Chapter 12: Beneath the realms
Rain traced soft, uneven patterns on the windows, its steady tapping a quiet companion to the stillness of the morning. Isla sat curled on the worn couch by the fire, a heavy book of poetry resting open on her lap. The house was filled with the smell of damp wood and burning logs, a fragile comfort she clung to.
Then, the sudden chime of the doorbell shattered the calm.
Christopher appeared at her side, shirt sleeves rolled up, faint smudges of pencil on his fingers from earlier work. “Did you expect someone?” he asked, eyes narrowed.
Isla shook her head and moved toward the door. Through the peephole, she saw a courier dressed in a dark gray uniform standing on the porch. In his hands was a plain, flat envelope—no return address, no markings.
She opened the door cautiously.
The man offered the envelope with a nod and slipped back into the morning mist.
Her hands trembled as she took it. The envelope was thick, sealed with deep red wax. The letters impressed in the wax made her stomach tighten: A.D.
“Aurelia Deveraux,” she whispered.
Christopher’s voice was low. “She’s been gone nearly a year now.”
Isla bit her lip. “Then why send this now?”
They sat down together on the couch, and she carefully broke the wax seal. Inside was a letter, yellowed and fragile, accompanied by a formal document from an unfamiliar law office. At the bottom of the letter, in flowing script, was a note:
To be delivered one year after my death.
Her eyes scanned the letter aloud.
---
If you are reading this, I am no longer here, and hopefully Ethan is no longer a threat. I’m sorry for the pain my choices have caused. I tried to stop him, but I failed.
There is a trust fund hidden in the estate’s accounts. It’s in your name, Isla. Not out of guilt, but because I believe you will use it well.
Ethan knew about the trust. He made himself a witness, something I could not reverse. He threatened me when I tried.
If this letter has reached you, you are in danger—not from Ethan, but from those who worked with him. The money—
The letter ended abruptly. The final lines were torn away, ripped out in haste.
---
Isla looked up, pale. “This was written before she died. Before the overdose.”
Christopher frowned. “Someone tore out the end before sending it?”
“Or after. Which means others know about this letter.”
Her eyes moved to the legal document. The trust fund was real—millions held in an offshore account. She was the sole beneficiary, but only if she stayed at the Deveraux estate for six months after opening the letter.
Her voice shook. “That place nearly broke us.”
Christopher’s jaw clenched. “Someone wants us to return.”
---
That night, sleep refused her. She stood by the window, watching the fog curl over the lake. Fear knotted her chest, but beneath it stirred something darker—a burning curiosity.
What had Aurelia meant by “those who worked with him”? Were they the shadows lurking behind the forged deeds and missing money? Or something worse?
Suddenly, movement caught her eye near the edge of the woods—a tall, still figure, too deliberate to be an animal, too motionless for the mist.
Her breath caught.
Christopher was beside her in an instant. He saw it too.
The figure stepped back slowly, disappearing into the darkness.
Gone.
They stood silently, the heavy weight of the moment pressing down.
“We’re being watched,” Isla said quietly.
Christopher squeezed her hand. “Then our past hasn’t let us go yet.”
The peace they found were shattered.
They were not free.
Not even the slightest.
