The compound felt different.
Quiet, but not peaceful. As if the air itself had settled into mourning.
Three days had passed since the vigil. The storm had cleared, but the grief still hung low, dense and unspoken. The halls were slower now—footsteps more careful, conversations hushed, laughter entirely absent.
Personnel were given a temporary stand-down. No missions. No drills. Just recovery.
Rowan sat beneath the canopy of the facility's courtyard garden, wrapped in a thick sweater, his legs curled beneath him on the bench. The garden was small—just stone paths, trimmed hedges, and a lone willow tree shedding gold-tinged leaves into the koi pond.
Lucian stood nearby, leaned against a pillar with his arms crossed. He wasn't watching Rowan, but his gaze remained fixed on the ripples in the pond, as if the movement unsettled him.
"You're quiet," Rowan murmured, not looking up from the book in his lap.
Lucian shifted slightly. "I'm thinking."
"Dangerous," Rowan replied, a faint smile curling his lips.
Lucian huffed out a breath. Not quite a laugh, but close.
They stayed like that for a while—just silence and space, the kind that didn't demand anything. Rowan's body was still healing, his steps slow, but his mind felt clearer now than it had in days. Still, he could feel Lucian's gaze flick to him every so often, like a tether pulled taut.
"You should rest too," Rowan said.
Lucian didn't respond immediately.
"I don't sleep well when you're not okay," he admitted quietly.
Rowan turned to look at him. For a moment, the weight of that statement settled between them. There was something in Lucian's expression—guilt, maybe. Or fear. Rowan couldn't tell.
"I'm not made of glass," Rowan said.
Lucian looked at him then, and his voice was barely a murmur. "No. You're worse. You're important."
Before Rowan could respond, the garden doors opened.
Vespera stepped out, her coat pristine as always, but her hair was tied back tighter than usual—controlled, unreadable. "Briefing room. Evelyn wants to see us. Bring him if he can walk."
Rowan stood with effort. Lucian was at his side instantly, hand ghosting near his elbow but never touching. Rowan didn't need it—but he didn't pull away from the closeness either.
As they left, Rowan glanced back at the willow tree. Something about it reminded him of the rift—how things split, how they changed without permission. But he said nothing.
Whatever this peace was, it wouldn't last.
Not with what Evelyn had found.
The lights in the briefing room were dimmed, the projector already running. Evelyn stood at the head of the table, arms folded, the image of a corrupted rift core pulsing behind her—Site Epsilon's final telemetry.
Quinn, Vespera, and Elias were already seated. Rowan eased into a chair beside Lucian, who remained standing behind him, silent and alert.
"I won't drag this out," Evelyn began. "What I'm about to show you wasn't included in the public report. The data's been scrubbed from main records. We isolated it manually."
She clicked a button. The projection zoomed in on a timeline—resonance spikes charted in red.
"This is the moment the corruption rift flared during Site Epsilon. This—" she pointed to a jagged spike, "—occurred three seconds before Juno's vitals flatlined."
Rowan tensed.
"This particular resonance matches Lucian's signature," Evelyn said quietly.
All eyes turned to him.
Lucian's expression didn't change, but his jaw twitched slightly.
"That's impossible," Rowan said. "He wasn't even at the core when Juno—"
"I know. That's what makes this worse," Evelyn replied. She tapped again. A second window opened. "This is from Site Gamma. Same kind of rift, different location. Days earlier. The spike here? Identical."
Quinn leaned forward. "Isn't that statistically improbable?"
"Try impossible," Elias said, voice low. "No two Espers ever emit exact waveform overlays. Especially not across time."
Lucian finally spoke. "You're saying the rift recognized me."
"More than that," Evelyn replied, gaze sharp. "It reacted to you. Like it was triggered."
A heavy silence fell.
Rowan's throat tightened. He turned slightly in his seat. "Lucian... did you feel anything? Back at the core?"
Lucian shook his head slowly. "Nothing unusual. Just... the pressure. The same kind I always feel around corrupted zones."
"There's more," Evelyn said. "We ran a temporal scan. The resonance pattern around the spike doesn't just match Lucian. It echoes—like it's being repeated across time. Multiple layers."
Vespera frowned. "Are you suggesting there's more than one Lucian?"
Quinn shifted uncomfortably. "There was... something else. I didn't include it in the official report because I thought it was a hallucination."
Evelyn glanced at him sharply. "Say it."
"At the edge of the rift—before it collapsed—I saw a humanoid figure. Inside the surge. Only for a moment." Quinn hesitated. "It looked like Lucian. Not exactly, but close enough I thought I was losing it."
The room went still.
Lucian's brows drew together, his expression unreadable.
