The corridor opened into a vast chamber filled with suspended platforms, each one hovering over a pit of flickering light. On every platform, glyph-trees stretched upward—each branch a sequence of memories carefully ordered, polished, and humming with narrative resonance.
It was the Hall of Echoes.
"This is where they keep the sanctioned truths," Lira whispered. "The memories taught in schools, pressed into Vault-script, repeated across generations."
Kael stepped closer to a tree marked with the sigil of House Arin.
The memory thread nearest the base pulsed with a soft blue light. It showed a vision: noble Archivists forming a protective order after the Archive Wars, establishing balance and unity through the codification of truth.
Kael stared at it for a long moment.
Then he touched it.
The tree spasmed.
A crack ran through the memory, splitting it open.
The vision wavered. The noble Archivists blurred, revealing figures cloaked in secrecy. Weapons, not scrolls. Forced oaths. The first Archive had not been a sanctuary—but a prison for dissident minds.
Lira stepped back, pale.
"That's not possible. I've seen this thread. That wasn't there."
"It was hidden," Kael said. "False context. Layered edits."
Another tree flared nearby, reacting to the breach.
Kael turned toward it and saw his own face—Rin's face—standing with others, rewriting history by hand.
Not preserving.
Erasing.
Corren moved to another glyph-tree and glanced at a thread. "This one says the Sovereign system was born of consensus."
He touched it.
The lie shattered.
It hadn't been consensus. It had been fear. Manufactured threats. The illusion of chaos used to justify control.
One by one, Kael began to sever the lies.
Each cut revealed a truth more disturbing than the last.
And with every revelation, the air in the Nexus grew heavier, thicker, more volatile.
Lira leaned against the wall, her face pale.
"My father built part of this," she whispered. "I thought I understood why. I thought it was to preserve order."
Kael looked at her.
"No. It was to preserve control."
The chamber trembled.
A deep, mechanical groan rippled through the walls.
And somewhere above them, something woke up.