The black stealth-chopper banked hard, the blades cutting through the storm Seraphina had left behind. I sat opposite the General, my hands still tingling with the residual frost of a technique I shouldn't have known.
"To the Citadel, General. Now," I commanded.
"We are already en route, Sire," he replied, his eyes fixed on the runes fading into my skin. "The Shadow Sect's signal flare has alerted every predatory entity in the hemisphere. We cannot stay in the open."
"You said Marcus was a dog for that woman's sect. Why didn't I know about any of this?"
The General tightened his grip on his restraint. "Your father spent his life making sure you wouldn't, Elias. He wanted you to have a choice he never had. But fate—and Marcus—took that choice away."
We slammed onto the helipad of a building that didn't appear on any city map. It was a monolithic spike of obsidian glass tucked behind a holographic veil. The doors hissed open into a sterile, titanium-lined corridor.
"This way, Sire. The Sanctum. It only opens for your DNA."
The General led me to a vault door at the heart of the structure. I placed my hand on the scanner. The machine didn't just beep; it hummed in a frequency that vibrated my very bones.
[Bloodline Confirmed. Welcome home, Elias Thorne.]
The vault wheezed open, revealing not gold or jewels, but a single pedestal emitting a soft, azure light. As I stepped in, the air shimmered. Two figures materialized—transparent, glowing, and painfully familiar.
"Mom? Dad?" My voice cracked.
"If you are seeing this, Elias, then the Anchor has shattered," the holographic image of my father said. He looked exactly as he did the day he 'died' in that car crash, but his eyes held a terrifying, cosmic depth.
"Dad, what is happening to me? Who are these people?"
"Listen carefully, son," the AI image of my mother stepped forward, her hand reaching out but passing through my shoulder. "We didn't die in an accident. We fled. We hid you in the secular world to protect you from the 'Void Eye.'"
"The Void Eye?" I looked at the General. He remained silent, head bowed.
"They are an ancient cabal that feeds on the energy of Natural Origins," my father's AI continued. "Your death tonight... it wasn't a coincidence, Elias. We've analyzed the data feeds. Marcus didn't act alone. He was a pawn manipulated into throwing you off that balcony."
"What? He's been planning this for years?"
"No," my father said, his digital brow furrowed. "The Void Eye orchestrated the betrayal to trigger your Bloodline Seal early. They couldn't find you while the Anchor was dormant. They needed you to 'die' so your power would ignite. You've been tagged, Elias. The moment you hit that water, you became a beacon."
I felt a cold sweat break out on my neck. "So Marcus... he was just the trigger?"
"A disposable one," my mother whispered. "They used his greed to flush you out. Now that you are awake, they can track your signature anywhere on the planet."
"General!" I shouted, turning around. "Status on our perimeter!"
"Sire, our cloaking is state-of-the-art. No one can—"
Suddenly, the blue light of the AI flickered and turned a violent, bruised purple. The holographic images of my parents began to distort, their faces stretching into masks of digital agony.
"Elias! Run!" my father's voice glitched, dropping three octaves. "The vault—the vault wasn't just a sanctuary! It was a—"
CRACK-BOOM.
The entire skyscraper shuddered as if a titan had kicked the foundation. The lights didn't just flicker; they died. A heavy, unnatural darkness rushed into the room, thick enough to choke on.
"General? General!"
I felt a surge of golden light from my chest, illuminating the room. The General was slumped against the vault door, his eyes rolled back in his head. He wasn't dead, but his energy was being suppressed by something massive.
The intercom system, powered by an independent emergency circuit, sputtered to life with a burst of static.
A voice drifted through the speakers. It wasn't the cold, mechanical tone of the system, or the warm voice of my parents. It was a wet, clicking sound—like a predator tasting the air.
"The seal is broken. The harvest is ripe."
I lunged for the vault controls, but the console melted under my fingers, the metal turning into black sludge.
"We found you, little prince," the voice whispered through the dark, echoing not just from the speakers, but from the very shadows in the corners of the room. "And we brought the keys to your cage."
The heavy titanium vault door, designed to withstand a nuclear blast, began to moan. Then, with a scream of tearing metal, it was ripped outward as if it were made of wet paper.
A figure stood in the breach, shrouded in a cloak of shifting, black smoke.