Their eyes of reverence still lingered in her ears.
Even as the cold wind clawed down the stone roads, even as her boots touched the cracked cobblestone of Berkimhum's outer rim, Lara felt the weight of her own words trailing behind her like a cloak woven of expectation. Her speech had not been poetry. It had been a scream in a burning house. But they had heard it—the people. The weary, ash-dusted, almost-broken people.
And for the first time in what felt like centuries, they looked up and saw not doom, but her.
They called her 'princess'.
As if the title hadn't been carved from their own suffering.
As if it had not once tasted like mockery on her tongue.
When she passed through the crowd, marching forward at the head of the war caravan, her system flickered faintly behind her eyes. Notifications pulsed like gentle knocks on her skull—small, persistent.
[Mana Concentration Rising: 3 individuals. Source: civilian sector.]
