The chamber felt suddenly smaller, as though the walls had inched inward while Rourke struggled to breathe. Seren stood beside him, her expression sharp and pale, eyes flicking from Rourke to the gravitational figure that hovered above the glowing platform.
"You're saying…" Rourke's voice cracked. "You're saying I'm not human?"
The figure's form rippled like starlight caught in a shifting tide.
"You are human in body.
But your essence… your core… your power…
is Solarii."
Seren swallowed hard. "This is impossible. Humans don't have Solarii genetics. Dominion physiology studies—"
"—are incomplete," the figure interrupted.
"They have never seen one whose bloodline survived."
Rourke ran a shaking hand through his hair. "But I was born on Dock Nine. My mother—she was human. My father—he worked maintenance. I grew up fixing turbines, scraping metal out of my boots. None of what you're saying makes sense."
"Your family raised you," the figure said gently.
"They did not create you."
Rourke felt the floor tilt beneath him. "You're saying I'm adopted?"
"Not by choice.
By necessity."
Images flashed in Rourke's mind again—
the Solarii woman shielding the newborn child,
the collapsing sphere,
the fragment of gravitational essence escaping into the cosmos.
"The last child was carried through the void, hidden inside the fracture of a spatial collapse," the figure continued.
"He drifted through time… until he emerged in a region of space your people now inhabit."
Seren whispered, "Dock Nine's founders reported a spatial rift anomaly decades ago. They thought it was a cargo accident."
Rourke's heartbeat thundered painfully. "You're telling me I came out of that rift?"
"You were found by humans.
Small. Breathing. Crying.
Weak… and yet radiating the residual pulse of a dying civilization."
Rourke staggered backward, nearly losing his balance. The hum inside his chest felt louder—like it finally understood itself.
Seren reached for him, steadying him carefully despite her injuries. "Rourke… this doesn't make you a monster."
"It makes him hunted," the figure corrected.
Rourke's breath caught. "By the Hunters."
"Yes."
The figure dimmed, grief woven into its voice.
"They exterminated the Solarii. But the last child escaped their grasp. When he vanished into the void… they searched. For centuries."
Seren's grip tightened. "And now they found you."
Rourke's hands curled into fists. "If I have Solarii power… why can't I control it? Why am I dangerous to everyone around me?"
The figure extended an arm of swirling gravitational strands.
"Because you are incomplete."
Rourke blinked. "Incomplete?"
"Your power slept for most of your life.
Human biology suppressed it.
The collapse at Dock Nine awakened it prematurely."
Seren whispered, "The turbine implosion…"
Rourke nodded slowly. "It wasn't an accident."
"No," the figure said.
"It was your Solarii core reacting to an imminent collapse.
It protected you."
Rourke looked down at his hands—hands that had bent steel, hands that had survived gravity that should have turned him to dust.
"So how do I… complete myself?"
The figure's form brightened, the entire chamber glowing as gravitational filaments spiraled upward like a blooming star.
"You must bond with the Heart."
"The Heart?" Rourke echoed.
Seren stepped forward, aiming her pistol downward but keeping it close. "What is that?"
The figure turned its gaze toward the glowing sphere surrounding them—the ancient ruin, half machine, half memory.
"The Heart of the Solarii.
The core of our civilization.
The source of every Wielder's connection to the cosmic weave."
Rourke frowned, pulse quickening. "And it's here?"
"Broken. Faded. But alive."
Seren whispered, "This ruin… it's not just a remnant. It's the last piece of their world."
Rourke stepped forward. "If I bond with it… what happens to me?"
The figure hesitated.
"You gain control. Purpose. Clarity."
"That sounds good," Rourke said cautiously. "What's the cost?"
The figure dimmed.
"If your human body rejects the bond…
you will die."
Seren's breath hitched sharply. "Absolutely not. Rourke, there has to be another option—"
"There is none."
Rourke clenched his jaw. "If I don't bond with it… the Hunters will find me."
"Yes," the figure said.
"And they will take you.
And through you… they will take your entire species."
Cold fear stabbed down Rourke's spine. "Why? I'm just one person."
"You are the last Solarii.
If they claim your power…
they will resurrect the weapon they used to destroy us."
Seren whispered, horrified, "The device that cracked your world…"
"The Gravity Reaver," the figure said.
"A machine that devours gravitational force and converts it to pure annihilation."
Rourke exhaled shakily. "So they want me… to turn it back on."
"To finish what they started."
Silence.
Heavy. Suffocating. Absolute.
Rourke turned to Seren, eyes haunted. "If I bond with the Heart, I might die."
She stepped closer, gripping his shoulder firmly. "If you don't, the universe will."
Rourke looked back at the glowing chamber, at the rising energy.
At the ruin of a civilization he never knew he belonged to.
At the Heart calling him home.
He took a breath.
A steady one.
Resolved.
"Show me where it is."
The figure's bright form lifted its arm.
"Follow."
The platform began to shift, the chamber opening like a blooming flower revealing deeper layers of the ancient sphere.
Seren stepped beside Rourke. "Whatever happens… I'm not leaving you here alone."
Rourke nodded once.
And together, they walked toward the Heart of the Solarii.