The return to base was quieter than usual. The hovercraft floated through the ash-thick winds, the world outside cast in shades of rust and shadow. Kael sat silently, Lira resting against his shoulder. She hadn't let go since the chamber collapse, her grip firm but fragile—as if he might disappear if she blinked.
Nira monitored their course, but even she was uncharacteristically subdued.
Bren stared out the window. "So… eight of us now," he said softly. "What happens when all nine come together?"
Kael didn't answer.
He wasn't sure anyone could.
But his shard—deep in his chest—was whispering again.
Not words.
Not warnings.
Just a steady pulse.
Like a countdown.
At base, Seris was waiting.
Her face was grim as she looked at Lira, then back to Kael. "She's stable?"
"She's recovering," Kael replied. "But whatever the Syndicate did to her, it left scars."
Seris nodded. "We'll get her to the med-core. The resonance within her has… changed. It's synced with yours."
"She's my sister."
"No," Seris said, tapping a console. "It's more than blood. You're linked. When you pulled her out of that cycle, your shards connected. That's rare. Possibly… intentional."
Kael raised an eyebrow. "Intentional by who?"
Seris turned the screen.
It displayed a symbol—one Kael had never seen before. A circle broken by a vertical line, with nine smaller dots orbiting it.
"This was found etched beneath the containment chamber, hidden under layers of decay and resonance dust," Seris said. "It predates Syndicate records."
Bren squinted. "What does it mean?"
Seris looked at Kael. "It means the Nine weren't a coincidence. They were designed."
Later that night, Kael wandered the training hall alone. His thoughts swirled.
Lira was alive.
The Syndicate's plan was accelerating.
And now this idea—that the Nine weren't random bearers chosen by fate or accident, but created… engineered.
He stood beneath the dim lights, sword in hand, eyes closed.
And he listened.
To the pulse.
To the flame inside him.
To the shard.
Who are you? he asked silently.
The shard flared, once.
And the answer came—not in words, but in a vision.
Nine figures, standing in a ring of fire. The sky was torn above them. The ground burned beneath.
And in the center… a man.
Cloaked in shadow.
Eyes glowing with fractured light.
Kael snapped his eyes open.
The Ninth.
He wasn't just another bearer.
He was the catalyst.
A day passed.
Then two.
Lira's recovery was slow, but steady. Nira stayed by her side often, teaching her how to breathe through resonance flares, how to stabilize her shard. Kael could see the fear in his sister's eyes—how she flinched at loud sounds, or tensed when the base lights flickered.
But she was strong.
She didn't complain.
Didn't break.
And Kael loved her more fiercely for it.
Meanwhile, Seris and Vorn tracked anomalies across the grid, searching for any sign of the Ninth.
Every lead turned to dust.
Until—
A signal.
Faint. Erratic. Hidden in a dead zone where resonance tech failed.
The Burned Spire.
A forbidden tower outside the reach of any zone, a relic from the First Shattering. It was believed to be haunted by memory phantoms—shard ghosts left behind by those consumed by unstable resonance.
"Of course it's there," Bren muttered, staring at the map. "Why wouldn't the final piece of this cosmic jigsaw puzzle be chilling in a cursed hell-tower?"
Kael strapped his blade to his back. "We're going."
Nira nodded. "I'll prep the crawler."
The journey to the Burned Spire took hours.
No hovercrafts could fly here.
Too much interference.
So they took an old crawler—low tech, heavy armor. The terrain outside was cracked and blackened. Trees stood like charcoal skeletons, and the wind carried no sound.
The Spire loomed ahead—taller than any building left standing in the world. It looked like a monolith carved from obsidian, wrapped in iron vines. At its peak, a strange light flickered. Not fire. Not electricity. Something older.
As they approached, Kael's shard pulsed harder.
"We're close," he said.
Nira stepped forward, scanning the area. "No Syndicate drones. No sentries. It's like they're avoiding this place."
"Or something inside scared them off," Bren added grimly.
Inside, the Spire was hollow.
The walls pulsed faintly with residual resonance, glowing like embers. Voices echoed through the halls—half-whispers, old cries of pain or warnings. Memory phantoms drifted between rooms, reliving moments of death and glory.
Kael touched the nearest wall.
A flash—
He saw a bearer once, long ago, consumed by a corrupted shard. Madness. Fire. Screaming.
He blinked and pulled back.
"This place is built on death."
Nira stepped beside him. "Then let's not join it."
They ascended floor after floor.
Until they found the chamber.
And him.
He stood at the center of a circle of broken shard pods, silent and still. No armor. No weapons. Just a long cloak of deep gray, and pale hair tied behind his back.
His eyes opened.
Silver.
Cold.
Powerful.
"You finally came," he said.
Kael stepped forward. "You're the Ninth."
"I was," the man said. "Then I died. Then I became this."
Kael's shard flared wildly, trying to sync, but the man's own resonance overpowered it.
"You're not like us," Nira said.
"No," the man replied. "I was the first. The original vessel. The prototype."
Bren blinked. "You're saying… you were the first bearer?"
"Yes," the man whispered. "And now, I am the end."
He raised his hand—and the Spire shook.
Energy surged up its core.
Kael braced himself, blade drawn. "What are you doing?"
"Awakening you," the man said softly. "Because when the Nine stand as one… the true enemy will come."
"Who?" Kael asked. "The Syndicate?"
The man smiled.
"No."
And then his body broke apart—not violently, but peacefully. Like ash on the wind. His shard remained, hovering, glowing faintly with ancient light.
Kael reached out—
And as his fingers touched it, the shards of all eight others flared in unison.
And the world shifted.
Kael found himself floating in a void.
Not darkness.
But memory.
A place before time.
Nine thrones stood in a circle.
And a shadow walked among them.
"Your war has not even begun," the voice said.
Then—
He awoke.
Back in the Spire.
The others staring at him.
The Ninth shard now fused into his chest.
Bren exhaled slowly. "Kael… what did you just do?"
Kael stood slowly.
Eyes burning.
Not with heat.
But with truth.
"I think," he said, "we just became the reason this world still has a chance."