The relay station had been carved into the bones of the cliff a lifetime ago, and it felt like it had been dying ever since. Ivy pushed through the cracks in its walls as if nature was trying to reclaim what technology had abandoned. The solar panels on the roof were warped and spotted with centuries of dust, rust, and dried blood. Power flickered inside—barely enough to light one corner. But it was shelter. For now, that had to be enough.
Lana sat on a rusted crate near a wall smeared with moss and memory. Her shirt was pulled half-off, sticky with blood that had dried in an angry slash across her ribs. She didn't wince. Didn't complain. She just held still while Jason kneeled in front of her, a medkit open between them. His hands moved with a gentleness that didn't come from training—it came from exhaustion and care.
He poured sterile water across the wound. It ran red. Then clear. He applied a thin layer of bio-gel. It shimmered faintly when activated, sealing the cut with a temporary film of synthetic skin. The gel stung. Still, Lana didn't flinch.
Jason's voice came low, almost reluctant. "You got lucky. Another inch higher, and he'd have taken your lung."
She looked down at him, her voice even. "I don't believe in luck."
He met her eyes, something harder flashing in his own. "Then believe in timing. You keep taking hits like this, and we're gonna run out of pieces to patch."
Lana let out a breath—not pain, but something closer to pressure. Like letting out just enough air to avoid cracking. "I know."
Kieran stood at the shattered doorway, his frame half-silhouetted against the gray light outside. He didn't pace. Didn't twitch. But there was a stillness to him that hummed, like a beast trying not to wake itself. Lana could feel it. So could Jason. No one said anything about it.
In the corner, Nyx sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by coils of wire and a flickering screen cracked across one corner. A comm-array that hadn't worked in years now blinked erratically under her hands, lit up by scavenged power cells and Nyx's stubborn refusal to let anything stay dead. Her fingers danced over keys, expression neutral. Only when the first image stabilized did she speak.
"Got it." Her voice was quiet, but certain. "Fragments. Internal memos. Chants. Visual implants. They're not just soldiers."
Jason looked up from Lana's side. "Then what are they?"
Nyx adjusted a dial, and the projection expanded into the air—symbols at first, etched like runes drawn in fire. Then a face appeared, half-obscured by a white metal mask. The audio that followed didn't sound human. It wasn't robotic either. The voice was low, distorted, reverent. It carried the cadence of scripture.
"The Queen is not dead. She is scattered. Shattered by her own hubris, unfit to rule, unfit to rest. The throne is not a seat—it is a wound. And no echo shall be permitted to wear it."
Kieran turned, his jaw locked. "Who the hell is that?"
Nyx's voice shifted—flat now, darker. "They call him Ash-Marrow. No confirmed photos. No DNA profile. Just a name, and his voice. He's the one behind them. Training. Indoctrinating."
Lana stared at the image, her ribs still aching, but the pain muted beneath the words. The projection shimmered, and somewhere inside her, the corridor's echo heart beat harder.
She whispered, "Why do they think the throne is a wound?"
Nyx met her gaze. "Because it was never meant to exist."
Jason blinked. "But the Queen—she existed. Veliora was real."
"She was," Nyx said. "But not in the way we were told. Veliora wasn't born. She was made. By shifters, rogue geneticists, dying governments. All of them wanted the same thing—a force that could unify what was left of the world. A biological convergence of will, power, and evolution. A sovereign no one could challenge. That's what The Convergence was."
Lana sat straighter. "Go on."
"She could absorb bloodlines. Rewrite her genome. Integrate foreign memory and survive psychic bleed. She wasn't meant to live forever. She was meant to adapt forever. She was a system, not a monarch. A response to extinction."
Jason looked sick. "But it didn't work."
"No," Nyx said. "Not completely. Her body adapted. Her mind didn't. She fractured—emotionally, cognitively. She started creating avatars, splitting her consciousness. Vaults. Shards. Weapons. Echoes."
Lana said it quietly. "She scattered herself."
Nyx nodded. "She became too much. She didn't die. She imploded. Her will embedded itself across continents—in people, in machines, in places like the corridor."
Jason sat back, his hands curled into fists. "And now the Maw sees her as a mistake. A warning."
"That's why they're hunting us," Kieran said.
"No," Lana said, eyes fixed on the flickering projection. "They're hunting me. Because I didn't choose this. Because it chose me."
"Or," Nyx added softly, "because you're the first one who might be able to bring her back."
Silence folded over them. A silence that felt heavy with more than exhaustion.
Then Jason spoke, his voice quieter than the wind scraping outside. "I was supposed to be gone by now."
They turned.
He didn't meet their eyes right away. His arms were crossed, but his posture had none of the usual sarcasm. Only honesty.
"Evelyn sent me to protect her. To keep her alive long enough to start thinking for herself. Making her own decisions. Not just surviving. Leading."
Lana tilted her head. "And you think I've started?"
Jason smiled, soft and lopsided. "You led us into ruins. Made enemies kneel. Took a hit you didn't have to. Yeah. I think you've started."
Kieran's voice came calm, not confrontational. "Then why are you still here?"
Jason looked at Lana, this time without any mask at all. "Because I believe in her now. Not because Evelyn told me to. Because I watched her survive the corridor. Because I watched her become. I'm not staying because I was ordered to. I'm staying because I want to."
Lana nodded once. Nothing dramatic. Just enough. "Then let's make that matter."
Outside, the wind picked up. Dust scraped against the wall like claws. The fog had thinned—but only enough to show how much more was waiting beyond it.
Nyx's screen pinged.
Her fingers froze, eyes narrowing. "We've got movement. But it's not Maw."
Jason was already reaching for gear. "How close?"
"Thirty kilometers. Moving fast. Very fast."
Kieran tilted his head. "Walking?"
Nyx zoomed in. The radar image sharpened.
"No," she said. "It's flying."
Lana stood slowly, pressing a palm to her side. The ache was still there—but it felt distant now. Beneath it, the heart inside her pulsed once, and her voice steadied with it.
"Then we get ready."
And for the first time since the corridor, she didn't feel heavy.
She felt ready.