Chapter 33. Shattered Legacies
Back aboard the Wraith, silence weighed heavily. The destruction of the Requiem Vault was supposed to bring closure, but for Elara, it opened deeper wounds.
She stared at the digital remnants of her father’s last message, replaying it over and over. His voice, so familiar, now sounded hollow.
"He called me his daughter by design," she muttered, her voice bitter.
Damien sat beside her, his eyes on the churning ocean outside the viewport. "You’re more than anything he made you to be."
"He tried to turn me into a weapon."
Damien gently reached for her hand. "And now you’ve become a shield. That’s power of your choosing."
Elara gave him a small, sad smile. "You always know what to say."
He shrugged. "One of us has to pretend to be emotionally stable."
She laughed, just a little.
While the Wraith returned to neutral waters, Lyne intercepted multiple global alerts. The destruction of the vault triggered a chain reaction: Requiem fail-safes were failing. Memory archives were unraveling across the network.
"It’s like releasing trapped souls," Jeren said. "All the people they manipulated, they’re remembering."