The sky above the Ember Citadel never truly changed. Morning, night, storm, or peace—it all blurred into one sickly orange haze. It was the kind of place where time forgot to matter.
Kye leaned over the cracked balcony of the safehouse, arms resting on rusted stone. Below him, the city stretched out like a wound—burned rooftops, broken towers, and a population that had stopped looking up a long time ago.
Renna stepped beside him, silent for once.
She handed him something folded in cloth. A letter. Old parchment. No seal.
He unwrapped it slowly.
Inside, a message written in Kael's handwriting—bare, rushed, but unmistakably his:
> "If you're reading this, it means I failed. And it means he's awake again."
Kye frowned. "Who's he?"
Renna pointed at the bottom of the letter.
A name was scrawled there.
Or rather… part of one.
**T——l.**
"Half the name's burned off," Renna said. "Whoever this is… Kael didn't want him to be found easily."
Kye didn't reply.
He just stared at the torn name, something cold crawling up the back of his neck.
---
They didn't stay in the safehouse much longer. The Ash Circle would've traced them by now. Triselle wasn't the kind of woman to leave loose ends dangling.
Renna had a contact—one of the remaining runners from the Dust Circuit. A girl named **Veika**. Sharp-tongued, wild-eyed, and more street-rat than spy. But she had something no one else did: maps of the **Buried Sectors**.
"Those places were sealed after the Memory Wars," Veika said, spreading the map across a ruined counter. "People say they still echo down there. Literal echoes. Talk too loud and you hear yourself answering back—but from a time that never happened."
Kye raised an eyebrow. "You're not selling it well."
"I'm not selling it at all," Veika muttered. "I'm saying if you go down there, you either find truth… or something finds you."
---
The tunnels to the Buried Sectors ran through an abandoned armory beneath the old Ember Corps training grounds. The place was rotting with dust and silence. Broken racks. Scorched practice dummies. Burn marks on the walls that didn't match any known spell.
It wasn't just abandoned. It had been **scrubbed.**
"Someone tried to erase this place," Renna whispered. "Like it was never supposed to exist."
Kye knelt at the center of the floor, brushing aside ash and debris. There were marks beneath the surface. Not scratches. Not battle scars.
Symbols.
Memory runes.
He placed his palm on one. It lit up faintly. Just enough to activate the passage.
A wall slid open.
And beyond it—**darkness thicker than anything natural**.
---
They lit a single flame between them. Not soulfire—just a regular old torch. The deeper they walked, the more the walls changed. Stone became metal. Then something else. Something smooth, too perfect, too quiet. Like they were walking inside a forgotten machine.
"It's not a city down here," Renna muttered. "It's… a vault."
At the far end of the tunnel, they found a door.
Old.
Sealed shut with memory locks. The kind only triggered by blood recognition.
Kye stepped forward.
The sword hummed faintly on his back, as if waking up.
He pressed his palm against the lock.
It opened.
---
Inside, the room was… **wrong**.
There were no books. No relics. Just a single chair in the center. And a boy.
He looked about fifteen. Barefoot. Pale skin. Short black hair, like Kye's. But his eyes—
They weren't eyes at all.
Just smooth, silver glass where they should've been.
He didn't move.
Didn't blink.
Didn't even seem alive.
But as soon as the light touched him, his head slowly turned.
And he spoke.
In Kye's voice.
> "You're late."
Kye froze.
Veika backed up instinctively. Renna's hand went to her dagger.
But the boy in the chair didn't move again. He just kept staring with those glass eyes.
> "You found the sword," he said. Still using Kye's voice. Still perfect.
Kye's hand slowly touched Vireon's Breath behind his back.
"Who are you?"
The boy tilted his head.
Smiled.
> "I'm you."
---
And then, without warning, the door behind them **slammed shut**.
The room went pitch black.
The torch flickered once… and went out.