“You may be many things,” a voice said from within the gate — not spoken, but sung by the mechanism itself. “You may have lived when the colors bled away. Speak your truth.”
“The difference is small,” the engine murmured. “It will learn either way.”
Elian did not offer rules or decrees. He did not try to own the device’s will. Instead, he laid the shard against the engine’s casing and sang — not words, but a memory of light: a recollection of a sky before the Gray, laughter from a market that still sold oranges, a lullaby a mother once hummed under a safe roof.