Scene One – Arrival
The flight into Los Angeles felt longer than it should have. No one spoke much.
From his seat, Jeremiah stared out the oval window, his reflection pale against the sprawling city below. The familiar skyline made his chest ache. Home, yet not home. Every corner held memories he was still trying to bury. Tiffany sat two rows ahead, headphones clamped over her ears, but he could tell by her stiff posture she wasn't listening to anything. Katherine had her books open but her eyes weren't moving across the pages. Even Lyra, usually restless, was quiet, her gaze flicking between Marcus and Alexandra as if trying to read their thoughts.
Marcus kept a steady hand on his mother's arm the entire flight. Alexandra hadn't spoken much since Ezra announced the trip. Her face betrayed nothing, but her fingers never stopped worrying the hem of her sleeve. Ezra himself sat at the front, arms folded, eyes closed, but the set of his jaw told everyone he wasn't resting.
When the wheels hit the runway, the jolt drew a collective breath from the group.
"Here we go," Jax muttered, stretching his arms.
Outside the airport, Los Angeles was drenched in late-afternoon sunlight. The air was warm, dry, and carried a faint tang of salt from the ocean. The traffic roared, horns blaring, pedestrians weaving through the sidewalks with the practiced impatience of city life.
Ezra guided them into two waiting vans. "The orphanage isn't far," he said curtly. "We'll go directly. No detours."
Inside the van, silence settled again. Tiffany pressed her forehead to the window, staring at streets she had walked as a girl, back when Aurora was alive and life was simple. Her chest tightened, the thought gnawing at her: If Alexandra is really tied to us… if she's family…
She shut her eyes. The idea was too heavy.
The ride wound through older neighborhoods, away from the glittering high rises. The streets narrowed, the buildings shorter, older, their paint faded under years of sun. Kids played basketball on cracked courts. Murals sprawled across brick walls, bright colors bleeding into each other. It wasn't glamorous, but it was lived in.
Finally, the van slowed. Ezra's voice broke the silence. "We're here."
The orphanage stood at the corner of a quiet street, an aging two-story brick building with ivy creeping up its walls. The paint on the shutters was chipped, the gate sagged slightly on its hinges, but flowers still bloomed in boxes under the windows. A place worn by time but not abandoned.
Alexandra's breath hitched almost imperceptibly as she stepped out of the van. Her eyes swept the building, lingered on the weathered steps leading to the door. For a moment, her composure slipped.
"This is it?" Katherine whispered.
Ezra nodded. "Yes. This is where she was found."
The group followed Ezra up the narrow path. He rang the bell. A moment passed before the door creaked open.
An elderly woman appeared, her hair a cloud of white, her frame thin but upright. Her face was deeply lined, but her eyes were sharp, alive with curiosity. She peered at the group, then at Ezra.
"Yes?" Her voice was steady, measured, with the faintest rasp of age.
Ezra inclined his head respectfully. "Margaret Ellis?"
"That's me."
"We need to speak with you. About something… from a long time ago."
Her gaze sharpened. "You're not the first to come knocking about the past. But you look serious." She studied Ezra, then her eyes drifted to Alexandra. The old woman froze. Her breath caught audibly, her wrinkled hand rising to her mouth.
"…You."
The group exchanged tense glances. Alexandra blinked, unsettled. "Do you… know me?"
Margaret stepped closer, her eyes scanning Alexandra's face with trembling intensity. For a long moment she said nothing, only staring, as if seeing a ghost.
"I'd know those eyes anywhere," she whispered finally. "You're the baby by the river."
The words hit like a hammer. Tiffany's breath stuttered. Jeremiah clenched his fists. Marcus turned to his mother, searching her expression.
Alexandra's lips parted, but no sound came. Her usual composure faltered, her face pale.
Margaret pushed the door open wide. "Come in. All of you. We can't speak out here."
They filed inside. The air smelled faintly of polish and old books. The walls were covered with faded photographs of children, smiling faces captured through decades. The floor creaked under their weight.
Margaret led them to a sitting room with mismatched chairs and a long, worn couch. She eased herself into an armchair, gesturing for the others to sit. Her gaze never strayed far from Alexandra.
