"Revolution?" The king's voice echoed through the chamber, each syllable hammering against our consciousness. "You speak of revolution while bringing their spawn into my sanctuary?"

  With each word, the pressure intensified. Qali dropped to one knee, her freckled face contorting with the effort of remaining even partially upright. Tiny fissures appeared in the stone beneath us, spreading outward from where we stood like spiderwebs across glass. We would be crushed to death if it wasn’t for our enhanced physiology.

  "Show restraint, Mar'Dun," Styx said, his own aura flaring in response. "They are not what you think."

  The Drow King—Mar'Dun—stepped fully into the light cast by the bioluminescent crystals. Unlike his daughter Elizabeth, whose skin had been pure black, the king's skin held an undertone of deep blue, like the twilight sky just before full darkness. His eyes were the same brilliant sky blue that Eli had inherited, but where hers had been filled with warmth and mischief, his contained only cold fury in this moment. His white hair hung loose around his shoulders, unbound for sleep.

  "Not what I think?" he snarled, gesturing sharply. The pressure increased again, and somewhere in the distance, we heard the sounds of stone cracking. "I see Ereshkigal's eyes in that one. I smell Nergal's stench in that one. And this one—" his gaze fixed on Enrosha, "—has Enzu's height and bearing."

  "Look deeper," Styx urged, his voice remaining calm despite the building tension. "See what I have seen."

  With minimal effort, Styx took a step forward. The air between them seemed to distort as reality bent under their dueling emanations.

  "These daughters have fled Nibiru at great risk. They have uncovered truths their parents sought to hide. They bring knowledge that may change everything."

  For a moment, Mar'Dun's expression remained unchanged, his rage still palpable. Then, almost imperceptibly, something shifted in his eyes—a flicker of the same recognition Styx had shown at the megalith.

  "Speak," he commanded, the crushing pressure of his aura easing slightly, though still heavy enough that none of us could fully straighten.

  I drew a painful breath, forcing my voice past the pressure on my chest. "We know about Tara," I said, each word a struggle. "We know about the Symphony. We know more about what Princess Elizabeth discovered, King Mar’Dun!"

  At the mention of his daughter, Mar'Dun's aura flared again, the stone floor beneath him cracking in a perfect circle. "Do not speak her name with your mother's tongue."

  "Please," Qali gasped, still on one knee. "We rejected our heritage... we escaped... to help..."

  "Help?" Mar'Dun laughed, a sound like stone grinding against stone. "The spawn of our oppressors come to help? After what they did to my sweet Elizabeth? After what they did to the Prince? After the countless, torturous eons of subjugation on this damn prison!?"

  He stepped closer, the weight of his presence increasing with each footfall. "Do you understand what I have witnessed? Do you know what your mother—" he pointed at me, "—did to my daughter? The light of my existence… my only child?"

  Pain lanced through me at his words—not just from the crushing pressure of his aura, but from the raw anguish behind his rage. For all his power, for all his fury, what I sensed most keenly in that moment was his grief.

  It was a father's grief—pure, undiluted, and profound in a way that left me momentarily breathless. In that crushing gravitational field of his aura, I saw something I had never witnessed in my mother's eyes: genuine love for their child. Princess Elizabeth had been his everything. She wasn't an experiment or a disappointment to him. She was his world.

  Where my mother had referred to me as an ‘it’, Mar'Dun had cherished his daughter. Where Ereshkigal had evaluated my shortcomings as failure, this king had celebrated Elizabeth's uniqueness. I had been raised in isolation, observed rather than nurtured. Elizabeth had been raised in connection, loved unconditionally despite any choices she might have made.

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  My eyes burned suddenly, tears forming only to be immediately pulled downward by the king's gravitational aura, streaming faster than normal down my cheeks and dripping from my chin to spatter against the polished stone floor. I couldn't wipe them away—my arms were too heavy. They were pinned by the immense pressure—so I simply remained there, crying openly before this grieving father who had lost everything I had never been given.

