Grant’s hand was steady. The erasure weapon gleamed cold under the fractured light, its muzzle pressed toward Shayne’s chest.“You’ve been a problem long enough,” he said, his voice low and merciless. “No more ghosts. No more fire. This ends now.”Shayne forced himself upright despite the ache in his body, every instinct telling him to move, to strike—but the glow in Grant’s eyes was unreadable, fixed like iron. His cracked Seal pulsed beneath his ribs, flaring against the threat, but even the flame felt fragile now.Elysia stepped forward before Shayne could react. “Stop.” Her voice cut sharp across the chamber. “You erase him, and the Accord loses control. Do you even understand what you’re holding? He’s their key. Their fear. Without him, everything you’ve built collapses.”Grant’s expression tightened, the faintest ripple of doubt—or calculation—crossing his face. The weapon didn’t lower, but it didn’t fire either.Shayne’s chest burned with each second. He met Grant’s eyes. “You’

The Prism came apart like glass dropped from heaven. Shards of light fractured into a storm, slicing air, cutting reality itself. Shayne hit the ground hard, rolling to keep momentum, every muscle screaming. Elysia landed a few feet away, her shoulder crashing against steel that hadn’t existed moments ago.The illusion was collapsing—no, evolving.The chamber around them writhed, walls flickering between stone and circuitry, fire and cold glass. Shayne staggered upright, hand braced against the cracked Seal burning through his chest. The light pulsed, syncing with the Prism’s fragments as if trying to pull them back together.A voice thundered through the chaos.“Run if you must, Marrow. It changes nothing.”Grant.He emerged through the distortion, untouched by the collapse, moving with the calm precision of a predator who already owned the field. His weapon gleamed dark, absorbing the stray light. It wasn’t just tech—it was feeding on the Prism’s remnants.Elysia’s eyes widened. “He

The light bled away slowly, like ink dispersing in water. Shayne’s lungs fought for air. He braced one hand against the fractured stone, the other pressed to his chest where the flame-sigil still pulsed faintly beneath his torn shirt. The Prism chamber was gone—or no, not gone. Changed. The walls that had once gleamed with crystalline fire were cracked and crumbling, half-collapsed into steel plating and exposed cables. The Accord’s illusion had broken with the collapse. But the burn in his chest told him that this part was real. Boots echoed somewhere in the ruins. Shayne staggered upright, vision still blurred. Heat wavered along his arms, not fire but something deeper, an ache that wanted release. He clenched his fists, forcing himself steady. He could not afford to break here. Not now. You’ve seen what they’re afraid of. The memory of the golden-eyed twin flickered—was it a hallucination, a fragment, or something older? He didn’t know. But the warning was etched into

The alarms clawed higher. Red strobes cut across the chamber, painting the walls in pulses that seemed almost alive. Shayne forced air into his lungs, his body still trembling from the current, but the sound—the alarms, the stutter in the systems—was different. It wasn’t scripted. This wasn’t another illusion. Grant barked orders, sharp as gunfire. “Seal the lower levels. Isolate the core! Do it now!” The Enforcers moved, but Shayne caught it—the half-beat of hesitation, the delay in their steps. Not loyalty, but doubt. Cracks running under the surface. Grant didn’t notice. He slammed a control panel himself, fingers flying across the interface. The restraints surged with renewed force, electricity screaming through Shayne’s body. Pain lanced white behind his eyes—but then the system overloaded. Sparks spat from the bands, a burn across his wrists, and for a fraction of a second the hold loosened. Grant swore under his breath. Too fast. Too much. He’d overreached. Shayn

The world had ruptured, but Commander Havel Grant did not stumble. He emerged through the distortion like a blade pulled through fabric, shoulders squared, eyes unblinking as the fractured Prism collapsed behind him. The streets around him were not the clean, ordered corridors of the Accord, nor the shadowed cells of his interrogation chambers. This was somewhere else—an old district, half-ruins and half-electric, neon spilling across stone like spilled blood. The air was wrong. Too alive, too thick with static. He inhaled and it stung his lungs, not with smoke but with charge—an energy that whispered in his marrow. Shayne. The boy’s name rose unbidden, but Grant ground it down. Names were irrelevant. Faith was irrelevant. Fire, even more so. What mattered now was control. And the Accord had lost it. He moved forward, boots striking the uneven street with soldier’s precision. His hand brushed the wall as he passed—a wall that flickered between cracked stone and polished all