CHAPTER FOURTEEN: THE SKY BURNS BACK.
Day 14
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The first sign wasn't a sound. It was a stillness.
Birds fell silent. The ambient hum of Riftlight that never truly stopped inside Ephra Dusk dimmed, like something had drawn a veil over the entire ruin. Even Jex, who normally slept through earthquakes, sat upright with a hand at his dagger before he consciously knew why.
Silas was already awake, kneeling by the fireless pit. His shadows had curled in on themselves, shrinking back into his spine. Senya stood at the perimeter, rifle half-raised, breath fogging in the sudden cold. Nira stared at the sky, her skin crawling with unseen static.
The Vault was holding its breath.
Then came the whisper.
It wasn't heard. It was felt—a pressure on the brainstem, like the moment before sleep paralysis takes hold. A psychic chokehold.
> She is here.
Seraphim V-09 descended from the Rift as if she had always been part of it. One moment there was a blank space between sky and ruin; the next, she filled it. Not with form, not even with weight—but with authority.
She hovered ten feet above the cracked courtyard, framed in Riftlight and silence. Her body moved in pulses, like a signal trying to stabilize in corrupted data. The Tribunal insignia burned on her chest, brighter than the sun. And her eyes—they weren't eyes. They were mirrors reflecting only what you feared.
Jex stumbled back. "No. No no no—that thing is wrong."
"Seraphim," Nira said through gritted teeth. "V-09. The Echo-Resonant prototype."
Torren stood like a monolith, jaw set. "She shouldn't be operational. Those things burned out in the early war."
Silas didn't respond. His breathing slowed. Controlled. But his hands trembled.
V-09 spoke.
> "Ashbinders. Entity status: Rogue. Heretical. Response protocol: Correction."
The moment the word ended, the world shattered.
She moved.
Not stepped. Not blinked.
Shifted.
Reality bent around her as she cut through space. One second she floated, the next she was inside the Vault, striking downward.
Senya fired.
The round passed through her.
A phase flicker.
Jex shouted and unleashed a wave of fire, but his flames coiled backward, collapsing into him, burning across his hands. He screamed, staggered. Nira grabbed his shoulder and pulled him out of the blast zone as V-09 advanced.
"She's in full Halo Field control!" Nira snapped. "We're not just fighting her—she's rewritten the Rift around herself!"
Seraphim V-09 raised one hand.
Judgment Bloom activated.
Glyphs bloomed beneath their feet, intricate and symmetrical. Torren lunged to break the sigil, but it didn't crack—it consumed his Boon, drawing iron from his limbs into the pattern. He screamed, fists striking air.
Senya covered them, laying down suppressing fire that ricocheted into fractured space. Nothing was landing. They weren't even in real space anymore.
"Get your heads straight!" she barked. "She's making you see your own deaths—it's fearcasting. Resist it!"
But it wasn't just fear.
Jex saw his sister. Alive. Burning. Blaming him. Her screams layered over each swing of his flame, seeping into his mind until his limbs shook.
Nira heard the Tribunal interrogators again, their voices folding through her own. They spoke in loops, asking questions she didn't remember, inserting answers she never gave. Her breathing went shallow, her Grid flickering like a broken pulse.
Torren remembered the first child he failed to protect, and the second, and the third. Their names scratched across his vision in molten steel. His Boon strained, twisted, bent.
Even Senya flinched as her reflection stood beside V-09, wearing the insignia of a Tribunal Commander. The illusion whispered commands in her voice.
Silas bled from the nose, eyes closed, whispering, "Not real. Not real. Not real."
Then V-09 spoke his name.
And everything inside him collapsed.
The shadow behind his heart tried to pull away, severing itself from his will. A limb of his Boon attempted to obey her voice. He bit his tongue hard enough to draw blood, anchoring himself with pain.
---
It was Echo who moved.
He didn't fight. Didn't raise a weapon.
He stepped into her path.
And called her by name.
"Seren."
She froze. A fraction of a second.
Echo stepped closer.
"Do you remember me? Spiral Thirteen. The one who sang in the halls. You said if they took your name, someone had to give it back."
Her head tilted. The Rift shimmered.
She flickered.
The Glyph broke.
The Halo faltered.
V-09 screamed—not a sound, but a disruption. Her body cracked with light. Her powers surged uncontrolled.
Senya fired again—this time with tethered resonance rounds. Jex used the heat to slam flame into the Rift nodes. Nira overcharged her Grid, unleashing a surge of wild, unbound data. Torren, even wounded, launched himself with metallic fury.
And Silas, bleeding but lucid, caught her in her phase loop.
"Now!"
Shadow gripped light.
They pinned her.
For one moment.
Then she vanished.
---
The Vault cracked.
The walls trembled, air thick with scorched echoes. Silence spread like a shroud, but no one collapsed. Not yet. They stood, shaking, blinking, scarred. The Rift around them hissed like a wounded beast.
Echo knelt, his body flickering. "She remembered."
Silas helped him stand. "Then we need to be ready."
Jex muttered, "Because next time, she won't hesitate."
Nira looked at the place she'd stood.
"No," she whispered. "But she also won't forget."
Senya holstered her rifle, eyes narrowed. "That was a test."
Torren groaned, touching his scorched chestplate. "Then what's the real fight going to look like?"
And above them, the Rift didn't close.
It watched.