Out of Time

“We’re out of time,” Elara said, her voice cutting through the tense silence of the observatory. Kaelen and Rhys both looked at her, surprised by the sudden certainty in her tone. The debate had been circular, a rehash of the same impossible choices. But something had shifted in Elara. The cautious leader was gone, replaced by someone more decisive, more dangerous.

“We can’t afford to build a case,” she continued, her eyes fixed on the city below. “Every day we wait, more people are poisoned. And we can’t confront Tobin directly. He’s too popular, and Kaelen is right, it would lead to civil war.”

“So what do you propose?” Rhys asked, his voice weary.

“We leak the data,” Elara said, the words hanging in the air like a declaration of war. “We give it to someone who can get the truth out, someone the people will trust more than they trust us right now.”

Kaelen stared at her, a slow smile spreading across his face. “You want to start a fire,” he said, his voice a low rumble of approval.

“I want to save the city,” Elara corrected him. “And right now, the only way to do that is to burn down the lies that are killing it.”

It was a radical plan, a gamble that would either save the city or plunge it into a new kind of chaos. But it was a plan born of desperation, a last, desperate attempt to avert a catastrophe. As they looked at each other, the Triumvirate was united again, not by a shared hope, but by a shared, terrible purpose. The time for secrets was over. The time for truth, however brutal, had begun.