The cradle was supposed to be empty.
Kaelen had believed that for seven years. He visited the crater less often now. His knees ached. His left arm barely moved. Ethan had taken over watching the sphere.
Then the alarms went off.
Elara’s old sensors, still running in the lab, detected a pulse from deep below. Not the presence. Not the collective. Something else.
Kaelen grabbed his cane and walked to the crater.
Ethan was already there. Her hand on the dark sphere.
“It’s not the presence,” she said. “It’s something smaller. A fragment.”
“Of what?”
“The intelligence. The one that merged with the presence. Part of it survived. It’s been hiding in the cradle. Waiting.”
Kaelen’s blood ran cold. “How do you know?”
“It spoke to me. Not with words. With images.” She turned. Her eyes were
