The whisper coiled through the room like a snake.
"Hello, Elena."
The sound was faint, almost intimate, but unmistakably malicious.
Alexander moved immediately, pulling Elena behind him as his hand slipped to the small of his back drawing a hidden pistol from the tailored suit jacket he never truly took off. The emergency lights flickered on, casting the office in a ghostly red glow.
"He's patched into the system," Alexander muttered. "That's not a recording. He's speaking live."
Elena's spine tingled. "How?"
Kira's voice crackled over the emergency comm: "We've been breached. He's in our internal comm lines, possibly piggybacking off Charlotte's clearance before it deactivated."
Alexander gritted his teeth. "Cut him out."
"I'm trying."
The whisper returned, louder this time, creeping into the walls.
"You really thought you could hide him forever? My blood lives in that boy. You think the child doesn't feel it?"
Elena's heart stopped. "He doesn't know anything. He's just a little boy—"
"He's the beginning of a new age," Desmond interrupted. "The first true hybrid. And whether you run or stay, Elena… he will come to me."
"No, he won't," Alexander growled. "Over my dead body."
Desmond chuckled softly. "That can be arranged."
The system crackled again. Then silence.
Alexander turned to Kira over the comm. "Talk to me."
"We kicked him out, but just barely," she replied. "He's operating off-grid. Someone powerful's backing him this isn't just Desmond. It's international."
Elena moved toward the door. "I need to check on Elias."
Alexander followed without question.
They reached Elias's room seconds later. He was sitting on the bed, calm—too calm—clutching the sketchpad again.
"Elena," Alexander said under his breath. "Don't let him see fear."
She nodded, swallowing hard. "Hey baby. You okay?"
Elias looked up. "Mommy, I saw Grandpa again. In the mirror."
She froze. "Grandpa?"
"The man from my dreams. He says I'm not like other kids. That I'm born to lead. Is that true?"
Alexander sat beside him, voice low. "Who else do you see in these dreams, Elias?"
The boy hesitated. "A woman. She has eyes like fireflies. She cries when she sees me. She called me... her atonement."
Alexander stiffened.
That name.
It had only ever appeared once. In the prophecy his father had buried Project Sovereign's codex.
Atonement will be the bridge between bloodlines. When she bears the hybrid, war will begin anew.
"Elena," Alexander said, standing. "We need to go. Now."
"Go where?"
"To the vault. I need to show you everything."
Beneath Wolfe Tower, twenty levels underground, sat a chamber no one but Alexander had clearance to access. Not Kira. Not even his former Vice President.
It was cold. Clean. Silent.
And lined with files that didn't exist.
Alexander opened a steel case, retrieving a crystal drive. He inserted it into the console, and a holographic display rose—showing faces, symbols, and bloodlines.
Elena stared.
A genealogical tree spanning back centuries. At the center Aeloria, a name she'd only heard whispered by her grandmother. It was connected by thin lines to other names she recognized only from the oldest of myths.
"You're not just a woman who fell in love with the wrong man," Alexander said. "You're the last living descendant of the Seer Line."
She shook her head. "This is crazy."
"And Desmond?" he continued. "He was part of Project Sovereign. The Blackthorne family believed the only way to create a 'perfect successor' was by fusing Seer blood with Alpha DNA. But every subject failed."
Until her.
Until Elias.
Elena stared at the projection of her son's DNA profile glowing on the screen.
"Why didn't you tell me all this?"
"I was trying to protect you from the truth," Alexander said softly. "From what I used to be."
The words hung heavy between them.
"But it doesn't matter anymore," he added. "Because they're coming. And we have one chance to fight back."
"How?"
"You activate your gift."
She blinked. "You said I never awakened it."
"You didn't. But there's a way. It's risky. Painful. But if it works, you'll be able to shield Elias mentally. He won't be able to reach him."
Elena closed her eyes.
A choice.
Burn or survive.
"I'll do it."
That night, in the hidden ritual chamber built for Sovereign experiments, Elena lay on a polished obsidian slab. Ancient markings lit the walls her ancestral language, unearthed by Alexander during his father's final years.
Kira stood nearby, hands trembling as she administered the serum an alchemic mixture of herbs, blood, and memory fragments.
Alexander gripped Elena's hand. "Breathe. No matter what you see, I'm here."
The serum coursed through her veins like fire.
She screamed.
Visions tore through her mind. Her mother, burning in a fire she didn't start. Her grandmother chanting incantations under a blood moon. A blackened mirror cracking under her reflection.
And then… the Seer.
A version of herself. Older. Wiser. Wrapped in a crown of white fire. She extended her hand.
"Take back your name, Aelira."
Elena reached.
The fire entered her chest.
She arched off the slab, gasping.
When her eyes opened, they glowed violet.
The Seer had awakened.
Meanwhile, Desmond stood in a private airfield hangar, watching a hologram of Elena writhing in pain.
"She's awakening," said a shadowy figure beside him. A woman in black robes.
"Good," Desmond replied. "Because once her powers bloom she'll lead me straight to the Vault of Echoes."
The woman tilted her head. "And the boy?"
Desmond smiled cruelly. "The boy will break her."