The next morning, the capital was loud with rumors. The Eastern roads had gone silent. No trade. No messengers. No word.General Brown stood in the war chamber, staring at the large map stretched across the table. His jaw was clenched, knuckles white as he pressed his palms into the wood.> “He’s cutting off the East,” he growled.“Testing us. Seeing how long we’ll wait before reacting.”Across from him, Chancellor Mavren adjusted his silver cuffs, unfazed.> “Or perhaps you're simply seeing ghosts, General. The last time we listened to your instincts, we sent three hundred men into fog and got bones in return.”Brown turned slowly, his voice low but sharp.> “You think I want him to be back?”> “I think,” Mavren said, “you want to matter again.”The room fell still.Brown’s breath caught in his chest. A silence hung there—thick, dangerous.Queen Alaria entered, flanked by guards. The council bowed, but she lifted a hand.> “Enough. Brown, I summoned you for answers, not squabbling.”

The stone beneath him was ancient—smooth, but fractured. Etchings ran across it like veins, faintly glowing the same sick red as the rune on his forearm. Brown sat up, every bone in his body aching. Not from injury—but from reconstruction.His hand hovered over the brand.It pulsed once in response, as if greeting him.> “Choose.”The voice again.But it wasn’t commanding this time.It was waiting.It took Brown a full day to claw his way out of that subterranean chamber. When he emerged, the land was ash-grey. Trees without bark. Rivers without sound. A sky that no longer obeyed the laws of light.He wasn’t sure where he was.But he knew someone was waiting.At dusk, he found her.A woman cloaked in ice-blue robes stood atop a mound of stone relics, her hands glowing with pale energy. Her hair was braided in the style of the old seers.Her face?Unchanged.> “Lysa,” he rasped, hardly believing it.She turned slowly, eyes filled with fire and tears.> “You should not have followed him

Brown didn’t stop running until his legs burned. His body trembled—not from the cold, but from a rage he could no longer contain. Every step away from Marek’s facility felt like breaking through layers of falsehood—out of shadow, into light. Out of lies, into truth.Clara.She had lived. Once.And someone had made it seem like she never did.“You’re not insane, Brown,” whispered his own shadow. “You were made to believe you were.”Three days later.Brown stood in front of an ivy-covered old house on the edge of the old district, a place where memories once bloomed with a woman who had the softest smile he’d ever known.Clara used to live here.Once.Now the house was empty. But something inside waited for him.Brown kicked the door open. Dust swirled in the air. The scent of the past hit him like a hammer—lavender flowers, cinnamon candles, and a metallic trace of dried blood.Drawer. Old photo. A letter. “If you’re reading this, then I’ve failed...”“...but I knew you’d rise again.”

The sun hadn’t fully risen when Brown and Clara left the apartment. Both wore dark hoodies, small bags slung over their backs, and moved with quiet but purposeful steps. An old car with fake plates waited in the alley—courtesy of one of Brown’s remaining trustworthy contacts.Clara said little. But her eyes constantly scanned the shadows, as if every distant sound could mean a tracker—or worse, someone from the facility.They had been driving for barely fifteen minutes when Clara suddenly tensed.“Don’t turn right,” she whispered.Brown glanced in the rearview mirror.There it was.A black van. No plates. Lights off. Its movement was too clean. Too trained."They know.”Brown hit the gas. The early morning streets were still mostly empty, giving them some room to move, but the van stayed on them like a ghost.“How many people know you’re alive?” Clara asked, her tone tight.“Two. And one of them I killed three days ago.”Clara didn’t answer, but her stare hardened.They veered into a

The night air was razor-sharp. Every breath stung Clara’s lungs as she crouched behind a broken generator casing, watching the patrol pattern of the nearest guard tower. Brown knelt beside her, syncing the EMP flare’s charge level with the frequency he remembered from the last drone patrol."Twenty seconds, once this goes off,” he whispered. “No surveillance, no comms. We breach fast, or we don’t breach at all.”Clara gritted her teeth. “Let’s make it count.”Brown activated the flare.A pulse of blue light burst outward, silent and blinding, like a star exploding in reverse. Tower lights flickered—then died. A sharp crackle followed as communications cut out across the perimeter grid.“Now!”They sprinted toward the fence. Clara pulled out the compact plasma cutter they’d stolen weeks ago and carved through the chain links with brutal precision. Sparks flew like fireflies.Brown ducked through first, weapon raised. Clara followed, just as the second tower came back online and alarm k