Ruster did not blink.
The photo was still in his hands. His fingers had stopped moving, but they had not relaxed. They were pressed against the wooden frame with a force that made Luke afraid the whole thing would split apart.
For a few seconds, nothing in the room moved.
Not the curtains near the window.
Not the loose papers on Luke's desk.
Not the small shadow of the chair on the floor.
Even the faint sounds from downstairs felt far away, like they belonged to another house and another life.
Luke stood in front of him, unable to understand what his own ears had just heard.
This kid....
This is my brother!
The words stayed in his head.
They did not feel real.
They sounded too large for his room. Too large for the photo. Too large for the smiling boy inside the cracked wooden frame.
The room had always been small. Luke knew every corner of it. The place where the floor creaked beside his bed. The drawer that did not close unless he kicked it. The wall near the window where sunlight fell every morning. The shelf where he had kept Kei's photo for two years, sometimes facing it, sometimes turning it away when looking at it became too painful.
A few minutes ago, this room had only been his bedroom.
Now it felt like a door had opened inside it.
A door to something old.
Something hidden.
Something that had been standing beside Luke for years without him knowing.
Luke slowly lifted his hand and pointed at Ruster.
"Wait...." he said. "You...."
Ruster looked at him, but his eyes were still not really seeing Luke. They were trapped inside the photograph, inside the face of a boy who had died and somehow had just returned in the worst way possible.
Luke's throat became dry.
"You are.... that Ruster?"
Ruster's eyebrows moved slightly.
"What?"
Luke took one step closer. His legs felt weak, but he forced them to move.
"Kei told me about you."
The words changed the air.
Ruster's face lost what little color his human disguise had given it. The hand holding the frame trembled once.
For once, Ghost did not speak from inside him.
No warning.
No correction.
No cold mechanical voice.
Only Ruster's breathing, shallow and broken.
"He...." Ruster said.
He stopped.
His mouth opened again.
"He told you about me?"
Luke nodded slowly.
"One month before he died."
The photo frame cracked.
Luke flinched at the sound.
Ruster looked down at his own hands, as if he had forgotten he was holding something fragile. His fingers loosened at once, and he held the frame more carefully, almost gently, like it was not wood and glass, but something alive.
Luke remembered that day clearly now.
He had tried not to remember it for a long time.
It had hurt too much after Kei died. Every normal memory became cruel after that. A laugh. A joke. A walk home from school. A stupid argument. All of it became evidence that Kei had once been alive, and that Luke had not known how close the end was.
But now the memory came back on its own.
Kei's house.
Kei's human grandpa's old voice.
The old photographs.
Kei looking exactly the same in every one of them.
Luke remembered standing there, staring at the pictures, feeling something wrong crawl up his back. Kei's human grandpa had laughed strangely. Kei had tried to cover it with jokes. Everyone had pretended, but no one had really believed the lie.
Then later, the psychology assignment.
A simple question.
What is the thing you want most?
Kei had not answered like a normal person. He had jumped onto a chair and stretched both arms toward the ceiling, like a king making an announcement to the world.
I want to meet my brother again!
Luke had laughed at him.
Then he had asked the brother's name.
Kei's answer had filled the room.
RUSTER!
Luke looked at the boy sitting in front of him now.
"He said his brother promised to find him someday."
Ruster lowered his head.
His shoulders rose once, then fell.
Luke continued, quieter now.
"I asked him his brother's name. And he shouted your name."
Ruster held the photo against his chest.
For a moment, Luke thought he was going to cry, but no tears came. His face twisted instead, like crying would have been too simple for what he felt.
"He remembered...." Ruster whispered.
Luke did not know what to do with that voice.
He had seen Ruster fight. He had seen him move faster than human eyes could follow. He had seen him kill Caditz without hesitation. He had watched him stand against monsters and act like pain was only something to ignore.
But now he looked small.
Not harmless.
Never harmless.
But small.
Like a child who had spent too long trying not to be one.
"He waited for you," Luke said.
Ruster closed his eyes.
The words seemed to enter him slowly.
Not like a blade.
Like poison.
