Digging Through Files

Chapter 24

"Digging Through Files"

 POV : Adelina)

It started with a smell.

Old paper. Burned corners. Mold that had grown over memory.

Caleb pried open the rusted cabinet door with the back of his knife, and the scent hit me all at once. Like wet dust in a mausoleum. Like truth buried in rot.

We were deep beneath the old Crescent Fang embassy once a neutral stronghold, now abandoned since the Council’s collapse began trickling from within. I’d only heard rumors that archives still remained. That not everything had burned when the rebellion sparked.

But now, here we were.

Lit only by a flickering lantern, standing in the belly of what looked like a council sub-record room that had been intentionally sealed. No magic wards. Just human methods bricks, rust, chains.

That meant someone had wanted it forgotten, not destroyed.

Which made me even more certain we were in the right place.

“We don’t have long,” Caleb said, his voice low. “We hit two old alarms when we came through the eastern corridor. Motion-activated. Could be wolves. Could be humans. Could be worse.”

I nodded. “Let’s move fast, then.”

He dropped to a crouch beside the cabinet and began flipping through the top shelf.

I moved toward the sealed crate against the far wall. My fingertips grazed the Council emblem etched in wax half-scratched out. A crescent moon wrapped in thorns.

The symbol of the Purification Division.

The ones who had erased entire bloodlines.

Including mine.

I swallowed hard, jammed my dagger into the crate’s seam, and pried it open with a heavy crack.

Dust flew.

Inside were rows of metal-pressed file cartridges, ancient even by Council standards.

I grabbed one marked in faded red wax:

“HM-093: Hollow Moon – Pre-Descent Evaluation”

My blood went cold.

“Caleb,” I called, “I found something.”

He stood, brushing dust off his jacket. “Please don’t say it’s cursed.”

“Not cursed,” I muttered, cracking open the container. “Just treasonous.”

The file was dated over 60 years ago.

Marked “CONFIDENTIAL – INTER-COUNCIL USE ONLY.”

Inside were photographs. Transcripts. Ritual logs. Gene-scans. Witness testimonies.

But one name repeated across every margin in red:

Selene Reyes.

Matron Descendant. Unstable.

Classified: Flameborn Level II

Discontinued — cause: Collapse

I blinked. “Selene…”

“That was Sylvia’s mother,” Caleb said, voice tight. “Daxon’s grandmother.”

My heart sank.

So it wasn’t just me. Or Lux. Or Hollow Moon.

The Reyes line carried the Flame too.

Sylvia hadn’t just feared the Matrons. She’d come from them.

And she’d spent decades burying that part of herself.

I turned the page.

There she was.

Sylvia. Younger. Barely 16 in the grainy image. Standing beside her mother, Selene, in front of a flame-etched altar.

The caption read:

"Flame Ritual – Unsanctioned. 4 Matrons present. Collapse followed 6 hours later. Alpha companion deceased. Daughter unharmed.”

And then, underlined in red:

Daughter placed under supervision. Reyes Legacy transferred to Cold Protocol.

Cold Protocol.

I remembered the term from Council lore. It meant lineage freezing erasing biological connections to forbidden powers. Rewriting public family trees. Sealing any trace.

Sylvia Reyes had ordered Cold Protocol for dozens of wolves across three decades.

And now I knew why.

Because it had been used on her.

I shook, holding the page in my hands.

“She’s been terrified of her own blood this whole time,” I whispered. “Not just mine. Hers.”

Caleb leaned over my shoulder. “Self-hatred tends to breed tyranny.”

“And she passed that fear onto Daxon.” I turned, anger flaring. “Made him believe claiming me would undo their entire dynasty.”

“It would have,” he said. “And maybe it still can.”

We kept reading.

More names appeared.

Dozens of Matron-born wolves labeled as “divergent,” “unstable,” “eradicated.”

Each one with their own crest. Their own story.

And every single one ended the same:

Discontinued.

Caleb opened a secondary file set labeled:

“Subject 187-F: Flamebranded Fetus – Future Risk Assessment”

He handed me the page.

Lux.

There was no doubt.

My daughter’s name wasn’t on the page, but the DNA markers were exact. There was even a sonogram image, stolen from one of the hidden Council clinics near Aspen.

The attached memo was from a high-ranking officer.

To: Sylvia Reyes

Re: Unapproved Pregnancy – Matron Line Carrier – Flamebranded Inheritance Risk

“We recommend pre-term nullification before 7 months gestation. Beyond that, power fusion will reach irreversible threshold.

Action must be taken swiftly, as the child’s projected elemental resonance is already detectable in the surrounding lunar field.”

Caleb’s face hardened. “They wanted to kill her before she took her first breath.”

“And Sylvia signed off on it.”

I tore the page in half. Then the next one.

“Burn it,” I whispered. “Burn it all.”

Caleb hesitated. “You sure? This is evidence. This could expose”

“I don’t want Lux’s name archived like a weapon. She’s not their experiment.”

I threw the file into a nearby urn and lit the rim with a flick of my fingers.

It ignited in an instant. Hungry. Cleansing.

Ash settled in my lungs.

We stood in silence as the documents curled and turned black.

Then something strange happened.

One last file, stuck beneath the crate.

It wasn’t labeled.

No crest. No wax.

Just a charcoal-gray folder, cracked and frayed.

I opened it slowly.

Inside were pages written by hand. No type. No digital print.

And at the top, a familiar signature:

Selene Reyes.

Journal Entry – The Night I Chose Flame.

> _“They said the Flame is too wild to live. That the Matron bond makes us dangerous. But I know the truth now.

The bond is not madness. It is mourning. It is the scream of our wolves denied their song.

I chose the fire not because I was broken. But because I refused to burn alone.

If my daughter reads this one day, know this:

What they fear in you is not the power. It is the memory.

You carry not just the future.

You carry the past they tried to kill.”

I swallowed hard. My throat tightened. Caleb stepped away, giving me space.

The last page was a drawing.

A small wolf pup curled in flame, sleeping peacefully.

Above it, words etched in trembling script:

“She will wake. And she will remember us.”

I folded the page and slipped it into my coat.

Not for evidence.

For Lux.

For me.

For every wolf whose howl was cut short by politics and fear.

This wasn’t just a rebellion.

It was a resurrection.