The steel doors of Noctis's deepest vault hissed open, revealing a tunnel older than any map dared name. Unlike the sleek upper levels, this one bore no touch of modernity—only jagged rock walls and iron sconces sunk into stone like scars from another era. Even the air felt haunted, stained with generations of secrets.
Kieran kept his hand on the small of Lana's back as they descended, guiding her down narrow steps lit by flickering lanterns that pulsed like distant heartbeats. Each footfall echoed back with a strange delay, like someone—or something—was following just out of reach.
"Why do I feel like this place remembers things?" Lana whispered, brushing her fingers along the damp wall. The stone pulsed faintly under her skin, like it exhaled at her touch.
"It does," said Kieran, his voice low. "This was where the first Blood Accords were signed. Before Noctis became what it is. Before Lysander betrayed the Pact."
She paused. "You never told me how far back your history with him really goes."
Kieran's jaw twitched. "Because some truths were carved too deep. And because some part of me hoped I'd never have to explain what I let happen."
Before Lana could speak, Jason appeared ahead, his boots silent despite the gravel underfoot. His eyes scanned the corridor, unusually sharp, as if calculating vectors rather than observing walls.
He held up a hand. "One of the guards. On the elevator. He had Vanir ink behind his ear—worn like a hidden priest mark."
Kieran's hand immediately moved to Lana's waist, shielding her instinctively.
Jason continued, "Noctis has been breached. Maybe not all the way in—but someone has eyes inside. Someone who knows about the Blood Accord."
Lana looked between them. "Then why are we still walking deeper into a trap?"
Kieran's answer was quiet. "Because the only way out now is through the truth."
They descended into the council chamber.
The ceiling opened into a cavernous hall, carved with glyphs that no human eye could decipher without pain. Twelve thrones stood in a crescent, each of dark bone and fossilized ashwood. In the center, a stone slab—ancient and bloodstained—rested like an altar between them.
The last Alpha Regents were already waiting.
Each wore robes woven from extinct wolf pelts and threads laced with silver. Their faces were lined not just with age, but with centuries of rule without challenge. These were the keepers of the old order—the very ones who had chosen Evelyn once. And buried her memory when she defied them.
One of them, a woman with a long scar down her neck, leaned forward. "The hybrid steps into sacred ground."
"She carries corrupted blood," said another. "Blood that refused the last Pact."
"She is not your weapon," Kieran cut in, standing beside Lana. "And she is not alone."
A third Regent—a man with eyes clouded over like frozen lakes—spoke for the first time. "And yet you bring her here. With a prototype awakening. With Lysander still unpunished. With the Accord broken."
Jason stepped forward, placing a holo-slab on the altar. "We didn't break it. You did—when you partnered with Vanir behind closed doors."
Gasps fluttered across the chamber like moths to flame. One of the Regents stood. "You dare accuse—"
"I dare nothing," Jason said calmly. "The intel is embedded in this slab. Vanir has agents inside your bloodlines. Kraven was one of them. You made her. But you didn't control her."
Lana's eyes widened. "Wait—Kraven was made by them?"
Kieran's voice was gravel. "She was a security prototype. Evelyn's counter-weapon to Lysander. She went rogue after Evelyn's fall."
Jason nodded. "But the truth is worse. She wasn't the only one. Lysander has been using your genetic map to rebuild the Accord in his own name. Specter is only the beginning."
A silence fell.
Then the lead Regent said, "Then the girl is the key. The Accord must be rewritten. Through her."
Kieran's eyes flared. "She's not a clause in your treaty. She's a person. And she chooses for herself."
Lana stepped forward.
The room dimmed. Not from lights—but from reverence. The stone slab pulsed faintly beneath her feet.
"I'll give you my blood," she said. "But not to sign your past. I want to see the truth for myself."
One Regent reached for a dagger shaped like a thorned crescent.
Lana took it from him without blinking.
And cut her palm over the altar.
Her blood landed with a hiss.
And the stone began to shift.
