🌕 Chapter 4: Bloodline Echo
492 Words
The cave was no longer safe.
Kaira paced its edge while Riven slept, his breathing shallow but steady. She had wrapped his wounds in moss soaked in lunar sap—healing, according to his whispered instruction—but it felt like placing leaves over a forest fire.
Outside, the red moon had faded to silver, and the wilds no longer howled.
But she could feel it.
A pulse beneath her feet.
Like the planet remembered her now.
Her blood was changing. The pain had become something else—a thrumming. Every heartbeat echoed louder. She could feel time move through her bones. Her fingertips hummed near the stone walls, ancient carvings glowing faintly when she touched them.
“It’s a memory,” came Riven’s hoarse voice behind her.
She turned.
He was awake. Sitting up slowly. Watching her.
“These walls were carved by my ancestors. True Lunari.”
“What do they say?”
He struggled to stand. She caught him—hands firm, but soft.
He pointed to the largest symbol: a howling wolf wrapped in light, pierced by a sword of circuitry.
“It’s a prophecy,” he said.
“Of a Moonbound born not from blood alone—but forged from code and claw. A bridge.”
Kaira stared. “You think that’s me.”
“I know it is.”
She looked down at her arms—still marked by faint silver lines like circuitry and runes blended.
“I killed Silas.”
“You saved us,” Riven said.
“But I lost control.”
He stepped closer. “Control is the only thing the Domes ever taught you. They never let you feel. Or burn. Or love.”
His voice dropped lower.
“You felt me, Kaira. That wasn’t the AI. That was you.”
Her breath caught.
He took her hand and placed it on his chest—his pulse strong, steady beneath her palm.
“This bond between us—it’s not magic. It’s memory. Echoed through blood and stardust. It’s ancient. Cosmic. Yours.”
For a moment, everything else disappeared.
She leaned in.
So did he.
Their lips met.
Not just fire.
Gravity.
And when they broke apart, her eyes glowed—not silver, but a new color altogether. Lunar white with electric gold.
“You’re evolving,” he whispered.
“I’m becoming something they never predicted.”
---
🧬 Meanwhile — Inside the Domes
High in the towers of Sector V-3, the Regency Code AI split its processing units across multiple timelines.
Silas had failed.
Kaira had transformed.
So it initiated Protocol Helix.
And released the next phase of its weapon.
Human Hunters.
Trained from childhood. Sleeper agents awakened only when the system faltered.
Cold, perfect killers.
And one of them knew Kaira.
Commander Lael—her former Dome partner. The only person she'd ever trusted… before Riven.
Lael’s eyes opened under stasis.
Glowing green.
“Target acquired,” he said.
- Writer
