“That is the beginning of wisdom.”

“No,” I snap, because I need anger before empathy swallows me whole. “Do not recruit me with my own fear.”

Ghar shifts closer. His presence warms my right side, steady and warning.

Rolaev ’s gaze flicks to him. “And you, Vakutan? Do you not see what your people would do with this knowledge? Your warriors would divide between those who declare all honor void and those who kill to prove it still exists. Your priests would either deny the archive or sanctify suppression. Your enemies would use it to crack your military culture from within.”

“You know nothing of my people.”

“I know enough of all people.”

“Arrogance.”

“Experience.”

The word lands with the blunt force of something earned.

Sira wipes at her cheeks. “Then why form the Choir? Why not bury the fragments and vanish?”

Rolaev ’s expression alters. I see not only grief in her but shame. It is faint. She would rather die than let it become dramatic. But it is there.

“Because others found them too,” she says. “Fragments leaked through black archives, war vaults, private collections, intelligence caches. Every institution that touched them attempted control for its own preservation. The Coalition wanted psychological weapons. The League wanted academic monopoly. Alliance splinter theologians wanted proof they could rewrite doctrine before their rivals. I learned that truth was dangerous, but secrecy without guardians was worse.”

“So you made yourself guardian,” I say.

“Yes.”

“And executioner.”