The vault sealed behind us with a deep, bone-humming groan—like the exhale of a god returning to sleep.
We stepped into open air again, blinking beneath a cold grey sky. The Scorch Ridge winds had shifted overnight. The scent of sulfur had faded. Now it smelled like rain and something else—
Smoke.
But not from our camp.
Ka'lenna caught it too. Her nostrils flared as she lowered her hand to the hilt of her blade.
"We're being watched," she said.
I nodded.
We weren't alone anymore.
The fire wasn't one of ours.
It burned low and deliberate, built in a spiral of black stone and ash-wood just twenty meters beyond the ridge trail. Ritualistic. Clean. Precise.
Laid beside it were three things:
A smooth stone etched with spiraling marks—almost like a code.
A carved mask made of bone, blank-eyed and grinning.
A strip of gray fabric, stiff with dried blood, pinned to the ground with a bone spike that pulsed faintly with heat.
Ka'lenna knelt beside the display.
"This is a message," she said. "A challenge."
"From another tribe?"
She didn't answer immediately. Instead, she ran her fingers across the spiral stone.
Then she stood.
"Not just another tribe," she said darkly. "One of the First Clades."
I remembered the data from the throne—fragments of ancient tribal designations. BABEL had seeded multiple populations across the planet long ago. Tribes chosen for strength, adaptability, and—eventually—competition.
Survival was never the goal.
Dominance was.
"They've been watching this place," I said. "Waiting to see who would claim it."
"And now they know," Ka'lenna murmured. "They know it's you."
I picked up the mask. It was light, but the edges were sharp—cut to wound if held wrong. I turned it over and found something carved into the back in angular script.
"Ash wakes fire. Fire calls the marked. Let your gods bleed."
No name. No insignia. Just a declaration.
They knew what I was. Or what I was becoming.
And they wanted to see if I'd survive the weight of it.
That night, I walked alone around the perimeter, mind racing.
The power from the vault hadn't just changed my body. It had made me a beacon. Anyone tuned into the BABEL network—tribal or otherwise—would feel that activation.
I wasn't just an outcast anymore.
I was a rising claimant.
A contender for something bigger than survival.
Leadership. Legacy. Control.
The throne had called me Prime Warden.
But that title wouldn't go uncontested.
At the edge of camp, a sound broke the silence.
A rustle—too deliberate.
I turned and raised my blade.
Out of the dark stepped a single figure. Cloaked. Barefoot. Unarmed.
But I saw the glint of metal woven into the fibers of their hood. Ancient. Refined.
They stopped ten paces from me.
Then knelt and placed a burning coil at their feet. A signal flare wrapped in tribal glass.
"I bring no blade," they said in accented Earth tongue. "Only word."
Ka'lenna appeared beside me, silent as a ghost.
"Who are you?" I asked.
The figure stood.
Removed their hood.
And I saw her.
Younger than I expected. Eyes like silver glass. Hair woven with bone beads and tech filaments. A scar across her jaw that still glowed faintly with nanite burn.
"I am Rhyssa of the Ember Clade," she said. "And I came to see what kind of fire you truly are."
She didn't stay long.
Just long enough to make it clear:
They knew who I was.
They knew what I touched.
And if I wanted to keep climbing, I would have to fight for it.
Not just with weapons.
But with legacy.
And blood.
After she left, Ka'lenna spoke without turning.
"She could have killed you."
I nodded. "She didn't."
"She still might."
I smiled.
"I hope she tries."