"It was more than forty years ago," Margaret began slowly. "I was a young caretaker then. One night, a storm rolled in. The rain came down like the heavens were breaking open. We heard a cry, faint but desperate, from the riverside near here. I ran with two of the older boys and found you."
Her eyes softened as she looked at Alexandra. "A tiny baby, wrapped in cloth finer than anything we'd ever seen. Not of this world, I thought. You were cold, soaked, but alive."
Alexandra swallowed hard, her hands clasped tightly in her lap.
"We brought you here. We called the authorities, but no one ever came forward. Weeks passed. Then… a man came."
Ezra leaned forward. "A man?"
Margaret nodded, frowning. "Strange fellow. Dressed too well for this neighborhood. He asked about the baby by the river. His eyes were sharp, cold. We told him you were safe. He said nothing more, and he never returned."
"Did he give a name?" Ezra pressed.
Margaret shook her head. "No. But I never forgot his face."
Silence settled over the room, heavy, suffocating. Tiffany's fingers twisted in her lap. Jeremiah's jaw flexed.
Margaret's eyes narrowed suddenly, her gaze flicking between Tiffany and Alexandra. Slowly, she rose from her chair, moving closer to Tiffany. Her hand, trembling, reached to lift Tiffany's chin gently, tilting her face toward the light.
Her breath hitched again. She turned to Alexandra. "God help me… I see it now. The same cheekbones. The same eyes." She stepped back, her voice breaking. "You had a sister."
The room froze.
"What?" Tiffany's voice cracked.
Margaret's hands shook as she spoke. "There were two of you that night. Two babies. Identical. Impossible to tell apart. We took you both in. But only one stayed."
Her eyes flicked to Tiffany, then to Alexandra. "The other was claimed by relatives days later. A woman and a man came, said the child was theirs. We had no reason to doubt them. We gave her up."
The silence that followed was deafening. Katherine's pen slipped from her fingers. Lyra's eyes widened. Jax swore under his breath.
Tiffany's heart slammed in her chest. "Aurora…"
Jeremiah's voice was hoarse. "Our mother."
Margaret nodded slowly, her own eyes damp. "Yes. The woman who took her… Aurora. That was the name she gave. And you—" she turned to Alexandra, voice trembling—"you are her sister. Her twin. Aurora's identical twin."
The words shattered the room. Tiffany staggered back, covering her mouth. Jeremiah's hands trembled violently at his sides. Ezra's face hardened like stone, but his eyes betrayed the weight of revelation.
Alexandra sat frozen, color draining from her cheeks. Her lips moved soundlessly before she whispered, "Twin…?"
Tears brimmed in Tiffany's eyes. She stared at Alexandra, seeing not just resemblance, but truth. Her throat closed, but the word forced its way out, raw and trembling.
"…Auntie."
The single word broke Alexandra. Her composure cracked, tears spilling silently down her face. She lifted a trembling hand to her mouth, her breath shuddering. For the first time in decades, the armor of Obsidian royalty fell away, leaving only a woman who had lost a life she never knew she had.
Jeremiah closed his eyes, struggling to breathe. Ezra's gaze cut to the window, calculating what this revelation meant for their war, their family, their very history.
And outside, across the street, a shadow lingered under the shade of a tree. Cloaked, silent, watching. A faint glint of obsidian armor caught the sun before vanishing again.
The Obsidians knew.
The truth was out, and it would not stay hidden.
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Scene Two – Echoes of a Stolen Childhood
Silence held the room after Tiffany's whisper. Auntie. Alexandra kept her gaze on the floorboards. The edges of the rug blurred. Her throat tightened. Margaret's ticking wall clock filled the gaps no one dared to cross.
"I need a minute," Alexandra said softly.
No one moved. Jeremiah shifted his weight. Ezra gave a single nod. Marcus stayed at her side, close but not touching. Alexandra drew a slow breath and let her eyes close.
The memory rose at once.
Rain on tin roofs. The smell of wet paper and soap. A little girl in a threadbare dress stood by a window with chipped paint. She pressed her palm to the glass and watched a car pull up that did not belong on that street. Black. Glossy. Silent after the engine died.
He stepped out first. Broad shoulders. A face lined by years, stern at the edges, gentle at the center. Arnold. Leonard's uncle. He wore an overcoat that hid the cut of a royal frame. He walked with purpose. He did not look at the cross on the door or the flaking number nailed above it. He looked for her.
