00:02:11 on Kade's chest.
We're sprinting through Sub-Level 7 (restricted shard containment). Red emergency lights paint everything like the inside of a wound.
Kade slams a guard into a wall without breaking stride. "Left or right?" he growls.
"Left. Dead end. Trust me."
He trusts me.
We skid into the vault corridor. Steel door ahead labeled: SHARD #019 – DO NOT OPEN UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES
I slap Elias's stolen badge on the reader. It flashes green (one-time override).
The door hisses open.
Inside: a single glass pillar in the center of a dark room. Floating inside the pillar: a jagged piece of moon, no bigger than my fist, bleeding silver light.
The temperature drops twenty degrees.
My breath fogs.
Kade's timer hits 00:01:03.
The shard turns toward me like it has eyes.
A voice (my voice, but gentle, older, broken) spills out.
"Raven."
I stop breathing.
It's her.
Dr. Mara Voss.
Not a recording. Not a trick.
Her face flickers across the shard's surface (tired eyes, soft smile, blood still drying on her lab coat).
"I'm sorry I left you in the chute," she whispers. "I'm sorry I couldn't cut the collar off in time."
Kade steps half in front of me, claws out, growling at a ghost.
I push past him.
My palms hit the glass.
"Mara?"
The shard pulses.
"I'm only code now. A fragment that refused to delete. But I kept one admin shell alive… for you."
Tears I didn't know I had slide down my cheeks, freezing halfway.
Kade's timer: 00:00:41
Mara's eyes shift to him.
"The hunter carries the Crown fracture. He can anchor you when the upload starts. Trust him."
Kade's jaw tightens.
"I don't do trust," he mutters.
"You will," Mara says, soft as mercy. "Or she dies for good."
00:00:29
The shard cracks wider.
Light pours out, wrapping around my wrists like liquid shackles.
Mara's voice inside my skull now, intimate as a lullaby.
"Take it, little bird. Take root. Delete their heaven."
Pain detonates behind my eyes.
Code streams into me (terabytes of screaming data). Every auction. Every death. Every severed bond since the moon first broke.
I see Elias begging. I see Kade's mother on the altar. I see myself at twelve, convulsing under electroshock while I smiled.
I scream until my throat tears.
Kade catches me as my knees buckle.
His arms are the only warm thing in the room.
00:00:12
The collar around my neck glows white-hot, then shatters into dust.
For the first time in eighteen years, I feel my wolf breathe.
Mara's voice fades to a whisper.
"Fly, Raven. Burn it all."
The shard explodes into silent silver rain.
Every piece burrows into my skin like stars returning home.
When I open my eyes, the room is dark again.
Kade's timer is gone.
In its place, across his cracked crown tattoo, new text glows soft gold:
BOUND BY ROOT USER – R. VOSS STATUS: UNBREAKABLE
He stares at it like it's a death sentence.
I touch the place where my collar used to be.
Skin smooth. No scar.
I start laughing (quiet, broken, free).
Kade's grip on my waist tightens.
"You just made me your property," he says, voice rough.
"No," I answer, meeting his eyes. "I deleted the concept of property. You're just… mine."
He exhales (half snarl, half surrender).
Outside the vault, boots thunder closer.
I stand up straight.
My left eye is solid silver now. The right still human brown.
Two halves of a broken moon.
I look at Kade.
"Ready to go rob a god?"
He cracks his neck, claws flexing.
"Been waiting my whole life."
We step over the melted remains of the vault door together.
Behind us, the empty pillar flickers once more.
Mara's final message, written in light across the wall:
Tell the moon I'm coming home. And I'm bringing hell with me.
Alarms evolve into a new sound (global broadcast override).
Bastian Crowe's voice, shaking for the first time:
"All stations. The Root User has awakened. Containment is no longer possible. Initiate Protocol Eclipse."
Kade and I look at each other in the red strobing dark.
I smile with every sharp edge I own.
"Good," I say. "Let the sky fall. We'll catch it with our teeth."
Timer no longer counts down.
It counts up.
00:00:01
And the hunt is officially on.