Chapter 36: 36. Shadows of Valen
The silence aboard the Wraith was deafening.
Elara sat alone in the medbay, the hum of the engines a distant echo to the storm raging in her thoughts. Valen. Her brother. The boy who used to sneak her sweets under the dining table, who shielded her from their father’s cold discipline. He was alive. And twisted into something she couldn’t recognize.
Damien entered quietly. "The rest are sleeping. Or pretending to."
She didn’t look up. "He’s not dead."
Damien hesitated. "But he’s not who you remember."
She finally turned, her eyes bloodshot. "Then I’ll make him remember.
Lyne decrypted one of the files recovered from the forge. Coordinates emerged—hidden beneath layers of corrupted metadata. A location in the Altherion Range, once a city of scholars, now a ghost town. Rumors said it had vanished during the first war.
"It’s underground now," Lyne explained. "They buried it, but Requiem dug it back up. They needed its archives."
Nova cracked her knuckles. "If Valen’s heading there, he’s looking for something old. Dangerous."
Damien raised an eyebrow. "Or something personal."
Altherion’s surface was a frozen wasteland, hiding a glacial chasm beneath layers of reinforced snow. As they descended into the crevasse, ancient towers emerged—metal and crystal, etched with forgotten languages.
Nova tapped a glyph that glowed faintly. "Still active. Somebody’s been here."
They found the inner chamber—a vault sealed with biometric locks. Strangely, it opened to Elara’s touch.
"You were expected," Lyne said grimly.
Inside, a massive archive blinked to life. Holograms flickered—thousands of lives cataloged, rewritten, replaced.
And at the center, a file labeled Project ECHOSIGHT: V-Prime.
The file opened with a mirror projection—a perfect replica of Valen’s consciousness, laid bare in code.
Then another.
Elara’s.
"They copied us," she whispered. "Not just memories. They made backups."
Damien leaned in. "Which means they can manipulate us. Or control us."
A backup protocol blinked active.
"Someone’s trying to restore a consciousness," Lyne said.
Just then, alarms blared. Security drones activated, targeting them.
Nova pulled her rifle. "Looks like they know we’re here
Gunfire echoed through the icy halls. The team fought their way through crystalline corridors, taking cover behind old scholar statues and collapsed beams.
Damien blasted a path with his gauntlets. "We need a shutdown code!"
Lyne connected to the archive. "I can loop their logic—make them question friend or foe."
Nova snorted. "What, give them an existential crisis?"
"Exactly."
Moments later, drones began turning on each other. The team escaped into a transport shaft, descending deeper.
The lowest level was lit with soft amber light. A chamber designed for mental integration. And there he stood.
Valen.
He turned slowly, eyes dim with artificial serenity.
"You shouldn’t have come, Elara. I didn’t want to remember."
She stepped forward, trembling. "You were the best of us. Why would you join them?"
He tilted his head. "Because I remembered.What they did. What we did. The only way to heal is to become something better."
"By replacing people? Erasing them?"
"By making them pure."
Damien raised his weapon. "You sound like a fanatic."
Valen looked at him and smiled. "Funny. That’s what they called you"
Suddenly, the lights shifted. Another consciousness began downloading into Valen’s body.
Lyne gasped. "They’re overwriting him again. Someone else is taking control!"
Elara lunged forward, placing her hand on the control interface. Her presence disrupted the upload.
"He’s my brother. I’ll bring him back."
Valen screamed, torn between personas.
Nova and Damien held off drones as Lyne rerouted power to give Elara time.
"Come back to me, Valen. Remember mom’s song. The way you used to draw stars on the windows. The smell of cedar in winter—"
The conflict intensified. But slowly, Valen’s breathing steadied.
"Elara?"
He collapsed into her arms.
The system powered down.
Back aboard the Wraith, Valen was sedated, monitored closely. The others stood around him in silence.
"He’s stable. But fragile," Lyne said. "Too much damage to know what’s real."
Damien rubbed his face. "If this is what Requiem did to one person, how many more are like him?"
Elara looked out at the stars, hand resting on the glass.
"Too many."
She turned back to the group.
"But now we have proof. And a reason. We go to the next core. We burn the system to the ground."