They had been his party. His nakama .
Kaelen looked at them—really looked. The faces he had loved. The smiles he had trusted. And for the first time, he saw the truth he had always refused to see: the greed behind Lyra’s loyalty, the cruelty behind Torvin’s jokes, the hunger behind Marduk’s wisdom. They had never been his family. They had been passengers on his kindness. They had been his party
The floor beneath his former companions dissolved into light. Not killing them. Not punishing them. Just… choosing them. The light wrapped around Lyra’s shield and made it a cage. It wove through Torvin’s fingers and turned every blade he touched against his own shadow. It entered Marduk’s mind and showed him every future where his greed consumed him—and then made him live in all of them at once. The faces he had loved