They moved down a short, hushed corridor, the rich, crimson carpet absorbing the sound of their footsteps. The muffled roar of the crowd on the other side of the doors grew into a visceral vibration that he could feel in his chest. Harlow gave his shoulder a quick, firm squeeze before she and Damien took up positions by the entrance, their faces grim.
The doors swung open. The world dissolved into light and noise.
A wall of sound, a physical force, slammed into Runne, a deafening roar composed of thousands of voices. The heat from countless spotlights washed over his face, making the air shimmer. He squinted, the glare blinding him, the audience a vast, breathing sea of shadows. As the initial roar subsided into a heavy, expectant silence, the smaller sounds became sharp and clear: the rustle of expensive fabrics, the faint, high-pitched whine of the audio system, the shuffling of feet.
One camera drone detached from the swarm, gliding silently towards him. It stopped a few feet from his face, a black, multi-lensed eye in a metal shell. He heard the faint, mechanical zzzhh-click as its lens adjusted, focusing on him. A tiny red light blinked on. Recording.
His eyes slowly adjusted. He could now make out the front rows. Politicians. He noticed the glint of light off the polished gold of their lanyards, the soft, well-fed appearance of their faces.
'They've never missed a meal,' he thought, a bitter taste flooding his mouth as he contrasted them with the gaunt, hungry faces from the Southern slums.
Diaval walked to a sleek, minimalist podium at the centre of the stage. The massive, sickly green hologram of the Advent Rift pulsed behind him, bathing everything in its eerie light.
"For ten years," Diaval began, his voice calm and resonant, "we have enjoyed an era of stability. An era of peace earned by sacrifice. Today, that peace has been threatened." He gestured to the horrifying image of the Rift. "A new wound has opened in our world. But where there is a threat, there must also be resolve." He turned his gaze towards Runne. "Private Runne Veyne, the soldier who faced this abyss and returned, stands before you now as a testament to that resolve. A symbol of our unyielding will to survive."
A wave of polite applause rippled through the hall. Before it could die down, Councilman Hilt shot to his feet.
"The Commander speaks of a threat, but I see a new line item in the budget!" Hilt's voice was sharp with scorn. "An excuse to funnel more resources from the Eastern agricultural sectors to his own forces while our people's rations are stretched thin!"
Senator Orin, his face flushed with theatrical outrage, rose to join him, pointing a trembling finger directly at Runne. "And you bring a boy to do your bidding! Look at him! You parade him in a general's uniform, but his file says he is nothing but a dormant grunt! Are we truly expected to believe that the fate of our dominion rests on the word of a trauma-addled orphan?"
Orphan.
The word sliced through the noise, through the heat, through the carefully constructed wall of silence Runne had built around himself. It was the key that unlocked a decade of rage and grief. The sanitised holograms from the Archives, heroic lies shattered in his mind.
'They didn't show the screams,' his mind roared, his hand clenching into a fist inside his pocket, fingers digging into the hard plastic of the toy soldier. 'They didn't show the smell of ozone and blood. They weren't there.'
Diaval's order echoed in his memory. Say nothing. Be the story.
'No,' the thought was a rebellion, hot and absolute. 'You don't get to decide what my story is.'
He saw Diaval give a subtle, almost imperceptible shake of his head. A warning.
Runne took a single, deliberate step forward.
The movement was small, but it shifted the gravity of the entire room. Every camera drone swivelled to track him. A confused murmur rippled through the front rows.
"What is the meaning of this?" Senator Orin sputtered. "Commander, control your asset!"
Runne ignored him. He walked, step by deliberate step, towards the podium. Each footstep was a soft, defiant thud on the stage floor. He saw the faces of the politicians turn from confusion to outrage. He felt the weight of thousands of eyes on him. He kept walking. His face was no longer a blank mask; it was set with a grim, defiant determination born from a decade of buried pain.
He reached the podium, his hands gripping its smooth, cool edges. He leaned into the microphone, an electronic pop echoing through the hall. His own voice came out, a raw, shaky whisper that was nonetheless carried by the hall's perfect acoustics.
"I'll clear it."
A profound, absolute silence fell. The murmuring stopped. The whispering stopped. Even the drones seemed to freeze in mid-air. Runne lifted his head, his gaze sweeping across the shadowed faces he couldn't see, and spoke again, his voice no longer a whisper, but a raw, defiant roar filled with all the pain and fury of the last ten years.
"I'll clear the rift myself!"
For a heartbeat, there was nothing. Then, Diaval's control finally cracked.
For a single, terrifying instant, the air in the hall grew heavy, pressing down on everyone with an immense, physical weight. A palpable wave of pure pressure emanated from the commander on the stage, the hum from the lights flickering as if struggling against an unseen force. A single vein pulsed on Diaval's temple.
He snatched back his composure in the next instant, the oppressive feeling vanishing as quickly as it came, but the damage was done. The hall exploded into a supernova of sound. Reporters in the press gallery leaped to their feet, screaming questions. Politicians were on their feet, their faces masks of outrage and disbelief. From the upper galleries, a chant began to rise, hesitant at first, then growing louder: "Veyne! Veyne! Veyne!"
Diaval moved. Before Runne could say another word, the commander's hand clamped down on his arm. His grip was impossibly strong, and he yanked Runne back from the podium, spinning him around and propelling him forcefully towards the back of the stage as Aegis Guards moved in to form a wall against the chaos. The last thing Runne saw before the stage exit swallowed him was a tidal wave of flashing lights and a thousand roaring mouths.