The echoes of battle still clung to Kael's skin as the trio ascended through the inner shaft toward the bunker's upper level. The silence was thicker now, disturbed only by the flickering overhead lights and the soft hum of resonance still pulsing through their bodies.
"Why does it feel like something's watching us?" Bren muttered.
"Because something probably is," Nira replied calmly, flames briefly dancing over her fingertips. "The Syndicate doesn't leave without leaving behind a few eyes."
Kael kept his blade drawn. The further they went, the more the air shifted—charged, almost electric, like a storm waiting to break. His shard pulsed again, not in warning, but in anticipation.
They reached the war room where Seris and Vorn were reviewing multiple data streams. Static buzzed across the map's surface—half the outer surveillance systems were fried. Vorn looked up, his jaw clenched but eyes relieved.
"You're alive. Good. I was halfway through writing your eulogy."
Kael smirked. "Make sure to include 'exceptionally flammable.'"
"Don't tempt me."
Seris cut in. "We intercepted a low-frequency burst from the old subgrid during the attack. Hidden in the static was a resonance signature."
Nira stepped forward. "A bearer?"
Seris nodded. "Not just a bearer. A lost one."
Kael frowned. "I thought all the shard candidates were either with us, dead, or in Syndicate hands."
Vorn brought up a fractured image—grainy, but clear enough. A young man with silver hair, a cloak wrapped tightly around his shoulders, walking barefoot across a desolate field of ash. A shard pulsed faintly at his throat, but it flickered erratically—as if unstable, broken.
"He's broadcasting raw resonance," Seris said. "No filtering. No control. That shard's either cracked or he's deliberately destabilizing it."
Kael stared at the image. "Where is this?"
"Sector E-17," Vorn replied. "Out in the Gray Zone. That place has been dead since the Gatefall."
"Then why would a bearer be out there?" Nira asked.
Seris glanced at Kael. "You're going to find out."
The journey to Sector E-17 was long and cold. The hovercraft cut through the wind like a blade, but the terrain shifted too often for full speed. Craters dotted the landscape—some from ancient wars, others more recent, signs that Syndicate mining drones had been here.
As they crossed into the Gray Zone, the environment changed. The sky turned a deeper shade of violet. The wind no longer howled; it whispered, carrying fragments of old voices, half-recorded memory strands blown on resonance winds.
"I don't like this place," Bren said quietly. "It feels… wrong."
Nira nodded. "It's soaked in death. The shards remember."
Kael could feel it too. His shard dimmed as they moved closer to the signal, as if uncertain, unwilling.
They arrived at the edge of a ruined observatory—its dome half-collapsed, the metal blackened from fire. And in the center of the scorched ground stood the silver-haired boy.
Still.
Silent.
Waiting.
Kael stepped out of the hovercraft. "Hey. We're not here to fight."
The boy turned slowly. His eyes were distant, not focused on any one of them, as though seeing something far beyond.
"You came," he whispered.
Kael's shard flared.
Nira hissed. "His resonance… it's like it's singing back."
The boy smiled. "You've found the sixth. And the seventh."
Kael approached. "And you're the eighth?"
The boy's smile faded.
"No," he said softly. "I'm the ninth."
Kael froze.
"That's not possible. We haven't even found the eighth yet."
The boy looked past them. "She's already awakened. She just hasn't chosen."
Before Kael could ask what that meant, the ground trembled. A burst of resonance erupted from the boy's body—pale blue and silver flames lashing out in every direction.
Kael raised a shield, gritting his teeth. "He's unstable!"
"No," the boy said calmly. "I'm awake."
And then—
He vanished.
Not vanished like teleportation, not moved like the wind. One moment he was there, the next—he wasn't. Even the shard couldn't track him.
"Where did he go?" Bren asked.
Kael stood frozen. "I don't know. But he knew us. He knew all of us."
"And what did he mean by the eighth already awakening?" Nira added.
Kael didn't answer immediately.
Because deep inside, something was waking.
A whisper inside his mind.
A name he hadn't heard in years.
"Lira," he whispered. "My sister."
Nira turned sharply. "You have a sister?"
"I did," Kael said slowly. "She vanished during the early raids. We thought she was dead."
Bren looked at him. "You think she's the eighth bearer?"
Kael didn't know what he felt.
But his shard pulsed—once.
Like a heartbeat matching another.
"She's alive," he said. "And the shard's calling to her."
Seris's voice crackled through the comms. "Kael. Return to base. The Syndicate just launched something big. A sky rift's forming above the Core District. This isn't another patrol—it's a full-scale mobilization."
Kael's fist clenched. "They're trying to finish it. Before we gather the Nine."
He turned to Nira and Bren.
"Let's move. If my sister's the eighth… we need to get to her before they do."