The ground fractured beneath their feet.
Riley didn't hesitate—her fire surged forward before the second figure had fully stepped through the breach. Her palm opened like a flare, and the stream of flame roared toward them.
But it met nothing.
The cloaked figure moved faster than her eyes could track—one moment standing in Brael's shadow, the next a blur of black and silver bending around her flame like the wind bends smoke. It twisted through the air and landed behind Riley, whispering a single word:
"Disappointing."
Riley turned, already preparing her second strike, but Daphne stepped in front of her.
"Don't. That's the Auditor."
Riley blinked. "The what?"
"The one the gods send when they think their creations have gone off-script."
The figure pulled back its hood. A face emerged—not old, not young, not human. Eyes like slivers of dusk. Skin that shimmered faintly between tones of ash and light. Not male. Not female. Just... final.
"You sent the Shatter Signal," it said calmly. "You woke the gate."
Daphne nodded once. Her voice was steady. "We needed to."
"And yet you ran."
"Because the ones inside Nova Veil don't answer to the gods anymore. They answer with fear. And you know what fear does."
The Auditor tilted its head. "I know what it creates."
Brael said nothing. But his eyes—burning gold now—watched Riley. And her. And something else that pulsed in the air between them like a living ember.
The Link.
"You bonded with a child," the Auditor said to Daphne.
"She's not a child anymore," Daphne replied.
"Irrelevant. The protocols—"
"Were made to contain the past. We're trying to change it."
The air thickened. Around them, the walls shimmered. Not from heat, but from pressure. A perimeter of judgment closing in.
"The fire inside her," the Auditor murmured. "Do you know what you've lit?"
Daphne looked at Riley.
"Yes. I do."
Riley met the Auditor's gaze. She stepped forward, not out of defiance, but resolve.
"I asked for this," she said. "And I'm not turning back. Whatever Kaelira started—whatever you think I am—it's already awake. You can test me. Or you can help me."
The Auditor stared for a long moment.
Then vanished.
No flash. No smoke. Just gone.
The heat faded. The ground stilled.
Brael exhaled slowly. "She made a choice."
"So what happens now?" Riley asked.
Brael stepped forward. "Now, I break a thousand rules to teach you how to survive what's coming."
They didn't return to the compound.
Instead, Brael led them into the outer ruins—collapsed towers, broken mag-train lines, and the remains of what once had been Sector Five. Beyond that, the edge of the Wastes. The only place the Watch couldn't track.
Daphne limped slightly, but her mind was razor-sharp. She spoke in hushed bursts to Brael as they moved—about Echo Gate, about failed timelines, about the last time Kaelira interfered directly.
Riley trailed behind them, her mind racing. She didn't understand all of it. But she felt it.
Something in the fire had changed.
It was no longer just hers.
By dusk, they reached a forgotten outpost, half-buried in sand. Its wards were still partially active, flickering like the last breath of a dying engine. Brael keyed a phrase into the air, and the doorway dissolved.
Inside: old beds, old maps, old silence.
Daphne collapsed into a chair. Riley stood near the window, staring out at the barren world beyond.
"This is exile," she said.
"This is freedom," Brael replied.
"You believe us now?"
Brael looked at her, and—for the first time—nodded.
"You're not an accident. You're a signal. The fire wasn't meant to consume. It was meant to remember. You're the archive Kaelira couldn't trust anyone else with."
Riley swallowed. "So what do I do with it?"
"You burn the right things," he said.
And in the distance, the sky shimmered—just for a moment—like something far older than flame was waking up.
Daphne stood slowly. "The gate's opening. Not fully. Not yet. But the echoes are coming. And when they do, we won't be ready."
"Then we train," Riley said. "Not to be soldiers. Not to be survivors. But to be something new."
Brael smiled. "Welcome to Emberwake." And the world began to turn.