Anca demanded a council. Last night before we hiked out.
She didn't hold it in the Origin Chamber—that tomb was still humming with whatever bio-hack I’d just pulled off. Instead, she dragged everyone up a bald, freezing ridge. Wind like a sandblaster. Her pack stood on the frost-killed grass. Mine opposite. Just a bunch of battered, bleeding strays staring at each other, waiting for the sky to fall.
Anca wrapped her heavy wool coat tighter.
"A thousand years we guarded that door," she yelled over the wind. "Kept it off the grid. Waited for the bloodline. Now? Door’s wide open. System's flipped. I have zero clue what we're supposed to be guarding tomorrow."
I stepped up. Legs finally working without trembling like a newborn fawn. That blinding silver voltage was gone, dialed down to a m
