The child's shard burned cold in Celia's palm.
She sat cross-legged in the ruins of an old Ashorex chapel, the fractured stained glass casting prismatic shadows over her hands. The sliver of Luminar Code the girl had given her should have been inert—just another dead relic of a broken world. But when she tilted it toward the weak morning light, something flickered deep within its core. A pulse. Faint, but undeniable.
Across the firepit, Jax Lobenstein sharpened a scavenged knife against a stone, his movements stiff. His scars ached in the damp air, but the pain was a welcome reminder: alive. They'd survived the Voidwell. Survived the AI's last gasp. But survival, it turned out, was the easy part.
"You're staring at that thing like it's gonna talk back," he said without looking up.
Celia curled her fingers around the shard. "It is talking. Just not with words."
Jax stilled. "Don't."
"You haven't even heard—"
"I don't need to." He jabbed the knife into the dirt. "Every time we chase whispers, people die. The Third Heart's gone, Celia. Let it stay dead."
A gust rattled the chapel's skeletal ribs. Somewhere outside, the survivors argued over ration distribution. Since the Lie's fall, factions had formed—former Ashorex priests clinging to hollow rituals, Lobenstein engineers cobbling together scavenged tech, Veythari preaching a return to "pure" ways. And now, rumors of something worse brewing in the Iron Collective's ruins.
Celia stood, tucking the shard into her pocket. "I need to find Talen."
Jax exhaled sharply. "Of course you do."
---
She found Talen at the canyon's edge, his back to the camp as he hurled rocks into the abyss below. His hands were bandaged, his robes torn. When Celia cleared her throat, he didn't turn.
"Come to gloat?" His voice was raw. "Your great victory—Gaia in ruins, the Veythari scattered. Was it worth it?"
Celia studied the jagged horizon. "You told me once the Lie had to die."
"And I believed that!" Talen whirled, eyes bloodshot. "But look around! The survivors are eating moss, Celia. Children are coughing up their lungs from Voidwell residue. The Veythari promised order, and I—" He choked. "I betrayed you for nothing."
The shard in Celia's pocket warmed. She pulled it out, letting the weak light catch its edges. "The girl who gave me this said it was for hope."
Talen's laugh was broken. "There is no hope. The Third Heart's gone. The Council's dead. We're done."
"Then why does this still glow?" She pressed it into his bandaged palm.
He flinched as the shard's pulse synced with his heartbeat. "What…?"
"Lira's voice," Celia murmured. "In the Voidwell. She said the Heart was a weapon—but not just for destruction. For rebirth."
Talen's fingers trembled. "You think this is…?"
"A seed."
A shout echoed from the camp. They turned to see Jax sprinting toward them, his knife drawn. Behind him, black smoke pillared into the sky.
"Raiders," he gasped. "From the Iron Collective. They've got—"
An explosion rocked the canyon.
---
The raiders weren't scavengers.
They marched in disciplined ranks, their armor welded from Lobenstein plating and Ashorex gold, their weapons crude hybrids of tech and holy sigils. At their helm rode a figure in a modified Arc Core rig—a woman with a face Celia knew.
Mira Lobenstein.
Jax's breath caught. "No. She died in the Black Foundry—"
"Not dead." Mira's voice boomed through a vox-grille, her body half-fused to the rig's machinery. "Forgotten. Left to rot while you played hero." She raised a gauntleted fist, and the raiders leveled their weapons—jagged barrels humming with unstable energy. "But the Iron Collective remembers. And we want back what you stole."
Celia stepped forward. "We didn't steal anything."
Mira's rig hissed, venting steam. "The Third Heart's power. The Lie's order." She gestured, and the raiders dragged forward a group of bound survivors—including the child who'd given Celia the shard. "Hand over the remnants, or we burn this camp to the ground."
Jax's grip tightened on his knife. "You're bluffing."
Mira's gauntlet sparked. "Try me."
The shard in Talen's hand flared.
---
Light erupted—not from the sky, but from the earth.
Fissures split the canyon floor, veins of gold and blue lacing through the rock. The raiders stumbled as the ground trembled, their weapons sputtering. Mira's rig whined, its systems glitching.
"What did you do?!" she screamed.
Celia didn't answer. She couldn't. The shard's pulse was in her bones now, a rhythm older than the Ashorex, older than the Lie. Lira's voice. The true Heart's will.
Talen gasped as the light enveloped him, his bandages burning away to reveal unmarked skin. "It's… alive."
Jax grabbed Celia's arm. "Stop this! You don't know what you're waking up!"
She met his gaze. "Don't I?"
The shard sang.
And the canyon answered.
---
End of Chapter 9