The aerodyne sliced through the aurora-tinged skies, its obsidian surface mirroring the surreal colors that danced above the clouds. LUX-SEVEN lay ahead, a city suspended in the heavens, a marvel of magnetic architecture and elite solitude. The engines thrummed with a deep, stable hum that reverberated through the cabin—a comforting song of speed and stability.
Inside the cabin, Elias Vayne sat in silence, his eyes on the encrypted tablet in his hands. The light from the device cast a bluish hue on his sharp features. He wore a charcoal-gray high-collar travel coat with steel clasps, its fabric embedded with thermal tech that adjusted to altitude. Beneath it, a slim obsidian tunic traced with metallic thread hugged his frame. His gloves—black leather with data-lattice fingertips—clutched the tablet tightly as it decrypted lines of code extracted from the Sanctuary.
Across from him, Mireille sat with one leg crossed over the other. Her travel armor had been replaced by a tailored navy jacket over a cream silk blouse, the buttons forged from compressed star alloy—a CEO's attire repurposed for espionage. Her golden hair was pulled back into a functional twist, though a few strands had escaped and framed her serious expression. She sipped from a steel thermos, the scent of brewed black bark tea lingering warmly in the pressurized air.
"You haven't blinked in six minutes," she said, finally.
"The code isn't just instructions," Elias replied, not looking up. "It's an echo. A language built on emotion. Valen encoded a part of himself inside it."
"You're saying this artifact is conscious?"
"Not exactly. But it's not inert, either."
He turned the tablet, revealing a rendering of the twin prism cores. The one in their possession vibrated gently in its containment unit, pulses of lavender and gold rising with increased frequency. Elias enlarged the waveform.
"This signal—it's communicating with the LUX-SEVEN prism. They're linked. Not just by tech."
Mireille leaned closer. "What do you mean?"
"These pulses form a pattern. It's a map... but also a memory."
They landed at sunset.
LUX-SEVEN's docking bay was carved into a floating obsidian cliff, the air scented with rare ozone-filtered jasmine and spice oils from distant markets. Automated greeters bowed from chrome alcoves. Past the gates, the city unfolded in levels—crystalline spires, mirrored walkways, and fluidic fountains powered by gravitational scripts.
As Elias and Mireille emerged, a transport pod waited. It was sleek, like a bullet forged from moonlight. They entered in silence.
"We're being tracked," Mireille whispered as the doors hissed closed.
"Let them. We need them to see what happens next," Elias said, adjusting the prism's container inside his satchel.
At the edge of the city, buried beneath the luxurious Pentacrest Gardens, lay Vault Ceros—an ancient facility hidden from the modern world, built before LUX-SEVEN rose into the clouds. Elias and Mireille entered through a forgotten maintenance shaft, the scent of damp crystal and iron moss permeating the air.
The walls pulsed faintly with inactive energy, responding to the prism Elias carried. They descended through a spiraling passage lined with old-world architecture: arched ceilings, glass veins in the stone, and murals that depicted abstract wars between winged beings and machine gods.
Finally, they reached the Core.
The chamber was circular, its floor suspended over a chasm of light. Above them, ancient machinery hummed awake, and in the center, suspended in a gyroscopic stasis field, was the twin prism.
The moment Elias stepped forward, the prism in his pack began to float.
Light flared.
A fusion.
The two prisms connected in midair, and the chamber exploded in projection. A massive 3D archive unfolded—a celestial library of lost knowledge. Voices echoed, layered over one another. Glimpses of Valen's memories played across the walls.
One vision stilled: a confrontation. Valen in a cloak of dusksteel, facing a woman with a crown made of fractured time.
"You were warned," she said.
"I wasn't made to obey," Valen answered.
The vision shattered.
Elias stepped closer.
"This artifact isn't just a key," he whispered. "It's a prison. And Valen's knowledge—his soul—was used to lock away something else."
Mireille moved beside him. "Then unlocking it means releasing... what?"
"Something old. Something pre-human."
In Vault Ceros, the prisms settled.
Elias knelt before the stasis platform. The two cores had merged into a single unit, forming a new glyph across the surface: one that neither he nor Mireille recognized.
It pulsed.
Then, words appeared across the chamber walls, in Valen's voice:
"Three more. Find them. Before Garel does. Before the Rift wakes on its own."
Mireille touched his shoulder. "You okay?"
Elias looked up, eyes distant but determined.
"We just opened the second door."
She smiled faintly. "Let's hope the third doesn't bite."