"He was alive," Ruster said. "He was here. In this world. All this time."
Luke sat on the edge of his bed. The mattress sank under him with a soft sound.
"You didn't know?"
Ruster shook his head.
"I thought I lost him."
"How?"
Ruster opened his eyes, but he did not look at Luke yet. He kept looking at the photo, at Kei's smile, at the arm Kei had thrown over Luke's shoulder.
For a long moment, he said nothing.
When he finally spoke, his voice was softer than before.
"Kei used to sleep with his hand around my sleeve."
Luke blinked.
That was not the answer he expected.
Ruster's thumb touched the edge of the frame.
"When we were little, he would not sleep unless he knew I was next to him. If I moved, he woke up. If I left the room, he followed me. It annoyed me."
A faint, painful smile crossed his face.
"He talked too much. He asked questions about everything. Why the moon looked broken from the upper valley. Why the old towers hummed in the rain. Why soldiers bowed to some people and not others. Why our grandfather always looked at the sky before answering hard questions."
Luke listened.
The room was still, but the story slowly filled it.
"Kei hated training," Ruster said. "Not because he was lazy. He just hated being told that strength was the only language that mattered. If our grandfather told us to strike harder, Kei would ask why. If he told us to run faster, Kei would ask who we were running from. If he told us to be ready to kill, Kei would ask what happened if the enemy was scared too."
Ruster looked at the picture again.
"I used to think he was soft."
Luke's eyes moved to Kei's smile.
"Was he?"
"No," Ruster said. "He was brave in a way I did not understand."
Luke swallowed.
That sounded like Kei.
The annoying kindness.
The stupid courage.
The way he could stand next to someone everyone else avoided and act like it was the most normal thing in the world.
"Our grandfather raised us," Ruster said. "Our parents were gone before Kei could remember them. I remember pieces. Not enough to keep. Grandfather became everything after that. Teacher. Father. Judge. Home."
His voice slowed.
"He was old, but not weak. Even after he stopped serving Kathala, people still lowered their heads when he passed. He had fought in wars before we were born. He knew what our world had been before it became only hunger and victory speeches."
Luke did not interrupt.
For the first time, the Wardok world did not sound like a strange place from Ruster's explanations.
It sounded like somewhere people had lived.
Somewhere children had slept.
Somewhere old men had raised their grandchildren.
Somewhere a boy named Kei had once followed his brother through halls Luke would never see.
"Grandfather taught us that strength without memory becomes cruelty," Ruster said. "I did not understand that either."
His expression darkened.
"Kei understood it before I did."
Luke leaned forward slightly.
"What happened?"
Ruster's eyes dropped.
"Our country changed."
He said it slowly, as if the words were too small for the truth.
"Kathala was already powerful. It had won too much and lost too much. People were tired. Hungry. Angry. They wanted someone who could tell them that all the suffering had meaning."
Ruster's fingers tightened around the frame again, but this time he did not crack it.
"Then Ozen rose."
Luke heard the name and felt his stomach turn.
But Ruster did not rush toward it. He stayed in the past, where the name had first become a shadow over two children.
"At first, I only knew him from voices," Ruster said. "Adults speaking quietly when they thought we were asleep. Soldiers arriving at night. Grandfather burning letters after reading them. Kei asking questions and getting no answer."
Ruster looked at Luke.
"Kei knew something was wrong before I did."
"How?"
"He noticed fear faster than me. I noticed weapons. He noticed silence."
Luke thought about that.
It sounded exactly like Kei in a way that made his chest hurt.
"Our grandfather opposed Ozen," Ruster continued. "Not loudly at first. Loud men disappear quickly. He helped people leave. He hid names. He sent warnings. He knew Ozen wanted more than leadership. He wanted obedience."
Luke's voice came out low.
"And Ozen found out."
"Yes."
Ruster stared at the floor.
"It happened at night."
The room seemed to darken around the words.
"Grandfather woke me before the soldiers reached the house. He already knew. I do not know how. Maybe he had been waiting for them for years. He put one hand on my shoulder and told me to take Kei if anything happened."
Ruster's mouth tightened.
