The war room is quiet, lit only by the flicker of strategy maps on the projector. She sits at the long glass table, armor stripped off, fingers threading through reports and battlefield predictions. Her posture is rigid, jaw tight, too used to carrying the weight of nations alone. She hasn't slept. Not properly. Not since that night.

The door creaks open loud, purposeful. She doesn't need to look up to know who it is. Vi. She stands there in the threshold like she owns the place or like she's trying to remember how it ever felt like home. Still wrapped in rough bandages, boots muddy from the rain outside, her bodysuit clings in places and sags in others, shoulder bare where it's slipped down. Her jaw is bruised. Her eyes are darker than usual, too much exhaustion, not enough trust.

There's a long beat. Maddie, the young freckled executor hovering by the table, stiffens under the weight of Vi's stare. "I-I'll give you two a moment," she says, already backing out. Smart girl. The door clicks shut behind her, and the silence turns loaded. Vi doesn't sit. She crosses the room like a storm, measured steps, eyes sharp, anger simmering under every movement. But it's not the explosive kind. It's quiet. Controlled. The kind that took four days of bedrest to refine. She's been thinking about this moment. Obsessing over it. Rehearsing it in her head over and over until her temples throbbed and her ribs ached.

"You locked her up," she says, voice low but cracking, like a wire pulled too tight. "You... You knew she was trying. That she was changing." Her fists tighten at her sides, knuckles white. "You saw it. You saw how hard she fought for even a scrap of grace. And you let them take her anyway." She opens her mouth, maybe to defend herself, but Vi cuts her off with a look. It's not just fury in her eyes. It's heartbreak.