The corridor was silent. Too silent.Riven’s heartbeat wasn’t.He stepped out of the Palimpsest’s airlock and into the half-ruined mining compound, his boots echoing on fractured metal. Behind him, Soli wiped blood from her cheek, her breath shaky. Nix remained silent and motionless—its programming apparently frozen by the Dustborn blast.But Riven’s eyes were locked on the shattered horizon.He held the empty case of the datashard in his hand. Whatever had been encoded in that fragment had burned a hole in his mind—a memory of a time he’d never lived. Standing before a living Veil gate. Younger. In full Anchor gear.The shards of his identity were fracturing. The real Riven, the displaced Ashley… who knew anymore?They walked toward the holo-comm array where they’d boarded seconds before. Soli’s hands trembled as she powered up the system. The internal display flickered, half offline. But when it came to life, Riven could see his reflection behind the glare—and the flicker of doubt i

The cockpit lights flickered once—then died. Riven’s heartbeat thundered in his ears as the viewport went dark, swallowing Halvex Prime’s glowing horizon like a severed pulse. Outside, the architect-craft—alive, sentient—hovered in total eclipse. All light came from its crystalline veins, which pulsed with slow, deliberate reverence.He swallowed, fear and determination tangling in his chest. The glyph on his shoulder throbbed beneath his skin, each beat a reminder that he had named and awakened something beyond human reckoning. He’d said the code aloud. He’d delivered himself to this moment—and he would not turn away.“Soli,” he whispered, voice coarse. He turned to the passenger seat—empty. She must have left the shuttle again. His heart froze.Then the airlock hissed—and she stepped back inside, helmet removed. Bruises under her eyes glimmered; her expression was fierce. “They escorted me through the outer decks. Stasis pods still active—like a prize exhibit. They know exactly what

The bridge shuddered again—hard enough to throw Riven and Soli off balance. The viewport's new vessel glowed in shifting shades of obsidian and violet, casting fractured light across the ruined consoles and crystalline dust drifting in the air. That vessel—the one that had emerged behind them—was not the architect interface craft. It was larger, darker, its shape more menacing, as though built around some ancient void rather than code.Riven’s heart thundered. The glyph branded on his shoulder pulsed in resonance with the ship’s engines. Each beat felt like a voice murmuring forgotten lines of Anchor code. He realized with a cold certainty: this ship wasn’t following them. It had come for them.“Soli,” he breathed, voice low and urgent. “We—The loud CRACK of reinforced viewport glass going fissured cut him off. Shards rattled loose, held only by their protective polymer. Sparks flew.A new, deeper pulse of energy surged through the ship—a resonance too powerful to be natural. Soli lo