A woman from the office led him down the hall. The girl did not run. She did not speak. She stared through the fog her breath drew on the glass and tried not to hope. Hope hurt. Hope always hurt.
He found her by the window.
"Is this her?" he asked the woman.
The woman nodded. "Abandoned near the river as an infant. No name. Healthy. Quiet."
He knelt. His eyes were not human. They held starlight and fire and a weight that pushed on the air. Yet his voice broke gently. "Hello."
She did not answer. He offered his hand.
"Do you want to leave this place?"
Her lips parted. The question felt dangerous. She searched his face for the trick. She found none. He waited. No rush. No impatience. Only warmth that stood firm.
Her hand rose and rested in his palm. His fingers closed around hers and the room seemed to breathe for the first time all day.
"Thank you," he said.
He signed papers. He spoke with a grace that silenced every whisper in the building. He carried her past rows of beds and crates of donated clothes. At the door, the woman asked for her new name.
"Alexandra," he said. "She is Alexandra."
The city blurred by the window as they drove. The girl held tight to the sleeve of his coat. He let her. He said little, but each word landed with care.
"I am Arnold," he said. "Where I am taking you, people will try to measure you. Ignore them. You are not for their measure."
At the gate of the ship, he reached into his coat and drew out a small pendant shaped like a crown. Bronze. Warm from his pocket. He set it in her palm.
"Family is chosen," he said. "And kept."
The memory shifted. Air thin and cold. Red gardens under a carved sky. The halls of the Obsidian palace hummed with engines and old songs. Servants bowed. Courtiers stared. Rumor drifted behind screens like smoke.
Arnold walked beside her through every room. He matched his stride to her shorter steps. He pointed out the twin statues at the grand entry and told her the story of the two brothers who guarded the city when the air failed. He had her touch the stone and feel the grooves chiseled by hands long gone. He sat with her during meals and placed fruit on her plate before his own. He made the teachers soften their tone. He cut off the sneers with a glance.
He never called her adopted. He never said foundling. He said daughter. He said mine.
At night, when the palace stilled, he read to her. Histories. Maps. Lines of poetry from an old tongue that tasted like smoke and iron. His voice was steady. He would pause when her eyes drooped and close the book without a sound. He would carry her to bed and tuck the blanket tight around her shoulders. He would put the crown pendant on the nightstand and rest his hand over hers for a long minute.
The nightmares began the winter she turned twelve.
At first it was a shape. A figure at the far end of a riverbank. Fog rolled low and hid the ground. The figure never moved. The river hissed. She woke with her throat raw from a cry she did not remember making.
Arnold heard and came at once. He sat on the edge of her bed and ran a hand through her hair.
"Tell me," he said.
She tried. The words felt thin. "A woman by a river."
"Does she speak?"
"Not yet."
He stayed until she slept. He stayed the next night and the next, until she told him not to. He smiled and said she ruled the terms, then set a bell within reach.
Over the years the figure sharpened. First a smudge, then a face. The face looked like hers. Same line at the cheekbone. Same slope at the nose. Older. Sad. It formed in the fog and brought the same two words. Come home.
She began to dread the dark. She kept candles lit until the wax pooled and smoked. Arnold knew. He never mocked her fear. He adjusted schedules to spare her the worst hours. He brought healers with clear eyes and slow hands. They brewed tonics that soothed her bones but did nothing to the dream.
One afternoon he found her in the garden staring at the reflection in a metal basin. The water held her face and did not blink.
"I am not that girl," she said. "I am yours."
He set a hand on her shoulder. "You are yours," he answered. "And I love you."
His health broke the year she turned eighteen. The palace went quiet then. The halls learned to hold their breath. He hid the strain from her for a time, but strain has a voice. It speaks in the way a man lowers himself into a chair. It speaks in the tremor a teacup gives when it meets a saucer.
One night he called her to his study. The room smelled of leather and ash. He had laid out star charts on the table. He looked thinner. His smile still warmed the air.
"I need to speak before I go," he said.
"Do not say that."
"I must." He reached for her hand. His skin felt cool. "Some in this court will try to turn you into a blade. Some will try to turn you into a banner. Be neither. Be a person."
