The morning following Morbis's death, The Heart of Logic felt emptier than usual. The customary hum of the systems was absent, replaced by a silence so sterile it felt as if the room itself was holding its breath alongside the castle's inhabitants.
Dayat stood by the large south-facing window. The cup of coffee in his hand had long since grown cold. He didn't know how many hours he had spent standing there, staring out, not truly seeing anything. The steam had vanished. The liquid was murky. Yet he held onto it, because gripping something felt better than standing with empty hands.
The fog outside remained black. It wasn't as thick as yesterday, but it persisted—shifting, flowing, and feeling unnervingly alive.
Morbis's final words continued to ring in his head.
"You have just unleashed the Harbinger of the Plague."
The sentence wouldn't stop looping. Not as a sound, but as a sensation—a weight settled in his chest, an obstruction that refused to leave.