The altar cracked down its center. Molten light spilled upward—not fire, but coded memory, a ribbon of data laced with scent and blood and something Lana could feel rather than read. A wall behind the Regents trembled and slid open, revealing a hidden archive vault.
Inside, a relic older than any tech Noctis had ever claimed: a living treaty, bound in wolf hide and stitched with strands of human hair. Its pages pulsed faintly with alchemical magic, and the ink—dark red—still gleamed like fresh blood.
Jason's voice was barely audible. "The original Blood Accord. It's real."
Kieran stepped forward. "I thought it was a myth."
The lead Regent bowed his head. "It was—until now. The Accord only reveals itself when the rightful heir bleeds onto its seal."
Lana stared at the sigil branded into the cover. It matched the mark burned into her skin during the Vault trial.
The Regents opened the book. Inside were entries older than any empire—covenants between human kings and shifter clans. Names buried by time. Instructions for bloodlines. Diagrams of hybrid offspring that were never supposed to survive.
And at the center—
A page bearing the Carter bloodline. Not Evelyn's. Lana's. Written in a hand she didn't recognize—but signed by Evelyn with a single line: She will never be yours.
Kieran whispered, "She tried to protect you by erasing you from the Accord."
Jason's brow furrowed. "She erased her own daughter from the future of the bloodlines."
The prototype vessel beside the altar began to hum. Softly at first, then louder, until the entire chamber vibrated. The lid cracked. Gasps rippled through the room. The Regents stood. The chamber lights dimmed. And the hybrid inside sat up.
She looked directly at Lana. And said, in Evelyn Carter's exact voice:
"Hello, Lana. I dreamed of you."
The hybrid's eyes were wrong. They weren't wolf. They weren't human. They were Lana's.
But when she spoke again, it wasn't just Evelyn's voice—it was her rhythm. Her diction. Her intention.
"Lana," the prototype said again, lifting her head. Her skin was pale, veined with faint traces of silver. She looked no older than nineteen. "I need you to listen."
Lana's knees nearly buckled. Jason caught her elbow.
"That's not your mother," he warned quietly.
But the prototype—Evelyn's echo—kept speaking.
"This chamber is recording everything. Even now. That's how they kept control. That's how the Accord was enforced. You must decide what is inherited... and what is erased."
Kieran stepped between Lana and the vessel. "What are you?"
"I am contingency," the prototype replied. "I am what Evelyn feared most: that her daughter would choose love over power."
The words hit Lana like a slap.
Jason's hand tightened on his rifle. "This isn't memory. This is programming."
"No," said the prototype, turning her gaze to him. "I remember Evelyn's final thoughts. Her regrets. Her final sight: you, Jason, pulling her out of the fire."
Jason froze.
Kieran turned slowly. "What did she just say?"
Jason's jaw clenched. "She's lying."
But the prototype kept going. "You weren't just an intern. You were Lysander's proof of concept. The one who could mimic empathy long enough to infiltrate her defenses. You hesitated. That's why she lived long enough to encode me."
Lana turned to him. "Jason?"
"I didn't know!" he shouted. "I didn't know what he really wanted until it was too late!"
"You never said you were there."
"I was trying to protect you!"
Kieran moved—fast. Too fast. He slammed Jason against the far wall, claws half-shifted, voice ragged with fury.
"You lied to me. To her. You knew what happened in Berlin."
"I tried to fix it!" Jason gasped. "I gave you Kraven's code! I turned on Vanir—"
"Because your leash got too short," Kieran growled.
Lana stared at them both, eyes wide, heart hammering.
The prototype watched with a serene, haunting stillness.
"The Accord isn't blood," she said. "It's choice."
Then the prototype stepped fully out of the chamber. Her bare feet touched the stone floor with no sound, but every pair of eyes in the hall turned to her. The Regents rose from their thrones. She looked around, recognizing each face with unblinking stillness.
"You all feared me," the hybrid said. "But I was never your enemy. I was a mirror."
She turned toward Lana again. "You are not bound by Evelyn. Nor by me. But I am the price of her choices."
