The air in the mountains was thin that morning , sharp, cold, almost too clean. Amira sat alone on the cliff's edge, knees drawn to her chest, watching the world breathe below. Three days of silence should've felt like peace.
It didn't.
Her pulse still carried the echo of Selene's last message, the whisper that had wrapped around her ribs like something warm and painful.
You are not my shadow. You are my light.
She didn't know whether to feel relieved or broken.
Footsteps crunched behind her. She didn't turn—Leonardo always walked like he was trying not to disturb the ground.
"You're up early," he said gently as he sat beside her.
"I didn't sleep," she murmured.
He didn't push. He never did.
For a moment, they watched the fog move between the trees, drifting like ghosts with nowhere left to hide.
"The world feels… quiet," Amira said softly.
Leonardo nodded. "It's the first time we've had a week without a red alert."
She tried to smile but it didn't quite settle. "Maybe that should comfort me."
"Does it?"
Amira shook her head. "No."
Leonardo exhaled, leaning back on his palms. "Selene's gone, Amira. You killed the uplink. Daniel checked every network. There's nothing left of her."
She hugged her arms around herself. "That's the part that scares me."
His brow creased. "Why?"
Amira turned to him, her voice almost a whisper.
"Selene wasn't the only one who wanted the Serpent Program alive."
Leonardo froze. "What are you saying?"
"Someone else helped her," she said. "Someone inside the Covenant. Someone who had access to my code… and hers."
He stared at her for a long moment, the wind catching the edge of his jacket. "You think there's another copy?"
Amira didn't answer ,she didn't need to. The silence was enough.
Later That Afternoon , The Bunker
Daniel was hunched over three monitors, all of them running diagnostics. He was muttering to himself — not unusual, but today his voice carried a nervous edge.
Amira and Leonardo entered quietly.
"You look like you haven't slept," Leonardo observed.
Daniel didn't look up. "Sleep is for people whose ex–best friend didn't hide classified files inside a dead woman's brain."
Leonardo blinked. "You lost me."
Daniel gestured at the screen. "While scrubbing the last fragments of Selene's code, I found something. A label she never meant anyone to decode."
He zoomed in.
PHOENIX PROTOCOL , LOCKED.
Amira's grip tightened on the back of Daniel's chair. "Phoenix?"
Daniel nodded. "And before you ask ,no, it's not a resurrection program. It's worse."
He clicked again, opening a corrupted file. Grainy images flickered blurred shapes, burning labs, shattered servers, soldiers dragging bodies out of smoke.
Daniel turned to them, face pale.
"This wasn't about saving Selene," he said. "It was about replacing her."
Amira swallowed hard. "Replacing her with what?"
Daniel pointed to a second line of code.
HOST COMPATIBILITY REQUIRED CLASS OMEGA.
Leonardo frowned. "Omega? That doesn't sound human."
Daniel gave a hollow laugh. "That's because it's not."
He pulled up a diagram , a neural map unlike anything Amira had ever seen.
"This isn't Selene's pattern. And it's not yours," Daniel said. "This belongs to someone else entirely. Someone stronger."
Amira felt her stomach twist. "Stronger how?"
Daniel tapped a blinking red node.
"Whoever made this wasn't trying to build another Selene. They were trying to build something that could control Selene… and everything she created."
The room went still.
Leonardo whispered, "A failsafe."
"More like a king," Daniel corrected. "Phoenix isn't a rebirth. It's a takeover."
Amira inhaled slowly, her fingers trembling despite every effort to stay calm. "So someone out there is waiting for this… Omega host?"
Daniel paused. "No. Someone already made one."
Amira's breath caught. "Who?"
Daniel hesitated before turning the screen.
A security image popped up , a shadowed figure entering a lab, tall, broad-shouldered, face hidden by a mask. But the voice note attached to the file was clear.
A low male voice said,
"Initiate Phase Zero. Prepare the Omega seed."
Leonardo stiffened. "I know that voice."
Daniel swallowed. "Yeah. We all do."
Amira stared at the frozen image. "Who is he?"
Leonardo met her eyes, and something dark flickered behind his.
"His name is Adrian Vale. Former commander of the Covenant's black unit."
Daniel added quietly, "And Leonardo's older brother."
Amira's heart stopped.
Outside the Bunker , Evening
The sky was bruised purple by the time Amira stepped outside, emotions tangled so tightly she could barely breathe. The cold helped. It always did.
Leonardo followed her a minute later, hands in his pockets. Not pushing, just existing close enough for comfort.
"You okay?" he asked softly.
Amira laughed under her breath. "Define okay."
He stepped beside her, leaning on the railing. "I should've told you about Adrian."
She looked at him carefully. "Why didn't you?"
His jaw tensed. "Because I thought he was dead."
"Thought?" she pressed.
Leonardo nodded slowly. "We grew up in the Covenant. Adrian was their golden soldier, brilliant, fearless, ruthless. I respected him. I hated him sometimes. But I never thought he'd become…"
He gestured to the air helplessly. "This."
Amira hugged her arms around herself. "Why would he be involved with Selene's program?"
Leonardo hesitated.
"Because Adrian wasn't like me. He believed in the Covenant completely. He believed in evolution. In power. In becoming something more than human."
Amira turned her head. "And what do you believe in?"
His answer came quiet, honest.
"You."
She blinked — caught off guard by the softness of it.
Leonardo didn't break eye contact. "Whatever Adrian is planning… whatever Phoenix is meant to do… we fight it together. I'm not losing you."
Her voice wavered. "You think you could stop him?"
Leonardo looked away. "No. But I'll stand between him and you."
Something warm and painful filled her chest. She wasn't sure whether to hold the feeling or run from it.
Instead, she whispered, "Thank you."
Back Inside , Night
Daniel met them halfway down the corridor, a tablet in his hand and panic in his eyes.
"Amira and Leo there's something else," he said, breathless. "I decrypted a second layer of Phoenix."
Amira braced herself. "What now?"
Daniel handed her the tablet.
A single sentence blinked on the screen.
TARGET HOST IDENTIFIED.
OMEGA PROTOCOL SEEDED — SUBJECT: A. HALE.
Amira's throat went dry. "That's… me."
Daniel nodded miserably. "Phoenix was never meant for Selene."
Leonardo's face hardened with fury. "They planted something in her code ,something that would activate in Amira after Selene died."
Daniel whispered, "You weren't her backup, Amira."
He met her eyes.
"You were the successor."
Amira felt the world tilt ,not violently, but in a slow, suffocating way.
Her voice cracked. "So all this time… someone was preparing me?"
Daniel nodded. "The Phoenix Protocol activates when the Serpent core goes dark."
Leonardo's breath shook. "So the moment you killed Selene…"
Daniel whispered the words they were all afraid to say:
"Phoenix woke up."
The silence that followed was ice-cold.
Amira pressed a hand to her chest , her pulse was steady, too steady, as if something beneath it was waiting.
Waiting to be born.
She looked up at Leonardo.
"What do we do now?" she whispered.
Leonardo stepped closer, his voice deeper, his fear hidden behind determination.
"We stop Phoenix."
His hand brushed hers, warm despite everything.
"And we stop Adrian."
Amira drew a shaky breath, straightening.
"Then the war didn't end," she said.
Leonardo shook his head. "No."
His gaze held hers.
"It's just beginning."