Ikris skipped training the next morning.
Instead, he descended four levels beneath the primary archive vault, using a stolen clearance chip he'd lifted from a distracted analyst the night before. Sevik hadn't asked questions when Ikris muttered "Need a distraction" and vanished.
The deeper levels of Unit Obscura were cold, not from temperature but from purpose. The walls lost their sleek steel polish. Concrete bled into silence. Doors became bulkheads. Lights dimmed to motion sensors.
He passed rooms that hummed with things he couldn't see.
At Sub-Level Theta, he found it: Vault 9. Emberseed Case Files.
The door required a handprint and retinal scan. Ikris reached into his coat, pulled out a heated panel fragment he'd used to imprint his last scan, and pressed it to the reader. A soft hiss. The door creaked open.
Inside: cold storage.
Rows of cryo-drives lined the walls. A glowing central terminal blinked alive as he approached, waiting.
He fed in his father's private code—Ignis Hex-Prime, last used on his 18th birthday to unlock his estate inheritance.
The screen shifted.
EMBERSEED LOG FILE – PLAYBACK ENABLED
A recording began.
The footage was grainy, old. The screen showed a boy.
Small. Slender. Curly black hair. Eyes bright with fear.
He sat in a padded room, monitored by two lab techs and one older man in a white suit with a clipboard.
"Patient 017-A, recovered from the Hidden Grove incident," the man said. "Subject displays advanced pyrokinesis with delayed emotional triggers. Highly volatile. Neural imprint suggests anomalous memory reception—possibly residual psychic heat."
"His name?" one tech asked.
"He doesn't have one yet. Orphan file was blank. Only note: 'Igan ward.'"
"Sir, should we involve the family?"
"God, no. If the Igan patriarch finds out what we've pulled from those embers—"
Static. Then silence.
Ikris stepped back, stomach twisting.
He knew that room.
He had dreamed of it.
And that boy… It was him.
But he'd grown up in mansions. Tutors. Private helicopters. Estate walls lined with flame-resistant fiber and guards who never smiled.
Or so he'd been told.
Had his memories been planted?
"Memory locks," a voice said from behind.
Ikris turned fast, hand on his katana.
Dr. Halryn stood just outside the vault door, wearing his lab coat like a priest's robes. His expression was unreadable.
"You accessed things far above your clearance," Halryn said calmly.
"Tell me the truth," Ikris demanded.
Halryn stepped inside, looking around. "You were brought here when you were seven. Your fire nearly leveled an entire orphanage. But it wasn't the flames that frightened people. It was what came through them."
"Came through…?"
"Flame is a doorway," Halryn said. "It remembers. It absorbs. Your ability—redirection—isn't just physical. You reroute energy, memory, pain. You're a flame medium."
Ikris reeled. "So what you're saying is I'm not special—I'm haunted?"
"No," Halryn said, voice soft. "You're not haunted. You are the haunting."
Later, in the training halls, Ikris lashed out.
Flames danced from his hands, running down his katana, slicing the air in curved arcs that left vapor trails. He used no targets. Just motion.
Strike. Spin. Redirect.
Each swing felt heavier, like he was cutting through a lie.
He didn't hear Lyssa enter.
"You're skipping evaluations now?" she said.
Ikris didn't stop. "I saw the file. I saw him. The boy. Me. Whatever I was."
She hesitated. "So you know now."
"I know you lied."
"I didn't lie," she said, stepping closer. "I followed protocol. I told you what I was allowed to."
"That's convenient."
Lyssa's voice sharpened. "I'm not your handler, Ikris. I'm just the only one who thought maybe—maybe—you didn't deserve to be treated like a weapon."
He sheathed the blade with a hiss. "Then why do I feel like one?"
Hours later, he sat on the roof of the facility, the only spot above ground with clearance—meant for surveillance drones, not reflection.
Sevik appeared beside him, uninvited but not unwelcome.
"You good?" he asked.
"No," Ikris said flatly.
Sevik handed him a protein bar. "Then eat. Heroes brooding on rooftops is overrated."
Ikris didn't laugh.
He looked up at the stars, barely visible through the reinforced dome shielding.
"I'm not who I thought I was."
Sevik leaned back. "Who told you you had to be?"
"I was supposed to take over the company. Then Dad sends me here. Then I find out my life's fake. Implanted. Controlled."
Sevik chewed silently. Then shrugged.
"You redirect fire," he said. "Maybe it's time you redirected your story."
Meanwhile, deep in an isolated observation room, two voices spoke in hushed tones.
One belonged to Elias Igan, the patriarch himself—face hidden in shadows.
"He's starting to remember."
The other, familiar but synthetic, replied, "That was inevitable."
Elias leaned closer to the screen showing Ikris on the roof.
"I want him kept unstable. Just enough to spark growth. But not enough to break."
"And the others?"
"Sevik is harmless. Lyssa is still usefully conflicted."
A pause.
"And what if he finds the door?"
Elias smiled.
"Then it's time we see if he can open it."