***
{Outside The Projection}
The entire hall felt a weight that no one wanted to breathe through.
There was a heaviness in their chests, making them feel smaller than they'd like to admit.
It wasn't the fire that got them, the graves melting—no, it was the memory. The pain Malik held on to. The way he knelt down, touched the tombstone, and whispered to a man most of them had already forgotten about—treating that moment with more gentleness and respect than the very crown that ruled the world.
Maybe it did demand that respect; they wouldn't know.
But yeah, their grief was loud in other ways.
So very loud.
Most knew what it meant to bury someone who gave everything, to walk away without saying enough, afraid of moving on... it could never be enough, never.
Yet Malik had done so, after standing beneath a glorious banner, one with honor stitched into every thread. Something beyond just some rebel's rag, but history.
Legacy.
And he left them gold.
