Zayn’s eyes snapped open fully for the first time since the Sanctuary.
Gone was the digital haze. Gone was the uncertainty.
In its place was something… new.
Something dangerous.
Yanyu could see it instantly—the way his gaze shimmered with code, how the air seemed to respond to his presence. Lights blinked erratically. Eris stuttered. Even the core processors within the lab hummed differently.
Zayn had returned, but he was no longer the same.
“You okay?” she asked softly, still clutching his hand.
He looked at her, slow and deliberate. “I’m better than okay.”
He turned his palm upward, and a strip of reality peeled away like data silk—revealing streams of code flowing beneath the surface of the world.
“Zayn…”
“I can see everything now. The code. The systems. Even the parts they th