"Could it have been a corruption echo?" Elias asked.
"Maybe," Quinn said. "But it felt... real. Like it was watching us. Watching him."
"Or that time is folding in on itself," Elias muttered. "Echoing through him."
No one moved.
Lucian's hands had clenched at his sides. His eyes, dull grey, flickered faintly with amethyst.
"We don't know what this means yet," Evelyn said. "But the data doesn't lie. Lucian—something is connecting you to these rifts. Whether you're causing it, or it's using you—we don't know."
Rowan met Lucian's gaze.
His stomach churned, a cold wash of nausea settling beneath his ribs. "That figure... if it looked like you—Lucian, what does that mean?"
Lucian shook his head slowly, but not in denial—in dread. "I don't know."
Rowan stood, pushing himself up from the chair despite the ache in his joints. "But something in you does. You didn't even look surprised."
Lucian flinched.
"I've... dreamed of things like that," Lucian admitted, voice low. "Places I've never been. Moments that never happened. But they feel real. Like I've lived through them before—watched people die I hadn't even met yet. Watched you—"
He stopped himself. The room felt suddenly too full.
Rowan's eyes narrowed. "You've seen me die."
Lucian looked away.
"How many times, Lucian?" Rowan's voice cracked, barely above a whisper.
"Too many."
A silence fell again. This one deeper.
"You're hiding something," Rowan said, not accusatory—just heartbroken. "And I don't know if you're trying to protect me... or if I should be afraid."
Lucian's fists tightened. "I would never hurt you. Not in this world. Not in any."
"Then tell me the truth when you remember it."
Lucian looked back at him, something fragile and fractured blooming behind his eyes.
"I'm trying. But what if remembering is what breaks everything?"
Rowan didn't respond.
He just stepped back, slowly.
And the space between them—small as it was—felt like an entire timeline unraveling.
---
Vespera stood beside Evelyn in the observation alcove overlooking the now-empty briefing room. The low hum of tech still pulsed beneath the floor, but neither woman spoke at first.
Evelyn exhaled, arms still folded tight. "He's not lying. That's the worst part. You can see it in his face."
"No," Vespera agreed quietly. "He's not lying. But he's still dangerous."
Evelyn glanced at her, brow creased. "You don't think this is all coincidence?"
Vespera shook her head. "Coincidence doesn't mimic resonance across time. I've flagged him under silent watchlist protocol. Red-level."
Evelyn's mouth tightened. "He won't like that."
"Doesn't matter. I'm not losing another one."
---
Elsewhere, Ari sat cross-legged on her bed, uniform jacket spread across her lap as she threaded a needle through a torn patch near the shoulder. The lighting was warm and dim, a soft glow casting elongated shadows against the wall.
Quinn stirred on the bed nearby, turning toward her.
"You're sewing again," Quinn mumbled sleepily.
Ari smiled gently. "It's meditative. Besides, your stitching was horrible."
"Rude," Quinn murmured, blinking at her with a faint grin. "Is this your subtle way of keeping me from field work?"
"No," Ari said softly, not looking up. "It's my way of keeping you in one piece."
There was a pause, then the sound of sheets rustling as Quinn sat up.
"You know about Lucian right?"
"I do," Ari nodded. "Rowan looked shaken. I think Lucian did too."
Quinn tilted her head. "Do you think he's dangerous?"
Ari thought for a moment, then set the needle down and turned toward her partner. "I think he's in pain. And I think whatever's happening to him scares him more than it does any of us."
Quinn reached for Ari's hand, fingers weaving together instinctively. "He'd never hurt Rowan. You can see it in the way he looks at him. Like Rowan is the last real thing in the world."
Ari smiled faintly, brushing her thumb over Quinn's knuckles. "He's not the only one who looks like that."
Quinn's eyes softened, and he leaned forward to kiss her.
It was quiet and slow—grounding.
When they pulled apart, Quinn whispered, "Stay in one piece, alright?"
Ari nodded. "Always."
---
Later that night, Lucian walked alone through one of the back corridors—far from the medbay, far from Rowan's room. The hall was dim, lined with steel and silence.
He paused near a panel of polished metal, meant for status displays. It was dark now, but the surface reflected his shape faintly.
He stared at himself.
Then his own reflection blinked—
—and changed.
The figure in the mirror was him—but not. Hair longer. Skin cracked, bleeding from the eyes. And the expression—pure devastation.
Lucian stepped back sharply.
The image flickered, gone.
Only his pale, strained face remained.
He stood there for a long moment, breathing unevenly.
"Not again," he whispered.
But the whisper sounded like an echo.
As if someone else had said it before him.
And would say it again.