They moved at night now. Not out of fear. Out of strategy.
The days were too visible. The road too open. Since leaving the Iron Crescent, Reven had seen more patrols than he'd seen in his entire life before the Vaults. But these weren't Beast-Kin warbands or scavenger scouts.
They were organized. Uniformed. Efficient. And worst of all, they didn't look like they were preparing for war. They looked like they were enforcing peace.
Kaela crouched beside a gutted rail pillar, watching a drone sweep the far end of a broken causeway. It looked like something salvaged from a pre-fall military line, sleek, white, humming low, like it didn't need to search because it already knew.
"That's the third recon drone today," she said.
Lirien perched above them, pressed into the shadows of a twisted steel tower. "Not random patrols. They're mapping routes."
"For what?" Kaela asked. "Trade? Or invasion?"
Reven didn't respond right away. His eyes tracked the sky. No Riftlight. But the scar was still there. Not pulsing. Just present.
"It's something worse," he finally said.
The settlement they found wasn't on any map.
Built into the edge of a collapsed shipping station, it had the feel of something thrown together fast, but with purpose. Reinforced walls. Sensor spires. Civilian shelters positioned away from entry points. And people. Humans. Not many. A few dozen. But alive. Clean. Scar less. Most wore some variation of the same uniform, minimalist robes, marked with pale blue hexes across the shoulder. Tech integrated directly into their arms, necks, or spines.
Reven watched from a ridge as one of the Curated patrols approached the gates.
The guards didn't flinch. The gate opened without a challenge.
Kaela muttered under her breath. "Since when do civilians welcome copies?"
"They're not just welcoming them," Lirien said. "They're part of it."
Reven narrowed his eyes. "They're building something here."
He couldn't tell if it was a refuge or a system.
But he knew the difference would matter later.
They infiltrated the edge of the settlement under cover of darkness.
Lirien swept the outer paths in silence, disabling the sensor beams with a frequency pulse drawn from her cloak's old Skyborn patchwork. Kaela handled the route, marking fall-back paths, entry angles, and secondary exits without speaking.
Reven followed the pull. It wasn't Rift energy. Not exactly. But something adjacent. Echoing.
They reached the command building at the centre of the complex. Not fortified like a fortress, but monitored. Guarded by two Curated Ones standing so still they might have been statues.
Reven walked straight up to them. The moment he crossed the gate threshold, they moved. But not to strike. To stand aside. Kaela cursed under her breath.
Lirien's grip tightened on her spear. "They recognize him."
Reven stepped forward. The doors opened without touch.
Inside, the light was cold. The air too clean. And in the centre of the hall stood a woman. Human. Maybe.
Her skin was marked with circuit veins, glowing faintly under her collarbones. Her eyes were artificial, but not lifeless. She wore a robe like the others, but hers bore a crest Reven hadn't seen since the Rift first cracked open in the Vault of Storms.
A single circle.
Split.
She spoke without introduction.
"You're later than we projected."
Reven kept his voice even. "Who are you?"
"I'm the response," she said. "To your survival."
Kaela stepped in behind him. "She's Supreme."
"No," Lirien said, eyes narrowing. "She's what comes after."
The woman gave a faint, tired smile. "We watched from above. When the Rift didn't take you, the models failed. So we built new ones."
"Curated Ones," Reven said.
"Refined," she corrected. "Calm. Obedient. And without memory."
"And the people here?"
"Volunteers," she said. "Those who chose peace. Who wanted a world without history. Without pain."
Kaela's voice was sharp. "Without truth."
The woman stepped closer to Reven, stopping only inches away.
"You were the last thread holding the past in place," she said softly. "But now that you've made your choice, you could help us finish what the Rift started, on human terms."
"No," Reven said.
He didn't shout it. He didn't move.
But the room stilled.
"I didn't survive the Rift to forget what it cost. I survived it because I remembered."
The woman didn't react. "Then you're already obsolete."
Reven turned to go.
But the doors didn't open.
Kaela's blade was out before the hum in the walls changed tone.
Lirien's eyes flared. "We're locked in."
"No," Reven said.
"We're being tested."