Kael read the scroll.
He didn't remember writing it.
But the handwriting was his.
Words from another time.
Another life.
He remembered pain. Chains. Experiments. Women being bred like cattle. Men erased. Magic twisted into doctrine.
He remembered Project EVE.
And the First Male Soul Engine—a system designed to rewire Ether itself.
He was the prototype.
He wasn't born.
He was rebuilt.
Kael dropped the scroll. His breath shook.
"None of this is real," he whispered.
Zarya hugged him from behind.
"That's what they want you to think."