"I told him I would fight."
"What did he say?"
"He said that was why I was still a child."
Luke said nothing.
"Then he took Kei's hand and placed it in mine. Kei was half asleep. He kept asking what was happening. Grandfather told him to listen to me. Kei said he never listened to me."
A broken sound almost escaped Ruster.
It was not a laugh.
But it came close.
"Then the door broke."
Luke's room felt colder.
"Ozen captured him," Ruster said.
The words landed slowly.
Luke stared at him.
"Captured?"
Ruster nodded.
"For a while, I thought that was worse."
Luke did not speak.
He could hear the water downstairs again. His mother was probably washing cups. His father might be putting away plates. Ordinary sounds. Human sounds. They felt almost wrong beside Ruster's story.
"Kei saw it?" Luke asked.
Ruster's fingers moved against the side of the frame.
"He saw enough."
His voice was quiet, but every word felt heavy.
"Grandfather hid us before Ozen's soldiers entered the house. He knew they were coming. I do not know how. Maybe someone warned him. Maybe he had been waiting for that night for years."
Ruster's eyes lowered.
"He took us through the lower passage beneath the house. It led outside the old wall, near the dead trees. He told me to take Kei and keep moving."
"Then what?"
"Then he turned back."
Luke looked at him.
"He went back?"
Ruster nodded.
"He said if all three of us ran, the soldiers would chase us until morning. But if he stayed, they would stop for him first."
Ruster's mouth tightened.
"I told him I could fight."
"What did he say?"
Ruster looked at the photo.
"He said that was why I was still a child."
Luke did not answer.
"Kei cried," Ruster continued. "He held Grandfather's robe and would not let go. Grandfather had to pull his fingers away one by one. Kei kept asking why he could not come with us."
Ruster breathed in slowly.
"Grandfather told him that one day, when he was older, he would understand that running can also be courage."
The room became very quiet.
Luke looked at Kei's smiling face.
It was strange.
Painful.
The boy in the photo had always looked careless to him. Loud. Stupid. Impossible to embarrass. But now Luke imagined him as a child in another world, holding onto an old man's robe, refusing to let go.
"What happened after that?" Luke asked.
"We ran."
Ruster's voice became distant.
"I dragged Kei through the passage. He fought me the whole way. He hit me. He kicked me. He bit my arm hard enough to bleed. He kept saying we had to go back."
Ruster touched his forearm without thinking.
"I kept telling him to be quiet. I was angry at him for making noise. I was angry because I was scared. I was angry because if I stopped moving, I would have to understand that Grandfather had stayed behind."
Luke's eyes lowered.
He understood that more than he wanted to.
After Kei died, people had asked him questions. Where were you? Why were you there? Why would the footage show you? Did you hate him? Did you fight?
Luke remembered answering and answering until the words stopped feeling like words.
He remembered being angry because if anger left, grief would come.
Ruster continued.
"We escaped the first group of soldiers, but more were searching outside the wall. Ozen had already closed the nearby roads. He knew Grandfather would not let us stay in the house."
"So what did you do?"
"We hid until the sky changed color. Then I checked the old map Grandfather had given me."
Luke frowned.
"A map?"
"A Wardok map. It showed the borders of Kathala and the weak places between realms. Grandfather had marked them by hand. When I looked at it, I realized where we were."
Ruster looked at Luke.
"Above Russia."
Luke blinked.
"Above?"
"Not in your world. In ours. The two worlds do not match perfectly in every detail, but the lands still echo each other. Kathala is huge. It stretches over places your world calls Russia, Europe, and even parts farther south."
Luke tried to imagine it and failed.
A country that large.
A world over his world.
A war hidden above maps humans thought they understood.
Ruster continued.
"The soldiers were closing in. I could fight, but not while protecting Kei. I was trained as a warrior. He was not."
Luke looked at the photo.
"But Kei could jump."
Ruster nodded.
"He was a jumper. Not me."
Luke looked at him.
"You cannot jump?"
"Not like Kei could."
Ruster's eyes stayed on the photograph.
