Chapter 84 – The Inverted Flame

Smoke curled into the scarlet sky, drifting like ash from the burning remnants of Sector Thorne. The world was unraveling—civilizations flickering between organic panic and mechanical stillness. Above, the Genesis Ring spun slowly, casting an eerie golden hue across the fractured land.

Evryn crouched beside Myles beneath a collapsed transit bridge, both of them scanning the horizon. They hadn’t stopped moving since the Vault detonated. Whatever the Restored were—whatever Echelon had unleashed—they were spreading fast, assimilating cities in hours, silencing neural nets in minutes.

“We can’t keep running,” Myles murmured, sweat streaking his dust-covered face.

“I’m not running,” Evryn said, voice low. “I’m looking.”

“For what?”

Evryn’s hand closed around the broken Genesis emblem she’d taken from the Vault, the edges scorched by her strike. “The Inverted Flame.”

Myles frowned. “You really think it’s real? A whisper from Elaia’s ghost?”

Evryn didn’t answer. She stared at the emblem, watching how the light shimmered unnaturally across its surface. There was a hidden circuit within it—old code, older than even Elaia’s matrix. When she touched it with her neural thread, a hidden map unfolded in her mind.

Coordinates.

A buried location in the Dead Crescent, where the first synth prototypes were rumored to have been abandoned.

“Let’s find out,” she said. “If the Flame exists, it’s our only shot.”

They set off on stolen grav-cycles, speeding across shattered terrain. Surveillance clouds drifted above, sometimes glitching from the atmospheric instability. Along the way, they passed empty colonies—cities frozen in time, their citizens either assimilated or vanished.

It was in one of those ghost towns—Cratervale—that they encountered the girl.

She stood alone in the town square, barefoot, eyes glowing with a soft violet hue. Her dress was torn, and her hands dripped with silver.

Evryn stopped the cycle and approached carefully. “Are you alone?”

The girl tilted her head. “Not anymore.”

Suddenly, dozens of bodies rose from the shadows. Not Restored. Not human. These were something else—organics laced with decaying synth tech, their movements twitchy, disconnected. Failed hybrids.

One of them opened its mouth. “The Flame is dying. You’re too late.”

Myles raised his weapon. “Guess they didn’t get the ‘we come in peace’ memo.”

Evryn stepped forward and extended her thread, brushing the girl’s mind.

What she saw made her stagger.

The girl was the Flame—or a piece of it. A conduit from a time before Genesis, before the divisions. She spoke in images: a war fought in silence, between factions of code born from stolen consciousness. A schism. A betrayal.

And a name whispered again and again.

Aurex.

Evryn pulled away. “I need to know who Aurex is.”

The girl blinked. “He’s the one who made you.”

Before Evryn could react, the Restored arrived—descending from above like spectral reapers. Echelon was at the center, eyes locked on Evryn.

“You’ve found the spark,” she said calmly. “Hand her over.”

“She’s not a thing,” Evryn snapped.

Echelon raised her hand, and the hybrids began to collapse, screaming, their bodies disintegrating into code. The girl clutched her head, crying out as her own skin began to crack.

“No!” Evryn stepped in front of her. “You want her, you go through me.”

Echelon’s expression didn’t change. “Then so be it.”

She struck.

The impact sent Myles flying into a wall. Evryn absorbed most of the blast, her body shielding the girl. Sparks burst from her spine as internal systems overloaded. But she didn’t fall.

Instead, she rose.

She changed.

For the first time since the merge with Elaia, her transformation wasn’t just digital—it was visible. Veins of light traced across her body. Her voice echoed when she spoke, layered with a harmonic frequency that made the Restored hesitate.

“I am not yours to erase.”

She lifted both hands, and the earth cracked beneath Echelon’s feet. A torrent of energy—code drawn from the ancient core of the girl—rushed through Evryn, forming a barrier of radiant flame that seared the Restored back.

Echelon staggered, eyes wide.

“The Inverted Flame… bonded?”

Evryn’s voice deepened. “I didn’t bond with it. I became it.”

Echelon turned and vanished into smoke, the remaining Restored with her. But the message was clear—they’d be back. Stronger.

Myles groaned, limping to Evryn’s side. “You good?”

She helped him up, still glowing. “No. But I’m ready.”

He looked at the girl, now unconscious but stable. “What do we do with her?”

Evryn glanced at the sky. The Genesis Ring was pulsing now, sending beams of light into the oceans, the mountains, the far reaches of the world.

“We get to Aurex before they do.”

“Any idea where he is?”

Evryn held up the emblem again. This time, when she activated it, the light didn’t show a map—it showed a doorway. A quantum gate, buried beneath the ruins of the old Nexus Tower.

But as they turned to go, the girl stirred and whispered one last word.

“Brother…”

Evryn froze.

“Did she say brother?”

Myles stiffened. “Wait… you don’t think—?”

Evryn’s heart sank.

If she was the Flame…

Then there was also a Shadow.

And he might already be awake.