The exile zone lay beyond Arcadia’s regulated skyline, where industrial spires gave way to fractured outskirts and unmonitored corridors. Vael Ornyx did not announce his arrival.

  He found Thaleixion Veyr in a decommissioned transit hub overlooking a dormant freight channel. The former Saint stood alone, coat dark against the steel horizon, a Lazuli blade resting at his side—its core dim but alive.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Thaleixion said without turning.

  “Neither should you,” Vael replied.

  Silence lingered between them, heavy but controlled.

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  Thaleixion had once worn the full armor of a First-Class Saint. Now only the sword remained. The armor had been stripped after a formal decree from the Sanctum in Ciudad de las Luces.

  “Disobedience,” Thaleixion said, finally facing him. “A strategic purge was ordered in a contested sector. Multi-racial clearance. I refused to execute it.”

  “You chose restraint.”

  “I chose judgment.”

  The difference had cost him everything.

  Vael studied the Saint’s expression. There was no bitterness—only precision held in restraint.

  “My wife and daughter vanished under Variable Protocol,” Vael said quietly. “Authorized in my name.”

  Thaleixion’s gaze sharpened.

  “Do you remember authorizing it?”

  “No.”

  The Lazuli blade emitted a faint pulse, reacting to the tension in the air.

  “What are you asking of me?” Thaleixion asked.

  “To investigate what the system insists is clean.”

  The former Saint considered him for several seconds.

  Then he lifted the blade.

  “I no longer wear the armor,” he said. “But I still carry the edge.”

  He nodded once.

  “I’ll look.”