Mira began with the sentence she had crossed out.
It had said that Rook’s continued survival would lead to the Hollow King. Below it she had listed the reasons she could no longer defend that certainty: a selected record, an omitted warning, changed dates, and her own incomplete view of the earlier breach. She had not crossed out the disaster she remembered. She had crossed out the single path she had drawn toward it.
The core team met in the council’s assigned room with the local observer outside. Ilyan had permission to hear the private source discussion because it concerned records he had helped examine. The wider operational briefing would be reviewed separately. No surface official had been told that either Mira or Eli had regressed. The team’s next packet would not disclose that private claim by accident inside a sentence about risk.
Sera checked the participant list before the door closed.
Mira waited while Eli read the page. He had the new clinical conditions beside him and no active effect. He was tired enough to resent another account of what memory could not prove. She looked tired enough to resent having to give it. Neither feeling made the discussion optional.
