The tunnel pulsed with light.
White beams swept across the damp walls, catching the dust in harsh glare. The Quiet Guard advanced in perfect formation, boots pounding like a single heartbeat. Their black visors reflected Kael's frozen face, each step drawing closer to the device at his feet.
Mira shifted, knife hidden in her sleeve. Kael could see it in her eyes, she was ready to fight, even if it meant dying.
"Unauthorized presence," one of the guards repeated, voice mechanical through his helmet. "Surrender now. Silence will be merciful."
Kael's chest tightened. His whole life had been silence, forced, suffocating silence. He had obeyed, endured, disappeared. But for the first time, something inside him burned against it.
His hand closed around the device.
The guard's weapon rose.
Kael slammed his thumb against the trigger.
The world shuddered.
A low vibration rippled through the tunnel, rattling pipes, shaking dust loose from the ceiling. The VoxTags on the guards' throats flickered, blue light stuttering to red, red to nothing.
And then it happened.
For five long seconds, silence broke.
Mira gasped, the sound raw and real. One of the guards shouted, a harsh voice muffled by panic. Another cursed. And somewhere above them, through the tower, through the city itself, a wave of voices erupted. Cries, whispers, laughter. A chorus of sound Orven Prime hadn't heard in decades.
Kael's chest pounded. He couldn't join them, not with his ruined voice, but he felt it all the same. A storm of freedom tearing through the silence.
The device sputtered. Sparks flew. The VoxTags reignited. One by one, the guards' throats glowed blue again. Their rage returned with it.
"Seize them!"
Mira grabbed Kael's arm, pulling him down a side passage just as bullets tore into the wall where they had stood. The tunnel filled with deafening noise, not human, but mechanical, brutal.
They ran, the echo of voices still lingering in Kael's mind.
Only when they were deep in the tunnels, breathless and bruised, did Mira slow. She pressed her back against the wall, laughing softly between gasps.
"Did you feel it?" she whispered. "The city spoke, Kael. We lit the spark."
Kael met her gaze. For the first time, he didn't just feel like an invisible shadow. He felt part of something bigger, something alive.
The silence had cracked. And the Accord would never forgive it.