The cathedral didn't feel like safety anymore.
Even after Sevrak's body was reduced to ashes and his Devourer system melted into the stone, the memory of his voice lingered in the walls. Lirien refused to sleep for a day and a half. Zayen worked in silence, barely speaking as he reinforced the cathedral's outer zones with null-signal spikes and chain-lock markers. Ayra pretended not to notice the way her hands trembled whenever she activated both Vaults.
Power had come easily during the fight.
Too easily.
Now, it lay dormant under her skin like something waiting to wake up and devour her.
> [Sync Rate: 54%]
[Memory Echo Interference: Medium]
[Warning: Trait Fragmentation Detected]
Ayra ignored the alert.
She had bigger problems.
A few hours before dawn, the system whispered again.
> [New Signal Detected]
[Vault Classification: Unknown]
[Echo Type: Displacement-Class — Level Red]
[Risk: EXTREME]
[Codename: The Nameless One]
Ayra blinked. "Nameless?"
The interface didn't explain.
Not clearly.
It simply marked the new Vaultbearer's presence less than 2 kilometers from the edge of their claimed zone—moving silently through the overgrowth near the wrecked transport rails. No image. No voice. Just… presence.
Zayen joined her as she stared at the flickering map. "You see it?"
She nodded. "Another one of us. But different."
"Displacement-class?" He frowned. "That's rare. Most echoes focus on enhancement or projection. Displacement means… memory control. Spatial ghosting. Possibly time-bending."
"Like Lirien's Dreamshaping?"
"No. Worse. Dreamshaping only manipulates memory within. Displacement-class can erase it from others. Or hide from it."
Ayra stared at the blinking signal. "They could be anywhere. Watching."
Zayen nodded grimly. "Or worse… inside one of us already."
Ayra called Lirien in and laid out the information.
The girl didn't flinch. "Then we find them first. Before they decide to rewrite us out of our own story."
---
They left at dusk, cloaked in echo-dampening layers woven from system threads. Ayra carried the core shard reclaimed from Sevrak, pulsing faintly in her satchel. Zayen wielded his bone-forged blade across his back, its surface marked with fresh glyphs. Lirien brought two memory crystal staves—tools that could force a nearby mind to reveal its recent recall sequence.
They reached the broken transport rail just after moonrise.
The air was thick with static. The ground was unnaturally quiet. No wind. No chirps from night insects. Just silence—heavy, pregnant.
Ayra paused.
> [Signal Interference Detected]
[Echo Signature Scrambled]
[System Struggling to Lock Location]
"They're here," she whispered. "But something's wrong."
Then she felt it.
Like a hook pulling inside her chest.
She turned.
And forgot why.
Ayra blinked.
Where was she?
The trees around her looked unfamiliar.
She spun in place.
"Zayen?" she called.
No answer.
"Lirien?"
The silence grew louder.
She took a shaky breath. Her interface flickered—text scrambled.
> [■■■ Connection Lost]
[Vault… Error… Recalling Last Known IDENTITY…]
[User ID: UNKNOWN]
She froze.
Unknown?
"I'm Ayra," she said quickly, panicked. "Ayra Vantheir. Nullborn. Flamebearer of the—"
Her voice died.
The words felt… false.
Like she was reading someone else's lines.
She grabbed her satchel.
Empty.
The core was gone.
Panic exploded in her chest. She activated both Vaults at once, forcing fire through her arms, letting Kael's chains crackle across her skin—but even the power felt slow, dimmed.
"WHO ARE YOU?" she shouted into the trees.
Nothing.
Then—movement.
Not in the trees.
In her memory.
She saw herself walking these rails a week ago.
Only… she hadn't.
She saw Zayen giving her a blade.
Only… he hadn't.
She saw a girl, older than her, long white hair tied with thread, eyes gray like old stone—watching from behind a memory that didn't exist.
Ayra clutched her head.
"STOP IT!"
Then the air split.
A soft voice answered.
"You shouldn't be here."
Ayra looked up.
The white-haired girl stood before her.
Not ghostly. Real. Solid.
But the trees behind her blurred and shimmered—like broken film skipping frames.
The girl's voice was kind. Too kind. "I'm not your enemy."
"Then what are you?" Ayra demanded.
"I am… no one."
Ayra gritted her teeth. "You're Nameless. The Vault called you that."
The girl smiled faintly. "That's what it remembers. But it's not my name. Not really."
Ayra summoned fire into her palm. "What do you want?"
"To warn you."
"By erasing me from myself?"
"No," the Nameless girl whispered. "By hiding you… from them."
She stepped closer. "The Devourers aren't your only threat. The Null Code is evolving. Faster than it should. Faster than it ever did before. It's using you."
"I know," Ayra said. "But it's the only power we have."
The girl's eyes turned distant. "Power is not loyalty."
Then she reached into her sleeve and pulled something out.
Ayra flinched—until she saw what it was.
Her core shard.
The one stolen from her satchel.
"You dropped this," the Nameless girl said gently. "Back when your name stopped being real."
Ayra hesitated.
Then took it.
Immediately, her memory returned.
The trees realigned.
Voices whispered in the distance—Zayen calling her name. Lirien's staff flaring.
Ayra turned to run—but paused.
"Wait," she said. "Before I go…"
The girl nodded.
"Who were you before you became this?"
The girl paused.
Then quietly said, "I was the first Nullborn."
Ayra's eyes widened.
"But I lost myself… before I could be written into the system."
The girl's body began to flicker.
"They will come for your Cathedral soon. The next Vault you awaken will trigger them. The next echo you carry will not belong to you."
"What does that mean?"
"Be careful what you remember."
And then she vanished.
---
Ayra stumbled back into the clearing.
Zayen caught her. "You were gone for ten minutes!"
"No. I was gone for hours."
"No," Lirien corrected, "you stood still for ten minutes. Eyes open. Not breathing."
Ayra stared at them both.
Then whispered, "I met her. The Nameless One."
Zayen stiffened. "She's real?"
Ayra held up the core.
"She gave this back."
Lirien blinked. "So she helped you?"
"No," Ayra said. "She warned me."
Zayen folded his arms. "What now?"
Ayra looked up at the sky—gray clouds spinning unnaturally. A storm not made of weather, but memory.
"We go back."
She touched the core to her chest.
> [New Trait Absorbed: Cloak of the Forgotten]
[Vault Echo Linked: Nameless One (Partial Sync)]
[Trait Effect: Temporary memory invisibility — 60 seconds per use]
"She gave me part of herself," Ayra said. "And if she's right…"
She looked at them both.
"We're not just gathering Vaults anymore."
"We're gathering weapons."
-