The hum of machines filled the silence.
He stirred, vision swimming in shades of red and silver. The air was thick with the scent of rust and ozone — Lyra's hideout, a sanctuary carved out of the underbelly of New Seraphis.
For a moment, he thought he was still dreaming.
Sparks drifted lazily from the exposed wires above, flickering like dying fireflies. A faint pulse from the energy core illuminated the room, throwing Lyra's silhouette into sharp relief as she hunched over a monitor. Her cybernetic eye glowed dimly, scanning through lines of data that shifted like living code.
"Morning, Emperor," she muttered without looking back.
He blinked, voice hoarse. "Don't call me that."
"Why not?" she said, swiveling in her chair. "You talk in your sleep, you know. Whole speeches. 'By my decree, the flames shall—'"
"Stop." His tone was sharper than he intended.
Lyra raised her hands in mock surrender. "Alright, alright. Just saying. You've got a flair for the dramatic."
He exhaled slowly, pressing his palms against his temples. The sigils beneath his skin faintly pulsed — like a second heartbeat, whispering of a past he didn't understand.
"How long was I out?"
"About ten hours. I didn't think you'd wake up at all," she said. "Your body was running a temperature that should've cooked you alive."
He swallowed hard. "And you… didn't take me to a hospital?"
Lyra gave a dry laugh. "Hospitals? In this city? They'd sell your organs before checking your pulse."
She turned the monitor toward him. It displayed an image of his arm, the sigils rendered in intricate blue detail. "I ran a scan. These markings — they're not tattoos, and they're not tech. They're… old. Way older than anything on record."
"Old?"
"Pre-Eclipse old," she said.
That name stirred something deep inside him. The Eclipse. He didn't know what it was, but his heart recognized it like an old scar.
Lyra continued, "There are no matches in any database. But they resonate with energy frequencies we've only seen around ancient war relics — the kind the Corps confiscate and lock away."
He stared at the glowing patterns on the screen, feeling the faint hum of heat in his veins. "So what does that mean?"
"It means," she said, leaning forward, "you're either a science experiment gone wrong… or something that shouldn't exist."
He forced a smile, though his chest felt tight. "Comforting."
"Hey," Lyra said softly. "I'm not trying to scare you. But the city's changing. People vanish every night. The Enforcers are rounding up anyone with strange anomalies. And you—" she gestured at his arms "—you're basically a walking anomaly."
Before he could respond, a sharp pain split through his skull — sudden, searing, as if someone had cracked open the inside of his mind.
Flashes.
Screams.
A battlefield.
He saw a woman again — cloaked in white fire, eyes like molten gold. Her voice echoed through the inferno.
> "They're coming. Don't forget who you are."
Then came another sound — deeper, harsher. A man's laughter. And the world burned red.
He gasped, clutching his head. Lyra was beside him in an instant.
"Hey! What's happening?"
He could barely hear her. The walls seemed to ripple, reality stretching thin. For a moment, the hideout was gone — replaced by a hall of black marble and fire. Armored figures knelt before him, their helmets reflecting the inferno.
> "For the Emperor," they chanted, voices thunderous. "For the Ashen Crown."
His breath caught. The vision faded as quickly as it came, leaving him drenched in sweat.
Lyra stared, eyes wide. "Your… your veins were glowing. Like—like molten metal."
He looked down. The sigils were brighter now, burning faintly even in the gloom. He could feel something — alive — under his skin, restless and ancient.
"I think," he whispered, "I'm remembering."
---
Across the city, in another world entirely, Jace was losing sleep.
He hadn't seen his friend in two days. His dorm room was empty — bed unmade, laptop dead, textbooks scattered like debris. The university's security claimed ignorance.
"He probably just skipped town," they'd said. "Happens all the time."
But Jace knew better.
He'd checked the surveillance footage from the cafeteria. One moment, his friend was there, eating, looking bored — the next, static. The video glitched for five whole seconds, and when the feed cleared, he was gone. Just gone.
Jace ran a hand through his hair, eyes red from staring at screens too long. "You don't just vanish into static, man…"
He opened the old notebook he'd been keeping — the one filled with notes about the blackouts, the dreams, the strange words his friend had mumbled in his sleep.
Thrones. Fire. Betrayal.
And one phrase that kept repeating — "Before the world burns again."
"What the hell are you caught up in, man?" he murmured.
---
Back in the undercity, Lyra paced. "You said you're remembering. Remembering what?"
He hesitated. The words felt foreign on his tongue. "A war. A… kingdom made of ash and light. And someone who—" he stopped, eyes clouded with pain. "Someone who trusted me."
Lyra frowned. "You sure that's not just the blackout hallucinations?"
He met her gaze. "Do hallucinations burn?"
