The rain didn’t fall.


It rose.


In the old capital of the Houses, where marble towers kissed the sky and the ruling bloodlines etched law into bone, the rain defied gravity—ascending from soil to sky like a reversed prayer.


The elders knew what it meant.


Nia’tari was coming.


But she wasn’t coming for a throne.


She was coming for truth.


And the truth had no seat in their sanctum.


It had a door.


One only she could open.