Kaelex didn't stir for hours.
Her breathing remained shallow but even, her skin luminous in the dim light of the Preservation Site's lower chamber. Reven kept his distance at first, watching the pulse of her veins glow faintly beneath her skin—like veins of lava trapped beneath stone.
Lirien sat near the edge of the platform, her feathers twitching every so often, alert to any noise from the lift above. Kaela paced. She didn't like being still.
"Why was she sealed?" Kaela finally asked, voice low but sharp.
"She's a Flameborn," Reven said. "Echo said she was the first attempt."
Lirien frowned. "Then why lock her down instead of activate her?"
Kaela looked over at Kaelex's unconscious body. "Because maybe she wasn't meant to wake up."
Reven didn't respond.
He couldn't shake the feeling that waking her wasn't an accident. That the system—the architecture Echo spoke of—wanted them to meet. But why? What did it gain by binding them together now, after centuries of silence?
And then… she moved.
Kaelex's eyes opened with no warning. Her breath hitched in her chest, and her back arched like someone drowning in memory.
Reven was at her side in seconds, gripping her shoulder. "Hey—breathe. You're safe."
Her golden eyes locked onto his.
"Designation," she whispered.
Reven frowned. "Reven."
She stared for another moment, blinking rapidly as cognition returned in stages. Then she sat up, slowly, her body moving with the precision of someone who had trained every motion into instinct. Her voice was hoarse but controlled.
"I was expecting someone older."
Reven blinked. "Excuse me?"
"You're young," she said. "You're not the original Bearer."
Kaela stepped in, arms crossed. "He's the only one left."
Kaelex turned toward Kaela. "You're Beast-Kin. Fangborn line. Variant three."
Kaela's jaw tightened. "I don't care how long you've been sleeping—you don't get to catalogue me."
Lirien raised a hand. "Let's not start something we can't finish."
Reven stepped between them. "Let's slow down. Start from the top."
Kaelex exhaled, hands pressed to her temples. "I… was initiated into the Flameborn Protocol. Alpha series. I was designed to guide the next phase. To act as anchor."
"Anchor?" Reven asked.
She nodded, slowly.
"The Flameborn aren't just memory. We're convergence points. Each Core, each shard—holds a thread of collective legacy. History, yes, but also intent. If too many of them activate without alignment, the entire world fractures again. I was supposed to bind them."
Kaela narrowed her eyes. "So you're a safeguard."
Kaelex looked at her.
"No," she said softly. "I'm a warning."
They moved her to the surface chamber after another hour. Lirien helped repair her harness, patching in a portable relay unit from the site's interface core. Kaelex adapted quickly—far too quickly. Every system she touched obeyed her as if she had been born from it.
Reven pulled her aside once they were clear of the others.
"I need to know what you remember."
Kaelex looked out across the scarlands. The sky was still cracked above them—still whispering in layers no one could fully hear.
"I remember a tower of glass. I remember burning cities. I remember being torn apart and stitched back together with fragments of lives not mine. I remember being told I was humanity's last design—and its first mistake."
Reven swallowed. "And now?"
She turned to him.
"Now I remember you."
He stiffened.
Kaelex stepped closer. "You're the convergence now. Echo chose you. The Flame recognized you. The system is realigning around your presence."
Reven frowned. "So what, I'm some kind of keystone?"
"No," she said. "You're the only variable the system didn't predict."
For a long moment, they stood in silence.
Then Kaela's voice cut through the tension. "We've got movement."
Lirien was already in the air, scanning with a sharp gaze.
"They're not Bonebound," she called down. "They're faster. Cleaner. Supremes."
Kaelex's eyes darkened. "They found the signal."
Reven turned toward the stairwell.
"We need to move."
Kaela shouldered her blade. "Where?"
Reven looked at Kaelex.
She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them slowly.
"There's another site. East. Buried beneath the glass fields. It holds the fourth Core. But more than that—it holds the architecture node."
Lirien descended. "The system's command spine?"
Kaelex nodded.
"If we don't get there first… this world resets without us."