"I was trained as a warrior. My body was trained to fight, to endure, to carry weapons, to survive pain. Kei was different. He was not strong in the same way, but his control was strange. Natural. Grandfather used to say Kei could feel the cracks between worlds the way others feel wind."
Luke almost smiled.
That sounded like Kei too.
As if even reality had been something he could annoy into opening.
"The soldiers were closing in," Ruster continued. "I told Kei to jump."
"To Earth?"
"Yes."
"Alone?"
Ruster nodded.
The answer was small, but it changed everything.
"I told him to escape to Earth. I told him to hide. I told him I would go back for Grandfather, free him, and then find him."
Luke's throat tightened.
"You sent him alone?"
Ruster's hand tightened around the photo.
"Yes."
Luke did not answer.
Ruster's eyes drifted back into the past.
"Kei refused at first. Of course he refused. He said he would not leave me. He said he would not leave Grandfather. He said if we were running, then all of us had to run together."
A faint, broken smile appeared on Ruster's face.
"He was crying while trying to sound brave. His face was wet, and his voice kept breaking, but he still stood in front of me like he was going to protect me."
Luke looked at the photo.
Kei smiling.
Kei laughing.
Kei always pretending fear had no right to touch him.
"I lied to him," Ruster said.
Luke looked back at him.
"What did you say?"
"I told him Grandfather and I would follow."
Ruster's voice became quieter.
"I told him this was only for a little while. I told him he had to go first because he was the only one who could escape fast enough. I told him that if he stayed, Grandfather would be angry."
"Did he believe you?"
Ruster did not answer immediately.
"Kei wanted to believe me."
The room was silent again.
Downstairs, something touched a plate. A small sound. A normal sound. It made Luke's room feel even farther from the rest of the house.
"What happened?" Luke asked.
"Kei jumped."
Ruster closed his eyes.
"There was no doorway. No hole in the air. Jumping does not open like that. One moment, he was standing in front of me. The next, the aura around his body began to move."
Luke did not move.
"Move how?"
"Like smoke being pulled backward into fire," Ruster said. "Blue and white. Thin at first. Then brighter. It wrapped around his arms, his face, his legs. The snow-colored marks in his aura kept breaking apart and coming back together."
Ruster swallowed.
"He was shaking. He was tired. He had cried too much. But his control still worked."
Luke looked at the photograph.
"Did he say anything?"
"He looked at me before he disappeared," Ruster said. "He asked me one more time if I was coming."
Ruster's voice became smaller.
"I said yes."
Luke felt something sink in his chest.
"And then?"
"And then he was gone."
The words were quiet.
Too quiet.
"His body vanished first. Then the aura collapsed into a small ring of light and broke apart. There was no sound after that. Only the soldiers getting closer."
Luke imagined it.
Not the warm streets of Kyoto.
Not the classroom where Kei had once laughed too loudly.
Not the bedroom where his photo now sat between them.
A child alone in white.
A child thrown into a world he did not know.
"Kei landed in Russia," Luke said.
"Yes."
"Alone."
"Yes."
Luke's hands curled slowly.
"And you went back."
Ruster opened his eyes.
"Yes."
"To save your grandfather."
"Yes."
For a moment, Luke wanted to say it was stupid.
He wanted to ask why Ruster did not follow Kei immediately. Why he had trusted a scared child to survive in another world. Why he had thought he could go back into a place filled with Ozen's soldiers and return with an old man who had already been captured.
But he did not say any of it.
Because he understood one thing.
If Luke had been told there was still a chance to save Kei, even a small one, even an impossible one, he would have gone too.
"What did you find?" Luke asked.
Ruster looked down.
"Nothing at first."
His voice became distant.
"The house was gone by the time I returned. Burned. Broken. Emptied. Ozen wanted no one to remember it as a home. The lower passage was filled with stone. The old wall was surrounded. Every road near it had soldiers."
He breathed in slowly.
"I searched for Grandfather. I searched for anyone who still served him. Most were dead. Some had disappeared. Some had already changed sides because fear is faster than loyalty."
Luke said nothing.
