"You always do this," Kael whispered, sliding into the chair opposite him. "You carry the whole world so I don't have to feel the weight. But look at you, Eli. You’re breaking."

"Ready?" Elias asked, the sound of the safety clicking off echoing in the small room.

"We can't just wait here, Eli," Kael snapped, his voice cracking like dry kindling. "The Syndicate is closing the perimeter. If we don’t move now, we’re buried."

Elias finally set the pistol down. He looked at Kael with eyes that had seen the dawn of a hundred battles. "I’m not breaking. I’m holding. There’s a difference."

Across from him, Kael was pacing. Kael was the younger of the two—not by blood, but by the scars they both carried from the Siege of Oakhaven. Kael was the fire to Elias’s cold iron, and right now, the fire was spiraling.

They stood together as the door gave way—two men bound by a debt that could never be repaid, facing the end the only way they knew how: as one.

The phrase hung in the air, heavy and familiar. It was their code, born in the trenches when the world was ending. It meant more than just "be brave." It meant: I am your anchor, and you are mine. If one of us drifts, the other holds the line.