Lyra’s voice was the first thing that cut through the night, sharp and desperate, pulling her out of sleep like a blade through fabric.Her eyes snapped open in the darkness as her communicator vibrated violently in her hand. For a moment, she couldn’t even draw a full breath. The sound on the other end of the line dragged her backward through ten long years of silence, through everything her family had refused to give her since the day she was cast aside.It was her mother.Not a letter. Not a message. Not a warning sent in advance.A call.And that alone was enough to make dread coil tightly in her chest.“Mother?” Lyra’s voice came out rough, still heavy with sleep. “What’s wrong?”At first, there was only broken sobbing on the other end, unsteady and suffocating. Then her mother’s voice finally came through, fractured and trembling as if each word cost her strength.“Your father… he’s been attacked.”The words didn’t just land. They sank in slowly, like ice spreading through her v
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