Tears stung her eyes. "I am not ready."
"No one is." He brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. "You have a steady mind. Trust it. When the dreams return, and they will, remember this. You owe the dead respect. You do not owe them your life."
He pressed the crown pendant into her palm again, as if the old gift needed renewing. Then he pulled her into his arms and held her a long time.
He died three weeks later. The palace bells tolled without pause. The torches burned day and night. Leonard took the throne and the air changed. Hard edges. Fast orders. Fewer pauses for breath. Alexandra stood straight through the ceremonies and did not cry where the court could see. She sobbed alone over the star charts until her throat tore.
The dreams grew worse after that.
The woman by the river began to step closer. The fog thinned. The voice grew clear and urgent. Come home. Each time Alexandra woke with the taste of river water in her mouth and the crown pendant cold against her chest.
She married. She did her duty. She learned to smile when the court required it and to vanish when it did not. She mastered the schedules, the quiet favors, the careful steps that let a woman survive near a throne.
When she learned she was with child she sat in the garden where Arnold used to read and cried. Not from fear. From relief. The thought of someone to love the way he had loved her filled the empty rooms inside her. She spoke to the baby at night in a whisper no one else heard.
The labor came hard and early. Storms thrashed the Citadel that night. The windows rattled. The power dimmed and returned and dimmed again. Midwives filled the chamber. Servants lined the hall with hot water and clean cloth. Alexandra focused on the sound of her own breath and tried not to drown in memory.
Between contractions the dream pressed in. The river rose inside the room. Cold air licked her skin. The woman stood at the foot of the bed. Not fog. Not blur. A face she knew. Her face.
Come home.
Alexandra clutched the sheets. "Who are you?" she rasped. No one answered. The midwives thought she spoke in delirium. They urged, push, breathe, now. The room swam.
The baby crowned. The cry came thin at first, then strong enough to shake the lights. Veronica. They placed the girl on her chest and heat flooded Alexandra's frozen body. She stared at the eyes that opened and stared back. Green. Penetrating. An old sadness in a new face. Her fingers traced the soft curve of a cheek and a shock of recognition ran through her. The vision. The river. The woman's mouth. The line of the brow. Match upon match.
One of the attendants whispered near the door. She thought Alexandra did not hear. "The Guild's star has fallen," the woman murmured to another. "Aurora is dead. It reached us at the same hour."
Alexandra stiffened. The words burned into her skin. Same hour. Same night. Birth and death trading places in the dark.
She kissed her daughter's forehead and felt both devotion and dread set their hooks. She did not sleep. She counted the seconds until dawn. The dream did not come again that night. It did not need to. The face had crossed from dream to flesh.
The years moved. Veronica grew fast and fierce. She learned to watch before she moved. She laughed rarely as a child but when she did the sound filled the house. Alexandra nursed her through fevers and nightmares. The girl's sleep carried storms. More than once she woke and looked around the room as if expecting someone else to be standing there. She did not speak of it.
Alexandra kept the secret no one had asked her to keep. She never told Veronica about the whisper at her birth. She never told her about the river dreams. She feared the knowledge would mark the girl. She feared the court would turn it into a story and feed on it.
On the anniversary of Arnold's death, Alexandra sat alone in his old study. She laid the crown pendant on the map of the old trade routes and imagined his hand beside it. She spoke aloud because the walls needed a voice.
"I am trying," she said. "I am trying to be a person."
The door opened without a knock. Leonard stepped in. His eyes swept the table, then her face.
"Still clinging to old ghosts," he said.
"They raised me," she answered.
"They made you soft."
She did not reply. He looked at the pendant and sneered. He left without another word. The air felt thinner after the door shut.
The dreams returned with a new twist after Veronica reached her tenth year. The woman no longer stood at the riverbank. She stood in the doorway of the palace nursery. The same words, sharper now. Come home. Alexandra stopped sleeping near that room. She told herself it was a busy season. She told herself many things.
The flashback thinned. The sitting room in Los Angeles swam back into focus. The clock ticked. The scent of lemon polish and old photographs replaced the smell of iron and red flowers.
Alexandra opened her eyes. Her cheeks were wet. She did not remember the first tear sliding free.