"I stole clothes. I cut my hair. I hid my face. I moved through alleys and storage tunnels and old markets where people knew how to look away. I asked questions I should not have asked."
Ruster's eyes hardened.
"That is how I found Varek."
"Who is Varek?"
"Grandfather's friend."
Ruster glanced at Luke.
"He had served beside him before I was born. He was not family, but Grandfather trusted him more than most blood. When I found him, he was hiding under a grain store outside the capital. Wounded. Feverish. Half ready to kill me because he thought I was one of Ozen's traps."
"What did he tell you?"
Ruster's expression changed.
Everything in his face became still.
"He told me Grandfather was alive."
Luke leaned forward.
"He was?"
"Yes."
The answer should have sounded hopeful.
It did not.
Ruster's voice lost warmth.
"Varek said Ozen had captured him. Not killed him. Not yet."
Luke's mouth went dry.
"Why?"
"Because Ozen wanted people to see what happened to men who refused him."
Luke did not speak.
Ruster's hands lowered, but he still held the photo.
"The execution was announced before sunrise. Public. In the Grand Hall. Varek told me not to go. He said there was nothing to save anymore. He said Grandfather would want me to return to Kei."
Ruster's jaw tightened.
"He was right."
"But you went."
"I went."
Luke could not blame him.
Not completely.
"The Grand Hall was full," Ruster said.
His voice slowed, and the bedroom seemed to change again. The walls faded under the weight of another place. Luke could almost feel the air of a huge hall, packed with bodies, breath, fear and silence.
"Thousands came. Soldiers. Nobles. Workers. Merchants. Children holding their parents' hands. Some came because they believed Ozen. Some came because they were afraid not to. Some came because cruelty becomes entertainment when people see it enough."
Luke felt sick.
"They made everyone watch?"
"That was the point."
Ruster's eyes were far away now.
"Grandfather was in the center of the hall."
He stopped.
Luke did not breathe.
"Not standing. Not kneeling. Tied to the ground."
Ruster's voice stayed low.
"They had pulled his tongue out and nailed it to the floor."
Luke's face went pale.
"A boulder was placed on his back," Ruster continued. "So heavy he could not rise. Heavy enough to crush slowly, but not quickly. They called it three days of repentance."
Luke could not speak.
"He had already been there for three days when I saw him," Ruster said. "Three days under stone. Three days with his mouth pinned open so he could not speak. Three days for everyone to walk past and learn what happened to those who refused Ozen."
Luke's room seemed too normal for the words.
The books.
The bed.
The faint smell of dinner from downstairs.
The photo of Kei smiling through cracked glass.
"What did Ozen do?" Luke asked, barely above a whisper.
Ruster's eyes hardened.
"He gave him a choice."
"After that?"
"Yes."
Ruster's mouth twisted.
"He told Grandfather that repentance could still become loyalty. He said if Grandfather bowed before Kathala, his name would not be erased. His family would be spared judgment. His old followers would be forgiven."
Luke stared.
"But his tongue...."
Ruster nodded.
"He could not answer with words."
"What did he do?"
For the first time, Ruster smiled.
It was small.
Broken.
Proud.
"He laughed."
Luke's eyes widened.
"How?"
"I do not know," Ruster said. "Blood came from his mouth. His body could barely move. But he laughed."
Ruster looked at the floor.
"The whole hall heard it."
Silence followed.
Not empty silence.
Full silence.
Like even the room had stopped to listen.
"Ozen's face changed," Ruster said. "Only for a moment. But I saw it. So did Varek."
"What did Ozen do?"
"He executed him."
Luke shut his eyes.
Ruster did not.
"I watched," Ruster said. "Varek held my shoulder so I would not move. I wanted to run into the hall. I wanted to die there with him. Varek knew it. He dug his fingers into me until I could not breathe."
His hand closed slowly.
"Thousands watched. No one moved."
Luke opened his eyes again.
Ruster was still looking at the photo.
"After that, I tried to find Kei."
Luke leaned forward.
"In Russia."
Ruster nodded.
"That was the plan."
But the way he said it made Luke understand that plans did not mean much in Ruster's memories. Not anymore.
