Chapter Sixty-Three: A Crown in the Ashes

Ivy

They say blood remembers.

I used to think it meant legacy. Lineage. History passed down through dinner conversations and gold-trimmed birth certificates. But as I stared at the terminal flashing Iris’s face—my face, twisted into something razor-sharp—I realized the truth.

Blood doesn’t remember like a story.

It remembers like a scar.

I paced the cold floor of the tower suite, too wired to sleep. Too furious to think.

Lucien’s confession echoed in my chest like an explosion I hadn’t braced for.

The Thorn program.

My father’s deal with the devil.

Lucien’s complicity.

I wanted to scream.

Instead, I stood at the window and watched the estate’s courtyard flicker with motion sensors and shadows. War was coming. And it wore my skin.

Iris.

A name meant to be beautiful.

A woman engineered to be anything but.

She looked like me—only perfected. Programmed. No softness around the edges. No grief in her gaze. She was what I might’ve become, had I not clawed free of the data, the needles, the lies.

Was that why she hated me?

Because I lived?

I didn’t hear the door open until Lucien’s presence filled the room like smoke.

He didn’t speak.

Didn’t need to.

His silence was its own confession.

I turned. “So your father’s alive.”

He nodded once.

“Of course he is.”

“He faked his death when the Thorn project was shelved. Went underground. Used Iris as leverage to stay in control of the off-grid assets.”

“And you didn’t know?”

“I buried him. Or I thought I did.”

I crossed the room, voice rising. “Lucien, how many more ghosts are going to crawl out of your past before one of them kills me?”

His hand twitched at his side. “If it comes to that—”

“No,” I said, slicing the air between us with my voice. “Don’t you dare say you’d let it happen.”

Silence pulsed.

Then he stepped closer.

“I made a contingency plan,” he said. “If I don’t make it through this… you lead. You command HALCYON. You take down what’s left.”

“Why me?”

“Because you were the only part of this mess they couldn’t predict. You’re the flaw in the system. The spark.”

I stared at him.

Tears burned behind my eyes.

“You think I want a legacy of fire?”

“I think you are fire.”

And God help me—part of me still wanted him.

Even now.

Even when I hated him.

He reached for my hand.

I didn’t pull away.

“You scare me,” he whispered.

“Good,” I said.

“Because the next time someone tries to break me…”

I leaned in, my breath on his lips.

“I’m breaking them first.”

The call came just after midnight.

Clara’s voice. Frantic. “You need to come to Sector Five. Now.”

We didn’t ask questions.

Lucien and I ran.

The transport pod hummed low through the underground rails. We arrived at the vault perimeter just as the guards fell back from the containment line.

Smoke.

Static.

A single figure waited beyond the breach.

Not Iris.

Him.

Victor Blackwood.

Lucien’s father.

Alive.

Unscarred.

Smiling.

He wore the same suit I remembered from the tabloids, as if he’d never died. As if he hadn’t sold his son’s soul for a program designed to erase people like me.

“Hello, Ivy,” he said. “You look exactly as she does.”

I stiffened. “No. She looks like me.”

He chuckled. “Not anymore.”

Lucien stepped forward. “You should be rotting in the grave I built you.”

“Son. Such drama. I taught you better.”

“You taught me to be a weapon.”

“And yet you fell in love with your target. How inefficient.”

I wanted to strangle him with my bare hands.

Instead, I stood tall.

“What do you want?”

Victor’s eyes gleamed.

“Iris wants a duel.”

Lucien barked a laugh. “What is this, a damn ritual?”

“It’s a contest,” Victor replied. “Between the original flame, and the perfected blade. Winner inherits the network. Loser… vanishes.”

He turned to me.

“She’ll be here in eighteen hours.”

“Why not now?”

“She’s preparing.”

I frowned. “For what?”

He smiled.

“For your mind.”

I woke in a panic.

Not in my bed.

Not in my body.

Inside her.

Iris.

I was seeing through her eyes.

A lab. A man restrained. Code running across her vision like fire. She was reading me. Testing my thoughts.

Programming me.

I screamed—

And woke in my bed.

Drenched in sweat.

Lucien was already there.

Holding me. Stroking my hair.

“She’s syncing with you,” he said. “That’s how she plans to win. She’s inside your neural network.”

“She wants to rewrite me,” I whispered.

“No. She wants to replace you.”

And I understood.

This wasn’t just war.

It was annihilation.

I trained.

For hours.

Gun drills. Combat sequences. Mental barricades.

Lucien watched me from the edge of the arena, his own wounds half-healed. But the way he looked at me—

It wasn’t pity.

It was awe.

I had gone from pawn to queen.

From a bride to a weapon.

But I refused to lose myself.

The night before the duel, I sat alone on the rooftop, watching the stars blur behind glass.

Lucien joined me.

Said nothing for a long time.

Then: “If this is the last night I get with you…”

“It won’t be.”

“But if it is…”

I turned to him.

And I kissed him.

Slow. Soft. Fierce.

A promise made in silence.

In the morning, the courtyard was cleared.

The air electric.

Iris arrived with a walk that mimicked mine too perfectly.

Only I had scars.

She didn’t.

She smiled as she faced me.

“Well, sister.”

“I’m not your sister,” I said.

“No. You’re just the draft.”

We fought.

Blades at first.

Then fists.

Then fire.

I bled.

She laughed.

I fell.

She moved to strike the final blow—

But I reached inside her mind.

Inside the link.

And I whispered, “You’re not real.”

She froze.

“I am,” she said.

“You were built from me,” I whispered. “But you never lived. Never loved. That makes you a shadow.”

And I overloaded the sync.

Her scream shook the earth.

Then she dropped.

Silent.

Ash in the wind.

Victor fled.

Lucien didn’t chase him.

He just held me as I collapsed.

“You won,” he said.

“No,” I whispered, curling against his chest. “We did.”