CHAPTER XXXIV
The room felt colder now.
Not from air.
From exposure.
The projector behind Elara ran on loop — survivor after survivor, pain blinking like a heartbeat. And her father stood there, still as stone, while the country watched.
"You planned this," he said, finally.
Elara didn't answer.
"You think this ends me?"
"No," she said softly. "I think this unmasks you."
He took a step forward. Not aggressive — deliberate. Controlled. Always controlled.
"I built everything that kept you alive."
"You built a graveyard and called it a house."
He paused, studying her.
Then smiled — faint, sharp.
"You look like her."
Elara blinked.
"Amara?"
"No," he said. "Your real mother."
Silence.
The kind that swells in the ribs.
"What are you talking about?"
He stepped past the chair and toward the side wall.
"You think you know everything, Elara. But you don't even know yourself."
She didn't flinch.
He reached into his jacket.
Khalid tensed behind the scenes — watching from the basement monitor — his voice buzzed over the earpiece: "He's reaching for something. Say the word."
Elara didn't.
Her father pulled out a letter. Yellowed. Torn at the edges.
"Your mother wrote this," he said. "Your real one. Before she died."
Elara didn't take it.
He dropped it on the floor.
"You weren't supposed to exist," he said. "You were a mistake. A scar. But I kept you. I gave you a name. A home. A future."
"You gave me fear."
"I gave you power," he snapped.
The room crackled.
The projector stuttered — Halima's voice flickered, then stabilized.
Elara knelt, picked up the letter.
Unfolded it.
The writing was soft. Cursive. Ink faded.
"If they find you, Elara — run.
Your name is a key.
But keys open locks.
And locks are placed on things meant to be hidden."
She looked up slowly.
"What was I supposed to unlock?"
He said nothing.
Then: "Something the Council buried. Before you were even born."
Suddenly, the monitor in the basement glitched.
NUMA cursed into the earpiece.
"Someone's trying to jam the feed!"
Khalid's voice: "Trace it—quick."
Elara turned to the camera.
"This is the part they won't want you to hear."
And then to her father:
"What am I the key to?"
His face changed. For the first time — hesitation. Almost regret.
"You were part of a deal," he said.
"What kind of deal?"
"The kind that ends wars... by creating one."
Elara stepped closer.
"You gave me to them?"
"I gave them something they couldn't control," he said. "And now they want it back."
She shook her head.
"No. Not control. You gave them hope. Then you poisoned it."
The lights flickered.
NUMA's voice crackled: "They've launched a blackout."
Khalid: "You have sixty seconds. Max."
Elara turned back to the camera. Her voice steady. Sharp.
"This is what power looks like when it's terrified.
It silences. It scrambles. It lies."
"But tonight, you saw the faces behind the names.
Heard the stories behind the silence."
"We are not mistakes.
We are not shame.
We are not secrets."
"We are survivors."
The feed cut.
Darkness swallowed the room.
A beat of silence.
Then her father's voice, in the dark:
"You've made yourself the symbol."
"Symbols are meant to be destroyed."
A click.
A gun.
But another sound came faster — the electric crackle of a stun round fired from the basement.
Khalid's voice in her ear: "Drop him."
She didn't hesitate.
She spun, grabbed the backup taser from her boot, and fired.
Her father dropped — convulsing once, hard, then still.
The room remained dark.
But the silence had changed.
Khalid appeared a minute later, flashlight slicing through the dark.
NUMA followed, dragging a backup drive behind her like a lifeline.
"He'll wake in five," she said.
"We don't need more time," Elara replied.
She picked up the letter.
Folded it.
And whispered:
"Now we go find the truth he was too afraid to speak."