Chapter 161: The Stain of Knowing
Aurora did not remember the full journey back to the Truth-Seer camp. Her memories were flashes of pain: the scrape of stone against her knees, the metallic taste of fear in her mouth, the constant, ringing silence in her ears that was not true silence but the phantom echo of the Nullifier's void. She stumbled into the hidden camp at dusk on the fifth day, her ash-streaked face gaunt, her eyes wide and unseeing.
Kyrus caught her as she fell. The Truth-Seers, trained in resilience, flinched at her resonant signature. It was not just weak; it was scattered, like a mosaic dropped and reassembled wrong. Pieces of terror, rage, and a terrible, grieving love for a wounded mountain glade swirled around her in a dissonant cloud.