Suddenly, the stone underfoot rumbled. A crack split the altar. The Regents began shouting. One of them pressed a hidden glyph on their throne—but nothing happened.
Jason's eyes went wide. "The mole. The Vanir mark—he triggered a backdoor."
"No," said Lana, stepping forward. "You did."
Jason opened his mouth to protest. But Kieran had already moved. One punch—fast, brutal, perfect—sent Jason crumpling to the stone floor, unconscious.
Lana stood over him, breath shaking.
"Why?"
The hybrid answered for him. "Because sometimes betrayal is the only way a slave gets to choose."
The chamber trembled again.
Kieran grabbed Lana's hand. "We have to leave. Now."
Behind them, the hybrid—her mother's echo—lifted her head toward the altar.
"I'll hold them back," she said, her voice soft. "But if you survive this... don't become what they made you to be."
Lana paused, tears unshed, heart torn open.
"Who am I supposed to be?"
The hybrid's smile was devastatingly familiar.
"Someone new."
The hybrid turned toward the Regents.
"You spent centuries drawing lines in blood, thinking it would keep you in power. But blood isn't enough anymore."
One of the Regents stepped forward, robes billowing, voice thick with centuries of self-righteous authority. "You have no right to judge us. You are a construct. An echo."
"I am your future," she said. "And I've seen what your past becomes."
The lights dimmed again—not from failing power, but from something else. Power. Ancient. Unfiltered. And very, very awake.
The glyphs on the chamber walls flared to life. The altar cracked further, opening like a mouth.
Kieran yanked Lana backward as a beam of force erupted from the center, shattering one of the Regent thrones.
The Regents scattered. Too late. The hybrid raised her hand. The chamber shook. Stone cracked. The floor opened in seams. And beneath it—a second vault. One never recorded. A prison, not for enemies—but for gods.
Kieran hissed. "No. Evelyn sealed this place. Why would she unearth it now?"
"Because the Accord was never just about unity," the hybrid said. "It was about containment."
Lana stared as shadows crawled up from the pit—tall, twisted shapes, unfinished, flickering like half-drawn memories. Wolf bones with human hands. Human skulls with lupine jaws. The First Bloods.
"Go," the hybrid whispered.
Kieran grabbed Lana's wrist.
"We're not leaving you," she said.
"You must." The hybrid's voice was Evelyn's command. Final. "You are the last Accord. You're the rewrite."
Another throne exploded. Jason groaned, just beginning to stir on the floor. Kieran didn't hesitate—he hoisted him over his shoulder.
Lana looked back one last time. The hybrid met her eyes.
"Tell him I remember the lullaby," she said. "The one she never finished."
Then she turned to face the First Bloods, arms raised, light blooming around her like a second sun.
The escape tunnel groaned under pressure as Kieran led them through twisting service corridors, deeper underground than Lana had ever seen. Pipes screamed. Steam hissed. Something massive shook the ceiling from far above.
Jason stirred on Kieran's shoulder. "Where...?"
"Alive," Kieran snapped. "Barely."
They reached a broken chamber at the bottom of the spiral. Lana braced against the far wall, panting. Her heart wouldn't stop racing. Not from fear. From loss.
"She stayed behind," she said. "To bury them."
"She was never meant to live," Kieran said. "She was a contingency. She chose more than that."
Jason sat upright, groaning. "They'll come. Specter's next. She always follows the breach."
Lana looked at them both. "No more running," she said. "No more secrets."
She pulled a small seal from her coat—a glass chip etched with Evelyn's personal sigil.
"I know where the last Lab is. Lab One."
Kieran's eyes widened. "That doesn't exist. It was erased."
"Exactly," Lana said. "Which means it's where the real truth lives."
Above them, an explosion shook the corridor. Dust rained down. The last vault was collapsing.
Jason coughed. "We'll never make it through the arctic wall before—"
A deep hum interrupted him.
Then, a voice. Cold. Female. Smooth as glass.
"Extraction confirmed," it said. "Welcome to Protocol Specter."
A thousand white lights snapped on in the tunnel ahead.
They were no longer alone.