Sleep didn't come anymore—only static.
Every time Maya closed her eyes, she fell through the Archive's hum into visions that weren't hers. Tonight the dark opened again, drawing her into a tide of memories not born of her mind.
She stood in a field of light, endless and shifting. The stars above flickered like fragments of broken glass. Around her, silhouettes moved—figures bathed in glyph-light, their forms hazy, their voices whispering in unison.
"Carriers. Lineages. Reflections."
One by one they lifted their heads, and the light revealed their faces—different, yet familiar. She recognized some features in herself, others in the data ghosts she'd glimpsed since Echo first called her name. They were the other heirs. The Carriers.
Asha Varin's silver eyes burned brightest among them.
"You think this power makes you special?" Asha's voice rang clear, sharper than the rest. "It makes you a mirror. Nothing more."
Maya tried to speak, but the Archive froze her in place. Energy licked across her skin—cold, electric, almost tender.
"Observe," the Archive whispered inside her skull. "Truth is a pattern, not a promise."
The vision changed.
She saw Asha standing before a crowd of followers on a crimson world, her veins glowing calm and controlled. Behind her, half a dozen ships—smaller than the Ghost Fleet but alive—waited for her command.Then another image: a man surrounded by rust and sand, his eyes empty save for the flicker of glyphs. A Carrier who'd already surrendered to the Archive completely.Another: a child, terrified, hands trembling as light crawled up her arms.
And then—Kiran.
He stood at the center of it all, bound in threads of code that cut through him like veins of light. His eyes flickered between blue and red, his voice fractured but desperate.
"They're not what they seem, Maya. The Carriers… the Archive built them as one mind. If they wake together—there'll be no stopping it."
She reached for him, but the world shattered around her.
Maya woke with a gasp, her body drenched in cold sweat. The ship was silent except for the low hum of the Ghost Fleet outside. Vector slept in the pilot's seat, gun within reach. Rei was nowhere to be seen.
The Archive still whispered softly, echoing Kiran's last words.
"One mind. One war. One end."
She pressed her palms to her face, heart pounding. For the first time since this began, she wasn't sure who the enemy truly was—Asha, the Architects… or the Archive itself.
🔥 Next: Chapter 44 – The Fractured Link. Rei's secret research pushes the team into betrayal once more, and Kiran's tether begins to tear.