The air in the alumni house was thick with unspoken tension. Lisa returned from her meeting with Cyno looking grim, her usual playful demeanor replaced by the cold focus of a storm witch.
"Cyno knows," she reported, her voice low. "I told him everything. The dream harvesting, the Sages' plot, the involvement of the Fatui. He… took it well. Which is to say, he was silent for a very long time, and then he started sharpening his polearm."
She sat down, rubbing her temples. "But Azar has made his move. He's issued orders directly to the Matra. Cyno has been tasked with apprehending Alhaitham—the Scribe—for possession of Forbidden Knowledge capsules. And he's ordered to bring in the Traveler for questioning regarding her association with him."
"A convenient way to remove the pieces from the board," Ningguang noted, her amber eyes narrowing. "Accuse the whistleblower of the crime you are committing. Classic misdirection."
"Cyno isn't a fool," Lisa said. "He knows an order designed to blind him when he sees one. He said he will approach Alhaitham and Lumine not as a judge, but as an investigator. He's going to hear them out. If Azar thinks he can use the General Mahamatra as a blunt instrument, he's in for a nasty shock."
"And Azar himself?" Ren asked.
"Vanished," Ningguang said. "He has sealed himself within the upper levels of the Akademiya. No audiences, no meetings. He is bunkering down. He knows his time is running out. He is waiting for his god to wake up."
"We just need to keep an eye out," Ren said, though his own anxiety was a tight knot in his chest. "We wait for Lumine's move."
He looked out the window at the lush greenery of the city. The waiting was suffocating.
"I need air," he decided suddenly. "Can we go out? Maybe somewhere… quieter?"
Lisa smiled, understanding. "How about Pardis Dhyai? It's a botanical garden just outside the city. Very peaceful. And I believe Tighnari is there today, tending to a scholar."
The trip to Pardis Dhyai was a welcome reprieve. The garden was a masterpiece of controlled nature, a greenhouse filled with rare and vibrant flora. The air was humid and sweet, filled with the scent of blooming Padisarahs.
They found Tighnari near a small pavilion, carefully examining a potted plant with glowing blue leaves. But he wasn't alone. Standing next to him, clanking softly as it moved a watering can with surprising gentleness, was a Ruin Crab—a mechanical construct of the ancient desert civilization.
Ren blinked. "Is that… a Ruin machine?"
"Ah, Ren, Lisa," Tighnari greeted them, wiping soil from his hands. "Yes. This is Karkata. He's… a friend. He helps me tend the garden. He has a surprisingly delicate touch for a war machine."
Karkata chirped a mechanical sound and waved a claw. Ren grinned, fascinated. A tamed ruin machine? Faruzan would lose her mind.
"And this," Tighnari gestured to the scholar slumped on a nearby bench, "is Haypasia. A scholar who… connected a little too deeply with the Irminsul. She's recovering."
Ren approached the scholar. Haypasia looked pale, her eyes unfocused, muttering softly to herself. The air around her was thick with a strange, heavy scent.
Ren sniffed. It was incense. But not the usual sandalwood or jasmine. It was sharp, cloying, and disturbingly familiar.
Spirit Borneol.
The scent hit him like a physical blow. His head swam. A sharp, piercing pain spiked behind his eyes.
The garden dissolved. The sunlight vanished.
Darkness. And a voice.
It was a voice he knew. A voice filled with a cold, ancient bitterness.
"It took three betrayals for me to finally understand…"
The darkness shifted, revealing fragments of memory that were not his own.
Flash.
A beautiful, violet pavilion. A woman—Ei—turning her back, leaving a weeping, fragile puppet alone in a chamber. The pain of abandonment, raw and crushing. The first betrayal. By a God.
Flash.
A forge. The heat of fire. A man with kind eyes—Niwa—smiling. Then… blood. A heart ripped out. A masked man—Dottore, disguised as Escher—whispering lies. The second betrayal. By the fear of humanity.
Flash.
A small, sick child. A promise to return. A cold, lifeless body in a hut. The rage of being left behind by something so fragile. The third betrayal. By a lamp of hope.
The memories swirled, a vortex of hate and sorrow.
"My chest will never again be defiled by worldly filth…" the voice hissed, echoing in Ren's skull. "I will scrub away every last trace of human emotion."
Ren gasped, stumbling back. The vision shattered. He was back in the garden, blinking in the sunlight. Tighnari was looking at him with concern. Lisa was reaching for him.
"Ren?" Lisa asked. "Are you alright? You look pale."
Ren clutched his head, the echo of Scaramouche's voice still ringing in his ears. The connection. The incense. Haypasia had connected to the Balladeer's consciousness through the Irminsul. And because of his own unique nature… he had seen it too.