Alaric's POV
He had faced war rooms that collapsed in seconds. He had watched systems fail under pressure. He had seen people break, betray, adapt, and vanish. None of it felt like this. Because this did not collapse. This was an invitation. And worse, they had accepted it.
The white light still lingered in Alaric's vision even after the screens returned. Not as images anymore, but as presence. Something had passed through the system, and though the monitors were back, the room no longer felt like theirs. It felt observed from the inside.
Meadow stood at the console, motionless, her hand still slightly raised from the confirmation. She was the one who had pressed it. The one who had said yes. And yet Alaric knew it had not been impulsive. It had been necessary in a way that logic alone could not explain. That was what unsettled him most.
