The video opened on a raised platform in Vardency.
Seven people stood across cracked tile with bodies behind them and a camera placed low enough to make the platform look like a stage. They were not arranged like soldiers. They were worse than that. Each stood in a different posture, comfortable in a different kind of violence, as if discipline had stopped being useful once fear started doing the work.
The woman at the center held Elias's attention first.
She was tall enough to make the others look chosen around her rather than equal beside her. Blue hair fell straight down her back. One glove covered her right hand. Her boots were military, but her jacket was civilian, and the mismatch made her look like she had taken whatever pieces of the old world still fit and thrown away the rest.
Behind her floated an Ikona with a wide body and long arms that hung too low. Its fingers kept moving, opening and closing near the floor.
The woman raised her hand.
