CHAPTER THIRTEEN: WAR IN THE WALLS
Day 14
--
The Seraphim didn't blink.
He sat where they'd left him—in the hollow of the Vault chamber, knees drawn to chest, spine curled forward like a child trying to be smaller than he was. And yet, even like that, the Rift still bent around him. It shimmered with quiet distortion, heatless and silent. Watching.
Dawn hadn't moved either.
She sat cross-legged a few meters away, gaze locked on the boy. No weapons. No words. Just presence. The others gave her space, but not too much. Senya and Silas watched from above the ringwalk. Jex leaned against a broken console, chewing on a ration bar like it owed him a debt. Torren cleaned his knuckles beside the fire. Only Nira had dared approach, fingers lightly skimming across old data slates connected to the vault's long-dead systems.
They weren't dead anymore.
Since the Seraphim woke up, things had started breathing again.
Wires sparked. Screens blinked. The Forge underneath was responding.
Finally, after what felt like hours, the boy moved.
Just a tilt of his head. Mechanical. Measured.
Then his voice broke the silence—soft, clear, and entirely unearthly.
"Am I yours now?"
The words weren't a question. They were a condition.
Dawn exhaled slowly, like the wind might answer before she had to. "You're no one's. Not anymore."
"That's not protocol," he said.
"You don't have protocol anymore."
He turned to her, and for a moment, his eyes—black as the Rift itself—held something like confusion.
Then: "What is my name?"
Dawn flinched. She hadn't expected that.
"…You were EX-07. Guardian Node. Seraphim Unit 3A."
"Those are designations," he replied. "Not names."
Silas leaned forward from the catwalk above. "Then pick one."
The Seraphim blinked again. "I don't know how."
Senya crossed her arms. "You're not a child. You were built for war."
"Children," the Seraphim said slowly, "are built for war, too."
No one replied.
Jex was the one who broke the silence. "Okay, creepy bot-boy. Here's a test: do you want a name?"
The boy looked at him. "I want to stop being what they made me."
Jex nodded, chewing slowly. "Same."
Torren scoffed. "And if they come to take him back?"
"We kill them," Senya said simply. "If we can't... we try."
Silas looked to Dawn. "He needs a name. You knew him once, didn't you?"
She hesitated.
Then stepped closer and knelt.
"You were born from the Dawnbreak protocols, not Tribunal code. You belonged to us once. If you'll have it again... your name was Echo."
The Seraphim blinked.
And something in the room sighed. A soft gust from the deepest tunnels. As if the Forge itself remembered him, too.
"…Echo," he repeated.
And nodded.
---
Later, at the Vault's northern barricade
"The east corridor's too exposed," Senya said. "We can reroute entry paths with the remaining drones, but if they breach through the upper plate, we lose structural cover and fallback."
"I'll collapse the roof entrance," Torren offered, stretching his arm until the heat lining his skin hissed faintly. "Steel the tunnel shut behind me."
"We're not locking you outside."
"I won't need to be. I've been testing the Forge-tunnels at night."
Everyone paused.
"You've been what?" Jex asked, incredulous.
Torren shrugged. "Needed to move. The Vault's walls listen too much."
Nira stepped in, brushing past them with three blinking tablets in her arms. "I decrypted the lower remnant cores. There's power rerouting through old field generators. If we align the magnetic pulse right... we can reactivate the Forge shield grid."
"Shield grid?" Silas asked.
"Ancient. Pre-Tribunal. Not armor—denial fields. Repels Echo matter. We'll need to draw from the core... but Echo might be able to link directly."
All eyes turned to the boy—now perched near the vault's south interface. Watching, quiet, legs drawn to his chest again.
He looked up. "I can connect. If I override safeties."
"That'll kill you," Dawn warned.
He tilted his head.
"But it'll keep you alive."
Silas made a decision. "No one dies for this hideout. We fight smart. Not like heroes."
"You sound like you're expecting to lose," Echo said quietly.
"I expect us to survive long enough to win properly."
Echo blinked. Then nodded. "Then I'll connect when you ask."
Not before.
---
Elsewhere — Tribunal Carrier ESV Sanctum
Inquisitor Marek stood in front of the tactical array as the Seraphim V-09 projection marked her route toward Ephra Dusk. The crimson path burned brighter now.
"She'll arrive by midnight on Day 16," the analyst reported.
"Any word from Velae?"
"She has authorized full clearance for Phase Two. Including Observer Writs."
Marek smiled faintly.
So this was no longer surveillance.
It was judgment.
"Ready the Scorch Choir," he said. "I want a kill box built across the Dust March. If they try to flee—erase the map."
The analyst hesitated. "And the Seraphim?"
Marek turned. "She won't fail. She's not there to kill the Ashbinders. She's there to measure their worth."
---
Back at Ephra Dusk – Deep Vault
Night fell. But the Vault did not sleep.
Jex sat with Nira, watching the lights flicker across the command hub—old data packets scraping across ancient glass. Senya worked two levels above, sealing off sniper corridors. Torren and Silas rerouted water from the cavern's geothermal source.
And Dawn... watched Echo.
He sat alone.
Still.
But not empty.
"I remember," he said softly, just before midnight. "Not everything. But... enough."
Dawn knelt beside him. "You don't have to say anything."
"I remember a woman with green eyes who held my hand before they cut it away. She called me her brother."
Dawn froze.
"I think she's dead."
A long pause.
"I think I died too."
Dawn didn't cry. But her voice trembled.
"Then we bring you back. All the way."
The Riftlight flickered.
And the Vault prepared to defend itself.