diff --git a/the-starfall-accord/staging/chapter-ch-04.md b/the-starfall-accord/staging/chapter-ch-04.md
index 8786f66..ec9ea15 100644
--- a/the-starfall-accord/staging/chapter-ch-04.md
+++ b/the-starfall-accord/staging/chapter-ch-04.md
@@ -104,4 +104,34 @@ The violet light began to flicker, receding back into our skin, leaving behind a
 
 Neither of us spoke. We couldn't. How do you find words for the death of a myth? The violet light wasn't a legend. It was a reality. And it lived in the friction between us.
 
-I looked down at our joined hands, where the last traces of violet sparks faded into the skin, and realized with a jolt of pure terror that I didn't want to let go.
\ No newline at end of file
+I looked down at our joined hands, where the last traces of violet sparks faded into the skin, and realized with a jolt of pure terror that I didn't want to let go.
+---
+
+## AUTHOR DIRECTION — BUTTERFLY EFFECT EDIT
+
+**CRITICAL NARRATIVE CHANGE FOR THIS CHAPTER:**
+
+Kaelen DIES in this chapter. This is a permanent, irreversible character death that reshapes everything that follows.
+
+### How it happens:
+When the thermal vortex reaches critical mass, Kaelen — who is trapped in the gale — sees Elara being pulled directly into the feedback core (the lethal center of the vortex). He is already losing footing. Instead of saving himself, he grabs Elara and physically shields her body with his own. The feedback discharge hits him full-force before Mira and Dorian's violet-light magic can suppress the storm.
+
+### The aftermath:
+When the violet glow fades and the arena falls silent, Elara is found barely breathing — bruised, hypothermic, but alive. Kaelen does not move. Mira knows from twenty yards away. She knows from the way his body is still.
+
+### Emotional beats to include:
+- Mira reaching him and the first irrational, stupid thought: *He'll be fine. Kaelen's always fine.* — then reality.
+- Dorian doesn't give comfort platitudes. He simply kneels beside her, and his hand covers hers. That is all.
+- The arena students witness this. It is the moment both schools stop being rival factions and become something else: witnesses to a shared loss.
+- Elara regains consciousness briefly, sees Kaelen, and understands what he did. That knowledge will define her arc.
+
+### The closing hook (replace the existing one):
+The hook should NOT be about Dorian collapsing. It should be about the silence of Kaelen's absence — something Mira carries out of that arena and never puts down.
+
+*Suggested hook: "She had promised herself she would not look back at the arena floor as they carried her out. She looked back."*
+
+### What this changes going forward:
+- Kaelen's obligation to report "Harmonization Failures" to the Ministry dies with him. Vane already has spies — he arrives in Ch 5 knowing.
+- Mira's fire is no longer just anger. It is now grief made kinetic.
+- Aric (fire student lead) steps up in Kaelen's place — raw, resentful of the merger that killed his proctor.
+- The Ministry will use Kaelen's death as evidence of the Accord's "lethal instability."
\ No newline at end of file