  "I couldn't save her… I—" he continued, his voice dropping to a whisper that somehow carried more power than his shout. "I felt her death. Every royal Drow felt it—her pain, her final thoughts, and her love for that courageous, idiotic, noble Prince even as she died. And now you come here... You enter my domain to—" He squeezed his fist, whitening his knuckles and dawned the most bitter of expressions.

  Enrosha, still fighting to stand upright, managed to raise her head. "We came... because we refuse... to be what they made us," she forced out between labored breaths. "We came... because we want... to end the system... that killed your daughter."

  His gaze shifted to Styx who stood rather relaxedly despite it all.

  "Is this true, my fair, old friend…?" he asked, his voice softer now, his eyes wet and glistening. "Or have you finally lost your mind?"

  Styx allowed himself the faintest smile. "Perhaps both," he admitted. "But I have seen into their minds and their hearts. They are not their parents, Mar’Dun, I assure you of this. They may, in fact, be something entirely new."

  A long silence followed, broken only by our labored breathing and the distant sound of alarmed voices. The king's unleashed aura had not gone unnoticed by the rest of the Drow kingdom.

  Finally, Mar'Dun closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. The crushing pressure receded gradually, allowing us to straighten once more. When he opened his eyes again, the fury remained, but it was contained, channeled, and purposeful rather than consuming.

  "What do they bring us?" he asked Styx directly.

  "Knowledge," Styx replied. "Genetic evidence. What is coming for us all next. And something else."

  He gestured toward me. "Show him," he instructed.

  With trembling hands, still recovering from the king's energetic assault, I removed my codex from my hair. The crystalline device caught the bioluminescent light, refracting it into rainbow patterns across the chamber walls.

  "Everything we discovered in their archives," I explained, my voice steadier now. "Including the truth about the Sovereigns."

  Mar'Dun stared at the codex, conflict evident in his expression. Millennia of hatred warred with the possibility, however remote, of advancing the cause his daughter had died for.

  "My King?" A female voice called from beyond the chamber doors. "Are you well? The guards reported disturbances throughout the realm."

  Mar'Dun didn't take his eyes from the codex as he replied, "I am unharmed. Resume your posts."

  "But Sire, the sensors indicate—"

  "Listen to my words, Ronya!" Each word carried a fraction of the power he had unleashed earlier, enough to send the guards scurrying away from the doors.

  When they were gone, he turned back to Styx. "You should have warned me," he said, not quite an accusation.

  "Would you have received them had I sent advance notice?" Styx countered.

  A bitter smile crossed the king's face. "No." He took another deep breath, visibly composing himself before addressing us directly. "I apologize…"

  "To be fair, we were warned," I replied softly. "Had I been in your position, I would have probably crushed us into dust without hesitation."

  Something like respect flickered in Mar'Dun's eyes at my honesty. He gestured toward a circular table in one corner of the chamber, carved from the same living stone as the walls. "Come. If we are to speak of revolution, let us at least do so properly."

  As we moved toward the table, the king seemed to notice our formal Anunnaki attire for the first time. His lip curled in distaste. "We'll need to find you something else to wear. Those garments are... offensive. I'll have suitable alternatives brought. Then we can discuss whatever it is you believe might change the balance of this ancient war."

  As we seated ourselves at the table, I noticed a subtle shift in the king's demeanor. The cold fury remained, but alongside it emerged a keen intelligence and a carefully guarded flicker of something that might, given time and evidence, evolve into hope.

  "Before we begin," Mar'Dun said, his gaze moving between us, "I would know one thing. Why? What drove you to betray your heritage, your families, and your world?"

  "They betrayed us first," Enrosha replied without hesitation. "By making us what we are. We were experiments, not their children."

  "For me, it was the human at the feast," Qali added quietly. "Watching his essence extracted while the nobility applauded… I nearly couldn’t hold back my emotions any longer."

  I met the king's piercing gaze directly. "I saw the records of what happened here," I said. "What my mother did to your daughter. What the Anunnaki have done to countless beings. And I chose not to be part of it anymore."

  Mar'Dun studied me for a long moment, seeing beyond my physical resemblance to Ereshkigal. Then, slowly, he nodded.

  "Very well," he said, turning to Styx. "Tell me about these 'echoes of revolution.'"