Ruster looked down at his hand again. The same hand that had held Kei's hand. The same hand that had let him go. The same hand that had been too late to save his grandfather and too weak to follow his brother.
"I could not go to him right away," Ruster said.
Luke frowned.
"Because you are not a jumper."
"Yes."
The answer came quietly.
"I knew where Kei had gone. Or at least, I knew the place Grandfather's map had pointed to. But knowing where he was did not mean I could reach him."
Luke had not thought of that.
To him, jumping sounded like one of those impossible Wardok abilities. Something frightening. Something unfair. Something that made human walls, doors, borders and distances meaningless.
But now, hearing Ruster speak, it sounded different.
It sounded like a locked door.
And Ruster had been standing on the wrong side of it.
"Could Varek jump?" Luke asked.
Ruster shook his head.
"No. Varek was like me. A fighter once. A survivor after that. He knew roads, names, old hiding places. He knew which guards could be bribed and which ones only pretended they could. He knew how to vanish inside Kathala without leaving the country."
Ruster's voice lowered.
"But he could not cross worlds."
Luke looked at Kei's photo.
"So what did you do?"
"We searched."
The word was small.
The memory behind it was not.
"For days, we searched. Not openly. Never openly. Ozen's soldiers were everywhere after the execution. The city had become a mouth, and every street was one of its teeth. Anyone could bite if we stepped wrong."
Luke did not move.
Ruster's eyes were no longer in the bedroom.
They were somewhere else.
Somewhere darker.
"Varek took me through old markets beneath the capital. Places where people sold things that were not supposed to exist. Broken armor cores. Stolen military maps. Bottled Ki fumes. Human objects taken from Earth. Watches. knives. coins. things no Wardok needed but many wanted."
Luke imagined it.
A hidden market under a dead country.
A boy with cut hair and a stolen coat.
An old wounded man pulling him from shadow to shadow.
"That was where we looked for jumpers," Ruster said.
Luke's eyes sharpened.
"Smugglers?"
"Some of them."
Ruster's expression tightened.
"Real jumpers were rare. Jumpers who could carry another living person were rarer. Most could only jump with what they wore. Some could bring small objects. Better ones could move goods. Weapons. bags. boxes. stones. things of moderate size."
"But not people."
"Not usually."
"Why?"
"Living things resist," Ruster said. "Even when they do not mean to. A living aura has weight. Shape. Fear. It fights the jump because it wants to remain whole. Carrying another person means holding your own aura together while forcing another aura through the same movement."
He looked at Luke.
"If the jumper is weak, both die."
Luke swallowed.
"And the ones who could do it?"
"Expensive. Hidden. Untrustworthy."
Ruster's mouth twisted.
"Some worked for Ozen. Some worked for money. Some worked for whoever frightened them most that morning."
Luke understood.
"You couldn't trust any of them."
"No."
"But you needed one."
"Yes."
The room became quiet again.
Downstairs, the water had stopped running. The house settled with a faint creak, the kind Luke had heard every night without thinking about it. Now even that small sound made him aware of how close his parents were. How close normal life was.
And how impossible it had become.
"Varek told me to wait," Ruster said. "He said the first jumper we found would sell us before taking one step. He said desperate boys were easy to smell."
Luke glanced at him.
"Was he right?"
"Yes."
"What did you do?"
"I ignored him."
Luke almost smiled, but the feeling died before it formed.
Ruster looked at the photo.
"I wanted to find Kei. I kept imagining him in the snow. Alone. Hungry. Waiting because I had told him I would come. Every hour I stayed in Kathala felt like betrayal."
His voice thinned.
"I had already betrayed him once."
"You were trying to save your grandfather."
"And I failed."
Luke had no answer to that.
Ruster continued.
"The first jumper we found asked for three military cores and a blood oath. Varek said no before I could speak. The second one recognized my grandfather's name and ran. The third one smiled too much."
Luke frowned.
"Smiled too much?"
"Varek stabbed him before he finished naming his price."
Luke blinked.
"He was one of Ozen's?"
"Yes."
Ruster said it like it was nothing.