To prove his point, he held up his hand. The air shimmered — heat radiating outward. For a heartbeat, fire licked across his fingertips, glowing gold instead of red. The temperature in the room spiked.
Lyra stumbled back, cursing. "Okay—okay, stop, you're gonna fry us both!"
He clenched his fist, extinguishing the flame. Smoke curled between his knuckles. His heartbeat thundered like war drums.
"I don't understand how I'm doing this," he said.
"Yeah, no kidding," Lyra muttered, scanning him again. "You're running at energy levels that should kill a person. This isn't normal bioelectricity. It's… something else."
Something else.
He liked the sound of that less and less.
Lyra shut off her scanner and looked him over. "If we're gonna figure this out, we need help. There's someone who deals in forbidden tech and—well, let's say spiritual engineering. She might know what's happening to you."
He arched a brow. "Spiritual engineering?"
Lyra shrugged. "In this city, souls are just another form of energy. Some people figured out how to read them."
He hesitated, then nodded. "Let's go."
---
The city above was chaos wrapped in beauty. Neon rain cascaded down chrome towers. Giant holograms of smiling politicians flickered in the storm. Drones hummed overhead, scanning the streets for anyone without an identification tag.
Lyra led the way through a maze of alleys and maintenance tunnels until they reached a forgotten warehouse lit only by crimson lanterns. The symbol of a single, burning eye was painted across the steel door.
Inside, the air buzzed with strange power. Runes glowed faintly on the walls, etched into metal like circuitry. The woman who awaited them sat behind a table cluttered with shards of crystal and pieces of old circuitry. Her eyes were both human and machine — one brown, one flickering with static.
"Lyra," she said softly. "You bring strange company."
Lyra crossed her arms. "He needs answers, Cipher."
Cipher turned her gaze toward him. "Show me your hands."
He hesitated but obeyed. The moment she saw the sigils, her expression changed — awe, fear, and recognition all at once.
"Impossible," she whispered. "Those markings… they belong to the Ashen Line. The Emperor who ruled before the Eclipse."
"The… what?" he asked.
Cipher stood, pacing slowly. "When the old world fell, they said the Emperor of Embers was consumed by his own creation. A god of fire who tried to rewrite destiny itself. The Corps erased all records of him. But legends said he would return when the world began to burn again."
Lyra frowned. "You're saying he—"
Cipher nodded. "—isn't reborn. He's been hidden. Frozen between timelines."
The words hit him like a blade to the chest. Hidden. Frozen. Forgotten.
"Why can't I remember?" he asked, voice trembling.
Cipher looked at him, pity in her gaze. "Because remembering means waking what sleeps within you. And if that happens too fast, you'll burn everything — including yourself."
Before he could reply, the lights flickered. The hum of the energy core died. Lyra's eyes widened. "They found us."
"Who?"
"Enforcers!" she shouted.
The walls exploded inward. Drones swarmed, red beams slicing through the smoke. Cipher was thrown back, her table shattering into sparks. Lyra pulled a gun from her belt, firing into the cloud. "Move!"
He ducked behind a pillar, heart racing. The world blurred again — flashes of soldiers, blades of light, the battlefield.
> "You are fire incarnate," the woman's voice echoed in his skull. "Command it."
Something deep inside him ignited.
He raised his hand instinctively. The air warped, the rain that fell through the broken roof evaporating mid-drop. The Enforcer drones froze mid-flight, metal twisting under invisible heat. One by one, they imploded in bursts of molten light.
Lyra stared, stunned. "Holy hell…"
He stood amidst the wreckage, fire flickering across his shoulders like a mantle. For a moment, the city's hum fell silent.
Then exhaustion hit him like a wave. The flames vanished, the world dimming to gray. He stumbled forward — and everything went dark.
---
When he opened his eyes again, he was lying on a familiar bed. The flickering ceiling fan. The half-empty pizza box. His dorm room.
Jace sat beside him, pale and wide-eyed. "Dude—where the hell have you been? You were gone for three days!"
He tried to speak, but his throat was dry. "Three… days?"
Jace nodded. "Campus security said they couldn't find you. Then you just—showed up at the dorm door and collapsed."
He sat up slowly, mind spinning. Was it all a dream? Lyra? The city? Cipher?
His gaze fell to his arm. Beneath the skin, faint lines glimmered — the same sigils, hidden but alive.
Jace followed his stare. "Hey, man, what's that? You're not getting a weird tattoo thing, are you?"
He didn't answer. Because in that moment, a voice whispered faintly in the back of his mind — soft, distant, but real.
> "Wake up, my Emperor. They've found you."
His breath caught. He looked toward the window. Outside, thunder rolled.
But when the lightning flashed — for a split second — he saw the skyline of New Seraphis reflected in the glass.
Two worlds.
One truth.
And the fire within him was only beginning to wake.