She looked at Margaret. "He found me here. Arnold. Leonard's uncle. He brought me to Mars and raised me as his own. He treated me with honor. He taught me to stand. He was the best of them."
Margaret listened without interruption. Her hands lay folded in her lap. Her eyes held no judgment. Only witness.
Alexandra turned to Tiffany and Jeremiah. "The dreams started when I was a girl. A woman who looked like me. She stood by a river and called me home. I thought it was guilt. I thought it was grief. The face grew clear when Veronica came. The dream crossed into the room. That night someone in the corridor said Aurora had died. It was the same night. The same hour, from what they said."
Tiffany's breath faltered. She did not try to hide it. "The night Mother died," she whispered.
Jeremiah's eyes closed for a beat. He inhaled, slow and careful. "Our records mark that night as the loss," he said. "A winter storm. A breach. She did not make it out."
Ezra's voice cut the quiet. Firm. Low. "This links blood and time. Birth and death. It changes motive. It changes risk."
Marcus finally spoke. "It changes us."
Alexandra looked at Tiffany. The girl's hands shook. Alexandra lifted her own and held them out. An invitation. Not a demand.
Tiffany stepped forward and placed her hands in Alexandra's. Warmth met warmth. The contact steadied both of them.
"Auntie," Tiffany said again. The word fit better this time. No tremor. No recoil.
Alexandra nodded. "Niece."
Margaret drew a breath and leaned forward. "There is one more thing," she said. "The night the men took the other baby, the one they named Aurora, a girl from our house followed them to the street. She told me later the man at the car said a strange phrase as he tucked the child in. He looked at the river and said, 'One goes with the tide. One goes with the flame.' She thought it was poetry. I did not."
Ezra's eyes narrowed. "A code."
Jeremiah looked at the window. "Or a doctrine."
Alexandra let go of Tiffany's hands and wiped her face with her sleeve. She drew her shoulders back. Her voice steadied.
"I want the truth now," she said. "All of it. Where she lived. What she loved. How she died. Where she lies. I want her songs. I want her habits. I want the stories you tell when you miss her too much to sleep. I want the home that formed her. I need to know where I belong."
Tiffany nodded. "We will take you to our house," she said. "Her room is still there. Her books. Her scarf on the chair. We never moved it."
Jeremiah glanced at Ezra. Ezra gave a tight nod.
Margaret rose slowly. "Take what you need from my records," she said. "Names. Dates. The ledger with the entry from the storm night. It is all yours."
Alexandra stood. Her legs felt light, as if gravity had softened for a second. She crossed to the window and looked out at the street where the spy had stood. Nothing there now. Only a bus easing past and a boy on a scooter. She knew better than to trust the calm.
She turned back to the room. "Arnold gave me a life," she said. "He held me up when the world tried to push me down. I owe him gratitude. I owe myself the rest."
Tiffany stepped to her side. Jeremiah joined them. Marcus came last and set a hand on his mother's shoulder. The touch said what words failed to carry.
Ezra moved to the door. "We go now," he said. "Daylight is our friend."
Margaret handed him a slim folder. Yellowed papers. A polaroid tucked between two forms. He slid it inside his coat.
Alexandra paused at the threshold and glanced back at the room. The photographs. The clock. The chair where a girl once sat and watched rain. For a moment, she saw Arnold standing in the doorway in his old overcoat. He smiled, as if to say, keep walking.
She did.
Outside, the air tasted of salt and exhaust. The vans waited. Ezra scanned the block before he opened the rear door.
As Alexandra stepped up, the dream voice whispered at the edge of hearing. Not from a river this time. From a street she knew nothing about until today.
Come home.
"I am trying," she said under her breath.
The door shut. The engine turned over. The convoy pulled away from the curb and headed toward a house filled with ghosts and answers.
Behind them, in the shade of a sycamore, the Obsidian watcher lifted a comm bead to his lips and spoke. The words rode a thin band to a ship high above the city, and from there to a throne that did not forgive surprises.
Veronica's birthday matched Aurora's last breath. The Citadel would not ignore that truth. Nor would the Guild.
The road unwound ahead. Alexandra held the crown pendant in her fist and felt its edges bite into her skin. Pain anchored her to the present. Hope did the rest.