Lana didn't move.
Velor had already turned his back, walking away like his part was finished. He didn't disappear in a swirl of magic or vanish into shadows—he just walked down the path between fractured pillars and overgrown glass, steps slow, deliberate, like gravity favored him. Elian remained behind, still and silent. Her presence was not commanding. It was expectant, like a bell waiting to be rung.
The others waited too, but no one said anything. Jason's jaw was tight, his fists clenched. Kieran leaned back against the wall, arms folded, claws half-sheathed. Nyx stood like a statue, watching Lana with calm that looked like obedience, but wasn't. Not quite.
Lana stared at the mouth of the Sanctum. Its entrance was open now, a circular arch of smooth white stone that pulsed softly with light. It looked like the corridor, but cleaner. More precise. No rot. No hunger. Just clarity, waiting.
And yet she didn't move.
Her second heartbeat pulsed once, then again. Stronger now. Almost… steady.
Jason was the first to speak. "You're hesitating."
Lana didn't look at him. "I'm thinking."
"You already knew what you were going to do."
"No," she said quietly. "I didn't."
Jason stepped forward, standing just off-center so he wouldn't block her view of the Sanctum. "Then why does it look like you're about to walk into something you've dreamed about your whole life?"
Lana exhaled slowly. "Because maybe I have."
He flinched. Not dramatically. But enough. He stepped back.
Kieran watched, silent, his expression unreadable. Nyx's fingers twitched at her side, like something inside her was syncing with Lana's hesitation.
Elian hadn't spoken since Velor left. She stood at the base of the arch, white eyes locked on Lana, her face expressionless. Not cold. Just distant. Patient.
Lana turned to her. "Who are you?"
Elian tilted her head. Her voice was soft, almost melodic. "I was the second candidate to survive the full lattice bond."
"Velor was the first?"
"Yes."
"Why do you follow him?"
"I don't," Elian said. "I remember him."
Lana frowned. "What does that mean?"
"He died the day he completed the Queen's Cycle. What walks now is a memory that doesn't decay."
Jason's face paled. "You mean he's not—"
"He is Velor. Just not a man anymore."
Nyx stepped forward slightly, her voice low. "That's what the Queen does. She keeps the parts that serve her. Discards the rest."
Lana looked back at the Sanctum. "What's inside?"
Elian blinked. "Truth. And the chance to choose which part of you survives."
The silence that followed was thicker than any argument.
Jason turned away, then back. His voice came sharp, roughened by something he hadn't shared yet. "I'm not going in there."
"No one asked you to," Lana said.
"I came to protect you," he muttered. "I'm not doing that by watching you erase yourself."
Kieran shifted. His voice was quieter. "She's not erasing anything."
"Not yet," Jason snapped.
Lana looked at them both. Her voice didn't rise. "You don't have to agree with this. But I'm doing it. Not because Velor said to. Not because I want to become something else. But because if I don't, the things chasing us won't stop. And neither will what's growing inside of me."
Jason didn't respond right away. He looked at her like he wanted to say something he'd been swallowing for days. Then he said, softly, "Evelyn told me to protect you. To guide you if you drifted."
Lana blinked. "I know."
"You don't know everything." He paused, his voice catching. "She meant it. She believed you'd either rebuild what she started or destroy it. And she didn't care which, so long as you chose freely. But I do care."
He stepped closer, not angrily, just… lost. "You don't know what it's like to be the last part of someone's plan, watching the pieces move and not knowing if you're doing the right thing. I didn't sign up to be your conscience. But I stayed. Because I thought maybe Evelyn was right—that you'd become something better."
He let out a slow breath. "And now, I don't know who you are anymore."
Lana didn't flinch. "I'm the same person I was when we left Manhattan. I'm just more awake now."
Jason nodded. Not in agreement. In resignation.
"I can't watch you do this," he said. "Not because I don't care—but because I care too much."
Lana said nothing.
Jason turned. "I'll go east. There are still havens. Outposts. Maybe I can find a way to cut off the Queen's signal from the outside."
Nyx turned her head. "That won't work."
Jason didn't stop walking. "I have to try."
He could survive out there. He wasn't human—not entirely. Whatever Evelyn had done to him, it let him pass through checkpoints and genetic scanners without setting off alarms. He could blend in, disappear. But this wasn't escape. It was grief. The kind of grief that doesn't wail. It just walks away.
And Lana let him.
Kieran didn't move.
Elian turned toward the Sanctum, and the light at the archway brightened.
Lana stepped forward. The entrance widened slightly, as if recognizing her intent. She crossed the threshold.
Inside, the air was cool. Not cold. Not sterile. But balanced, like the space had no opinion yet. The room was circular, walls made of a material that looked like smooth bone layered over glass. It pulsed faintly—not alive, but listening.
In the center stood the altar.
Not a slab. Not a cage. A seat, surrounded by vertical ribs that curled inward like a cradle.
Lana approached.
Her heart beat. Once. Then again. The second rhythm joined it.
She sat.
The ribs closed. Softly. The light dimmed.
And then came the memory.
Not hers.
A girl, younger than Lana, floating in a tank.
Evelyn's voice: "You will carry the thread."
Specter's voice: "She won't survive this."
The tank shatters. Screaming. Silence. A woman standing over a chair, eyes glowing red. A baby cradled in blood-soaked arms.
Lana gasped. The chamber didn't react.
Another flash.
Lana, in another life, walking the corridor alone.
Lana, crowned in light, standing before legions of things that bowed but didn't breathe.
Lana, lying in Kieran's arms, dying.
Each vision passed like a dream remembered too late.
Then a voice.
Her voice.
"Choose."
Outside, Kieran shivered. He was seated on the ground, hands braced on his knees. The mutations had started again. His bones ached. His teeth itched. He stared at the entrance, willing it to open.
Nyx sat beside him.
"She's not in pain," Nyx said.
Kieran didn't answer.
Inside, Lana reached out. She didn't know what she was touching. A thought. A memory. A version of herself that felt just a little too far away to name.
She accepted it.
The chamber opened.
She stepped out.
Her eyes glowed faintly—not white. Not blue. Something in between.
Kieran rose.
He looked at her like he wanted to say something, then just nodded.
Lana stared at the direction Jason had gone.
She didn't follow.
But something in her chest ached anyway.
And she knew it would for a long time.