Chapter 61: Shards of the MirrorThe silence was unbearable.Isla sat alone in the observation room of ECHO-3, a vast, high-ceilinged chamber lined with sleek glass panels and flickering holo-screens. A distant hum vibrated beneath her boots—the sound of a hidden world still turning.She stared at the holographic projection of her DNA spiral spinning slowly in midair. It glowed violet, like a cursed constellation. Data poured beside it—words she could no longer make sense of. Words that used to belong to scientists, not to monsters.Behind her, footsteps echoed. Steady. Purposeful.Christopher.“I thought you might come here,” he said quietly.Isla didn’t turn. “It’s strange. Seeing yourself... and realizing you're not entirely yourself.”“You’re not a thing, Isla. You’re not just a blueprint someone rewrote.”She let out a bitter laugh. “Tell that to the report I just read. Lyra didn’t just give birth to me—she embedded herself in me. Consciously. She planned it.”Christopher stayed
Chapter 60: The Vaultbound RiseThe air in the underground chamber was thick—heavy with dust, expectation, and centuries-old secrets that clung to the stone walls like ivy. The Vault of Remnants had not been opened in over four decades, and its presence felt more myth than matter. But tonight, it pulsed.Isla stood in front of the vault door, her fingers twitching unconsciously. Behind her, Christopher and Ethan watched in silence, the tension among them as brittle as ancient parchment. No one spoke. Even the hum of the generators seemed to hush.She could feel it now—the magnetic tug that seemed to know her name. The lock on the vault was encoded to Lyra’s genetic signature, but the tech didn’t account for what Lyra had become. What Isla had become. Half her mother’s legacy, half... something else.Christopher stepped forward. "Are you sure you want to do this tonight? You’re still healing."She shook her head. "Healing is a luxury. And time is a blade pressed to our throats. I can f
Chapter 59: The Threshold ChildrenThe outpost was silent long after the file closed.No one moved. The shadows seemed to cling tighter to the corners, as if even the walls needed time to process what had just been revealed.Threshold Children.Subject Zero.Ark.None of them said it aloud, but the same question hung heavy in the air:What had Lyra made Isla into?And more terrifying—why?---By morning, they were moving again.They left the outpost behind with only a faint heat signature trailing in the snow, covered fast by the wind. Isla walked ahead, wrapped in her insulated gear, hood pulled low, but even now, the light from her hand flickered faintly beneath the glove.Like a heartbeat refusing to slow.The journey to ECHO-3 was brutal.Ice plains gave way to jagged mountain spines. There were no roads. No settlements. Just sky and snow and silence.Ethan navigated using the drive’s coordinates. It pointed to a location that wasn’t on any public map—a place scrubbed from known c
---Chapter 58: Echoes of What WasThey didn’t speak for a long time.The snow muffled their steps as they moved through the tundra, putting distance between themselves and the buried ruin of the vault. The wind whispered around them—soft now, almost reverent, as if the storm itself were holding its breath after what had been unleashed.No one said it aloud, but they all felt it:Something had changed.In Isla.In the world.In what was coming.Ethan was the first to break the silence. “We need shelter. This isn’t the kind of cold you just outrun.”“There’s an outpost thirty miles east,” Christopher said. “Old Cartel relay. Abandoned.”Isla barely heard them.The glowing lines on her hand hadn’t faded. The faint pulse beneath her skin continued, rhythmic and unsettling, like the ticking of a new clock.Inside her, memories surged like tides.Not just hers.Not just Lyra’s.Others.Children’s voices. Screams in sterile corridors. An old song, sung out of tune. A name spoken like a pray
Chapter 57: The Vault of SilenceThe ground trembled again as the vault door split down the middle with a groan older than time. Snow slid from its curved surface like dust falling off forgotten bones. The low-frequency hum built into a thrumming pulse, a sound that didn’t just echo in their ears—it resonated in their chests.Isla took the first step forward.“Wait,” Christopher said, still gripping his rifle. “We don’t know what’s in there.”She glanced at him. “We do. We just haven’t remembered it yet.”Behind them, the sentinel—the pale man—stood still, unmoving. “Only the awakened may enter,” he said, monotone.Christopher looked ready to argue, but Ethan, bleeding from a shallow cut above his brow, stopped him. “He’s not going to stop her. He’s waiting.”Isla crossed the threshold.And the world changed.As she stepped inside the vault, the air grew thicker. Not heavy—dense. Like walking through time itself. The interior walls shimmered, not metal, not stone—something between the
Chapter 56: The Ghost in the SkyThe shadow was fast.It didn’t fly like a drone or a standard aerial unit—it glided, almost silent, but with a strange distortion trailing behind it, like light warping around something not meant to be seen.Ethan’s hands moved rapidly over the controls, flipping off the main nav to manual override. “They’re jamming passive radar. I’m flying blind.”Christopher was already at the rear hatch, rifle ready, eyes scanning the external screens. "Do we engage?""Not unless they do first," Isla said.But she didn't sound sure.Because something in her bones told her this was no ordinary hunter. The pressure in her head was building again, like hands squeezing inward. Her fingers curled into fists."I've seen this thing before," she snarled.Ethan looked back. "Where?"In a dream. Or a memory. I don't know any longer."The shadow dropped altitude. Now it flew alongside them, just out of vision—a shimmering echo on the edge of the skimmer's screen.Then it spok