Chapter Seventy-Eight: Two Journals

No one spoke.

Silas held the second journal toward the camera.

The sentence remained visible on every screen inside the Orion Core.

If you are reading this, then the Keeper has chosen the wrong heir.

A cold silence settled over the chamber.

I looked down at the journal resting in my hands.

Then back to the one Silas carried.

Same leather.

Same gold lettering.

Same age.

Two books.

Two beginnings.

Two completely different futures.

Marcus was the first to break the silence.

"One of them has to be fake."

"No."

Seraphine answered immediately.

"They're both authentic."

Every eye turned toward her.

She stepped toward me, her silver eyes fixed on the journals displayed side by side.

"My ancestor wrote them both."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because he didn't trust history."

I frowned.

"I don't understand."

She folded her hands behind her back.

"The First Keeper believed every generation would eventually divide into two kinds of leaders."

She pointed to the journal in my hands.

"Those who believed knowledge existed to serve people."

Then she pointed toward Silas's journal on the monitor.

"And those who believed people existed to serve knowledge."

The words settled heavily over the room.

Neither sounded completely wrong.

That was what made them dangerous.

Silas smiled from the helicopter.

"Still telling half the story, Seraphine?"

"I've learned from watching you."

He laughed quietly.

"You certainly have."

Sebastian walked to my side.

"When we were boys..."

His voice was distant, almost lost in memory.

"...our father showed us both journals."

I looked at him.

"You've seen them before?"

"Once."

"Only once."

"He said we would never open them until we understood the difference."

"What difference?"

Sebastian looked toward the screens.

"I chose compassion."

Silas answered before he could continue.

"And I chose certainty."

Neither brother sounded ashamed.

Only convinced.

Lucien spoke for the first time in several minutes.

"I remember."

The room turned toward him.

"You were there?"

"I was seventeen."

His eyes remained fixed on the monitors.

"I watched both of them walk into the old archive."

He smiled bitterly.

"They entered together."

His expression darkened.

"They left believing the other had betrayed everything."

The Orion Core seemed suddenly much larger.

Not because of its size.

Because of its history.

This war hadn't begun with Genesis.

Or Helix.

Or Silverfang.

It had begun with two brothers reading two different books.

The mechanical voice interrupted the silence.

External breach estimate revised.

Sixteen minutes.

Time was slipping away.

Silas looked almost amused.

"You always were slow readers."

I ignored him.

Instead, I opened my journal again.

The pages moved beneath my fingers as though responding to the ring.

Halfway through the book, new writing slowly appeared.

Not ink.

The letters seemed to emerge from the paper itself.

Only one sentence formed.

Ask him why he disappeared.

I stared at the words.

They hadn't been there before.

The journal was speaking.

Or perhaps...

Responding.

I raised my eyes to the monitor.

"Why?"

Silas tilted his head.

"Why what?"

"Why disappear for twenty-eight years?"

The smile left his face.

For the first time since he had appeared...

He looked tired.

"I didn't disappear."

He spoke quietly.

"I was locked out."

Sebastian's eyes widened.

"No."

"You know that's not true."

Silas met his brother's gaze.

"You sealed the Core."

"I sealed the power."

"You sealed me."

"I saved everyone."

Silas laughed.

A sad, exhausted laugh.

"You really still believe that."

He took a slow breath.

"Tell him, Sebastian."

My father remained silent.

Silas nodded once.

"I thought you might."

He looked directly into the camera.

"Adrian."

"You've been told I wanted Orion."

"Yes."

"You've been told I wanted Silverfang."

"Yes."

"You've been told I started this war."

"Yes."

Another pause.

Then he asked the one question no one in the chamber seemed prepared to answer.

"Has anyone told you who built the prison beneath the Orion Core?"

I frowned.

"There is no prison."

Silas's expression changed.

Not triumph.

Pity.

"Oh..."

He looked toward Sebastian.

"You never even showed him."

Gabriel closed his eyes.

Seraphine lowered her head.

Lucien turned away from the monitors.

Every one of them already knew.

A cold weight settled in my chest.

"There really is one."

Silas nodded.

"For twenty-eight years..."

His voice became almost a whisper.

"...someone has been waiting inside it."

The Orion Core fell completely silent.

I looked at my father.

He couldn't meet my eyes.

"Who?"

No answer.

The journal in my hands suddenly turned its own pages again.

This time, they stopped on a charcoal sketch.

A massive iron door.

Three stars engraved into the steel.

Beneath it, written in the First Keeper's fading hand, were five chilling words.

Never open this alone.

Before I could ask another question, every alarm inside the Orion Core erupted at once.

The mechanical voice spoke over the deafening sirens.

Critical breach confirmed.

Roof access compromised.

Then, for the first time since the siege began, the cameras showed movement.

Silas was no longer standing in the helicopter.

He was gone.

One second later, a slow, deliberate knock echoed through the enormous vault doors of the Orion Core.

Three knocks.

Exactly like the ones Ronan had made outside my office on the night everything began.