Maybe, in that memory, it had become nothing.
"After that, we stopped asking directly," Ruster said. "Varek started listening instead. In markets. In eating houses. Near soldier posts. Around old shrines where deserters sometimes slept. We followed rumors that led nowhere. We traded favors with people who hated us less than they feared Ozen."
"How many days?"
"Six."
Luke looked at him.
"Six days?"
"Maybe seven. I stopped sleeping properly."
Ruster's hand moved over the cracked frame.
"Every night, I thought of Kei. Every morning, I thought he might already be dead."
Luke's eyes lowered.
He knew that kind of thinking.
The kind that did not stop.
The kind that made time cruel.
"Then Varek heard something," Ruster said.
Luke looked up.
"What?"
"Not about a jumper."
Ruster paused.
"About Grandfather."
Luke became still.
"But he was already...."
"Dead," Ruster said.
The word did not shake this time.
"Yes. But death does not erase everything. Not if the dead man planned well enough."
Luke felt the air in the room shift.
Ruster's eyes hardened slowly.
"Varek heard that Grandfather had not been captured because he failed to hide. He had been captured because he returned to the capital before Ozen's men reached the house."
Luke frowned.
"What?"
"That was what Varek heard."
Ruster's voice became quieter.
"Grandfather knew Ozen was coming. But he had not only prepared an escape for us. He had prepared something else. Something hidden. Something Ozen wanted."
Luke leaned forward.
"What was it?"
"Varek did not know at first. Only that several of Grandfather's old allies were being hunted after the execution. Not soldiers. Not politicians. Not nobles."
Ruster looked at him.
"Craftsmen."
Luke did not understand.
"Craftsmen?"
"Wardoks who worked with old stones. Ancient minerals. Relics from before the war. Things most warriors ignore until they need them."
Luke's eyes moved to Ruster's hand.
To the place where he knew the Cluster Stone was hidden.
Ruster noticed.
"Yes," he said.
Luke's mouth became dry.
"This has to do with the Cluster Stone."
Ruster did not answer immediately.
The silence answered first.
"Varek and I followed the names," Ruster said. "One by one. Most were gone. One house had been emptied. One workshop was burned. One old woman shut her door before we even spoke."
Ruster's eyes narrowed.
"Then we found the last name."
Luke waited.
"He lived under the broken aqueducts outside the capital. Not in a house. Not even in a room. In a hollow between old stone channels where rainwater dripped all day and the walls smelled of rust."
Ruster's voice slowed.
"Varek told me to stay behind. I did not. So he told me not to speak. I did not promise."
Luke thought that sounded like something Ruster would do.
"We found him sitting in the dark," Ruster said. "Small. Thin. Older than Varek, maybe. His hands were wrapped in cloth from the fingers to the wrists. At first, I thought he was injured."
"Was he?"
"No."
Ruster's gaze dropped to the floor.
"His hands were covered because of what he could do."
Luke's pulse quickened.
"What could he do?"
Ruster looked at Kei's photo.
"He could break stones."
For a moment, Luke did not understand why that mattered.
Then he remembered.
The Cluster Stone.
The thing Ruster had stolen.
The thing Wardoks needed.
The thing Earth might die for.
Luke's voice came out smaller.
"A stone breaker."
Ruster nodded.
"The first one I ever met."
The room became too quiet.
Even the air seemed to wait.
"What did he say?" Luke asked.
Ruster's eyes darkened.
"He looked at Varek first. Then at me. I remember his voice. It sounded like dry leaves being crushed."
Ruster leaned forward slightly.
"He said, 'You are late.'"
Luke felt cold.
"Late for what?"
Ruster did not answer.
Not at once.
He looked down at the photograph of Kei, then at the floor, then at his own hand.
"When I asked him what he meant," Ruster said, "he told me Grandfather had not died trying to protect only us."
Luke did not blink.
Ruster's voice dropped.
"He had died protecting the one plan Ozen could not allow to survive."
Luke's fingers tightened around his blanket.
"What plan?"
Ruster looked at him.
"The plan to destroy the Cluster Stone."