While Kiera, Ryu, and Joric were fighting their desperate battle in the spire's hidden arteries, Elder Valerius was fighting his own war in the hallowed council chamber.
He stood before the four other ruling Elders of the Azure Dragon clan, his face a mask of grim resolve.
The data packet Ryu had sent him, the undeniable fingerprint of Charon's energy signature moving through his fortress, was burning on his private console.
His betrayal had been betrayed. His life as he knew it was over.
All that was left was the choice of how to end it.
"Brothers," he began, his voice echoing in the grand, silent chamber, a room built on a thousand years of tradition and honor he had secretly sold.
"For months, we have been plagued by a series of misfortunes. The death of a promising young warrior, Ronan, in the Outer Sector. The public disgrace of his sister, Kiera. And now, a political scandal that has brought us to the brink of war with our rivals." He let the words hang in the air, watching the faces of his peers.
He saw concern, anger, suspicion. He did not see guilt.
They were politicians, warriors, but they were not traitors. He was alone in his damnation.
"We have blamed outside forces," Valerius continued, his voice gaining strength.
"We have blamed the Onyx Serpents, the Sunstone Jaguars. We have blamed rogue agents and our own disgraced warriors. We have been wrong." He took a deep breath, a final, shuddering intake of the rarefied air of power he had so desperately craved.
"The enemy is not at our gates. The enemy has been in this room. The enemy... is me." The confession was a physical blow.
The other Elders stared, their faces a mixture of shock, disbelief, and dawning horror. It was a confession that was so unthinkable, so contrary to the very foundation of their society, that for a moment, no one could speak.
Valerius did not let them. He laid out the truth, a brutal, unvarnished torrent of treason.
He confessed his allegiance to the Obsidian Vanguard, to their philosophy of control over chaos. He detailed their infiltration of the other clans, their manipulation of the inter-clan rivalries.
And then, he came to Ronan.
"Ronan discovered the truth," Valerius said, his voice cracking for the first time, a flicker of some long-buried shame surfacing.
"He discovered my communications with the Vanguard. He was going to expose me. To expose everything. I could not allow it." He looked at the faces of his peers, men he had known his entire life.
"I did not give the order for his death. But I did not stop it. I sanctioned the cover-up. I declared the case closed. I sacrificed one of our own to protect myself, and to protect the Vanguard's interests." The chamber was silent, save for the hum of the energy shields outside.
The truth was a cancer, and it had just been laid bare, eating away at the heart of their clan.
"This," Valerius said, placing his personal datapad on the table, "is my full confession. It contains everything. Every name, every transaction, every secret I possess. And this," he added, pulling a small, ornate plasma pistol from his robes and placing it on the table, "is my resignation." He looked each of the Elders in the eye, his own gaze clear for the first time in years, stripped of all artifice and ambition.
"I have betrayed every oath I have ever taken. My life is forfeit. I ask only that you use this truth to save the clan that I, in my arrogance, have so nearly destroyed." He had played his final card.
He had given them the truth, and with it, his life.
He had chosen a warrior's death.