Darius Kane (Hunter Captain) POV
They brought me the footage at dawn.
Four seconds of corrupted video.
A white flare swallowing the screen.
The outline of a girl collapsing as two figures fought around her.
Sarafina Ainsley.
Alive.
The technicians stood behind me in tense silence, waiting for my reaction. None came.
Emotion was a weakness the Order couldn't afford.
I replayed the footage again.
And again.
And again.
The flare originated from her chest— light bending, cracking, swallowing every visible spectrum before bursting into an unregistered frequency.
Powerful enough to break our scanners.
Powerful enough to crack the upper threshold sensors across half the city.
Powerful enough to be her.
The Heir.
But that was impossible.
The Heir died twenty-five years ago.
Yet here she was—reborn in a body that should have been ordinary, living under our surveillance radar for years.
My jaw tightened.
"Play it again."
