Fifty-Eight: The Sister and the Spy

Lucien

Trust is a weapon. And tonight, it was aimed straight at my spine.

I stood alone in the surveillance vault, watching footage of Wren’s confession on loop. Not because I didn’t believe her—but because I did. People lie for fear. For love. For duty. But betrayal? That’s different. Betrayal has a voice. A face. A heartbeat. And it always looks familiar.

The silence in HALCYON’s war floor had grown teeth since Ivy’s broadcast. The grid was stabilizing. Rebels were defecting. Ivy had given the world a rallying point.

But I saw the danger she didn’t.

Valen wasn’t just building a war machine—he was building a myth.

And myths are harder to kill.

The moment I left the vault, rain slammed against the windows like it was trying to claw its way in. I found myself walking toward Ivy’s private command lounge—out of instinct, not invitation.

She was standing at the window, barefoot, hair down, wrapped in a shawl like a queen made of storms.

She didn’t turn when I entered.

“He’s using her voice,” she said, quietly.

“I know.”

“The dead don’t scream, Lucien.”

I said nothing.

She finally turned, eyes rimmed in steel. “But he made her scream. Over and over again. Through every hacked feed. Every riot. Her voice is on fire.”

I crossed the room in two steps. “Ivy, this isn’t your fault.”

She looked up at me.

“No,” she whispered. “It’s ours.”

We buried ourselves in strategy for the next seventy-two hours.

Wren was under secure lock, but Ivy had refused to cut her out of the war entirely. She was still feeding us data. Intel. Patterns.

And then, like a knife slipped under armor, she dropped a single message into my private terminal:

I need to see you. Alone. – W

I should’ve deleted it.

I didn’t.

Instead, I met her in the sub-basement of the western wing, in one of the abandoned map chambers. No surveillance. No records. No Ivy.

She stood there, trembling, a flash drive in one hand and a photograph in the other.

“I found something,” she said. “But you’re not going to like it.”

“What is it?”

She handed me the photo first.

It was old. Torn at the edge. My father stood in the middle, dressed in military black, flanked by two scientists.

And between them—my god—

Ivy’s mother.

And next to her… Valen Sinclair.

But it wasn’t a conference.

It was a lab.

A secret one.

And Ivy’s mother was wearing a badge that read:

PROJECT: NYX.

“What the hell is this?” I asked.

Wren’s voice broke. “They weren’t just building a neural interface. They were building a child. Ivy wasn’t born, Lucien. She was designed.”

My blood went cold.

“She was the prototype,” Wren said. “Her DNA… it wasn’t only Sinclair. It wasn’t just your father’s allies. It was Blackwood, too.”

I staggered back.

“No.”

“She was engineered, Lucien. To be fireproof. To adapt to trauma. To lead.”

The file on the drive confirmed it.

The girl I had married…

The girl I had loved…

Was part of my father’s final experiment.

I locked Wren in the vault.

Not out of rage.

Out of mercy.

Because if Ivy found out from anyone else, she’d destroy everything we’d built.

I walked back to her quarters like I was bleeding on the inside.

And there she was—sitting at the fireplace, sipping tea, head tilted.

“You look like death,” she said.

I couldn’t speak.

I sat down across from her. Took her hand.

“I need you to trust me,” I said quietly.

She searched my face. “What did you do?”

“Nothing. Yet.”

She leaned in. “You’re shaking.”

“I’m trying not to set the world on fire.”

She smiled faintly. “Too late for that.”

That night, I woke to gunfire.

Alarms shrieked across HALCYON.

Rebels had infiltrated the east wing.

But they weren’t aiming for the servers.

They were heading straight for Wren.

I fought my way through smoke and blood.

Reached the vault just as they breached it.

The firefight was brutal. Ruthless.

I killed without hesitation.

Because Wren had the file.

And if Valen got it.

If Ivy saw it,

She would never recover.

I got there too late.

The rebels were dead.

But so was Wren.

Throat slit.

The flash drive gone.

The blood soaked the walls like prophecy.

And written in red, smeared across the vault door:

"NYX RISES.”

I staggered out into the hall as Clara ran toward me.

“They hit the south grid!” she shouted. “They breached our blood archives!”

My voice was gravel. “They’re rewriting her identity.”

“What?”

“They’re going to tell the world who she really is.”

Clara paled.

And then Ivy’s voice came over the speakers.

Clear. Commanding.

But not calm.

Not controlled.

“To the traitors in my house—run.”

The world was on fire again.

But this time, it wasn’t just Ivy they were trying to destroy.

It was her origin.

Her right to be anything more than a design.

And I knew the moment she found out—

Not even I could stop what came next.