Chapter 39 – The Broken Halo
Sector 7 was once home to artists, revolutionaries, and dreamers.
Now, it was a war zone of silence and rot.
Rayven stepped through crumbling alleyways, eyes sharp, body tense beneath his reinforced cloak. The city hummed low around him—uneasy, like it knew something important was about to happen.
He reached the entrance of the Broken Halo—an abandoned cathedral turned underground club turned ghost-hall after the Collapse. The stained-glass windows were shattered. Neon signs flickered and buzzed. A spray-painted slogan on the wall read:
"Hope is for the dead."
Fitting.
Rayven slipped inside.
The interior was dark, lit only by fractured moonlight and the dim glow of a malfunctioning holo-chandelier. Shattered bottles littered the floor. The old altar had been turned into a data terminal—long stripped of anything valuable.
He was alone.
Or so he thought.
"I expected you earlier," a voice said from above.
Rayven's hand moved toward his Echo dagger, but he stopped as the figure dropped from the rafters.
Graceful.
Quiet.
Deadly.
Cipher.
She wore a high-collared combat suit, her face partially obscured by a half-mask made of black synthglass. Her eyes glowed faintly behind it—one silver, one artificial and pulsing blue.
Rayven narrowed his gaze. "You're the one who sent the message."
She tilted her head. "You're not very good at following instructions. I said alone."
"I am alone."
"No," Cipher replied. "You never are. You carry too many ghosts."
They circled each other slowly, tension thick in the air.
Rayven spoke first. "You said you knew why I was erased. Why the Council buried my bloodline."
"I know more than that," she said. "I know who gave the order. And what they feared."
Rayven took a step forward. "Then say it."
Cipher paused.
Then removed her mask.
Rayven's breath caught in his throat.
Her face was familiar.
Not identical, but close. Close enough.
"You…" he whispered. "I've seen you before. In my visions."
"I'm not your memory," she said flatly. "But I am connected to it."
She reached into her belt and tossed him a metal shard—a broken fragment of a sigil plate bearing the crest of the First Heirs.
"You weren't erased because you were dangerous. You were erased because you were the last of something sacred. A legacy they couldn't control."
Rayven stared at it. "The Tri-Heir Bond."
Cipher nodded. "You, Kael… and the third. The missing one. Me."
Rayven's mind reeled.
"No. That's not possible."
"I was a child when they split us apart," Cipher said. "We were bonded at the Source during the Prototype Era. But after the Echo Cataclysm, they hid us—reprogrammed us. Kael was twisted. You were fragmented. And I…"
She smiled bitterly.
"I remembered everything."
Rayven's voice turned cold. "So why hide until now?"
"Because you weren't ready. And because I needed to know which side you'd choose."
Rayven stiffened. "And now?"
Cipher stepped closer, her expression unreadable.
"Now I believe in you."
A long pause.
Then her voice dropped.
"But we don't have time. The Council's sent a Reaper. It's already on its way here."
Rayven's jaw tightened. "Then let it come."
"No," Cipher said. "You don't understand. This one doesn't kill."
She looked him dead in the eyes.
"It devours."
Outside the Broken Halo, the air shifted.
A ripple in space.
The Reaper arrived—wrapped in shadows, taller than a man, its face hidden beneath a hood of smoke and wire.
It carried no weapons.
It was the weapon.
Its voice rang out, a whisper felt more than heard:
"Reclaimed. Located."
"Flameborn. Termination priority: Alpha."
Inside, Cipher's Echo flared to life.
Blue veins of light snaked up her arms.
Rayven raised his dagger, eyes silver-gold.
"I thought you wanted to test me," he said.
Cipher smirked. "I did. But now we fight together."
And as the walls of the Broken Halo cracked and the Reaper descended—
The heirs stood side by side.
Together again, for the first time.