Wars don't always begin with bombs.
Some start with whispers.
Rumors in boardrooms. Stolen patents. Dead senators.
And in Aeris Vale's world, war began with a name she never expected to hear again:
"Seraphine Arden."
The message came encrypted through twelve blind nodes, delivered in an old cipher only Aeris's mother used. It was impossible.
Seraphine had vanished years ago.
Or rather—Aeris had made her vanish.
The final test subject of Project Sovereign.
The only one that didn't break.
Aeris remembered her as a girl with white eyes and broken skin, capable of controlling electricity with a twitch of her rage. Seraphine had bled storms.
And now, she was back.
Alive.
With an army.
---
Two Days Later – Reykjavik.
Lucien sat at the head of the table in a subterranean bunker with six of the world's most powerful black-market arms brokers. All men. All older. All arrogant.
He killed the loudest one first.
The man barely finished his sentence—some smug taunt about Aeris—before Lucien slid a penknife across his throat.
The others didn't speak again.
"You'll cease all supply routes to the East European Coalition. You'll surrender your AI war drones to ValeCorp, and you'll swear fealty under encrypted contract."
One tried to protest. Lucien silenced him with a smile sharper than the blade.
"This isn't negotiation," he said. "It's inheritance."
---
Meanwhile – Aeris's private vault.
Zero's voice was almost… hesitant.
"Target 'Seraphine Arden' has resurfaced under a codename: Crownless. Leader of the rogue technocratic faction 'The Ascendancy.' Currently untraceable but active in coordinated cyber-sieges across seven countries."
"Is she using Sovereign tech?" Aeris asked.
"Affirmative."
A beat.
"She's improved it."
Aeris said nothing.
But her heart rate elevated by 2%. Zero noted it. Logged it. Said nothing.
---
That night, Lucien found her in the storm chamber.
It wasn't a real storm.
It was a simulation built to recreate the noise of the lab—the crackle of electroshocks, the pressure of isolation, the static scream of metal against bone.
A place where Aeris remembered what she survived.
"You're shaken," he said.
She didn't respond.
"Seraphine was your mother's favorite," Lucien added.
Still silence.
"Do you want me to bring you her head?"
"No," Aeris said coldly. "I want her to know I'm still the reason the sun rises."
---
The Crownless War began without declaration.
Sudden.
Surgical.
On the first day, Seraphine's Ascendancy crippled every satellite over North America.
On the second, half of Asia's financial systems collapsed.
By the third, four of Aeris's major covert data centers were burned to the ground.
Lucien responded with fire.
He activated old debtors, traitors, and shadows from Aeris's past—operatives who had long sworn off blood, dragged back in for one final kill.
"We have a problem," he said, returning from a kill mission with blood still on his hands.
"We?" Aeris asked.
"You don't go to war alone anymore."
---
At the end of the week, Aeris watched the news as world leaders scrambled to "address unknown cyber threats." They had no idea who was pulling the strings.
But she did.
"The girl wants a throne," Aeris said.
"And what do you want?" Lucien asked.
She smiled, the kind of smile that made kings surrender.
"To remind her that I burned the last one to ash."