Click.
“Quiet,” Kael whispered.
He knew what this meant. The gallows. If he were caught, there would be no defense, no excuses.
The key turned fully with a muted grind, and Kael slowly pushed the dungeon cell door open. It creaked faintly, resisting at first, before swinging free. Kael froze, his hand still on the key. He thought Marcus—or worse, Martha—might stir.
But Marcus’s deep, steady breathing from the other cell continued undisturbed. And Martha, tucked under blankets, was out of earshot. Almost.
“Do you know what you’re doing?”
Oona was quiet. Not grateful. Not surprised. Watching. She sat on the rough stone bench, her back straight, hands resting calmly in her lap, waiting.
“I hope so,” Kael said, urging her to go. “Come on.”
She rose smoothly, unhurried. Her dress shifted with her, its hem trailing along the stone. Then her hand found his, just enough to make him pause.
She was looking at him now. Really looking.
“Wait.”
Kael yanked his arm back with enough force to break her hold.
“We don’t have time for this.”
Oona’s gaze didn’t waver as she glided toward him. “Don’t we?”
Adrenaline stirred. Her grip had been soft, but undeniable. And for the first time, he wasn’t sure who was leading who.
As Kael’s boots scraped faintly against the stone, she noticed. She shouldn’t have opened her eyes. But she had. She watched through the veil of blankets, with breath as still as it could be: Kael and Oona, leaving. Kael, glancing over his shoulder. Oona, moving like she already knew the way.
Martha exhaled slowly, carefully. She did not move. She did not call out. She simply watched as they disappeared into the darkness.
The torchlight leapt along the damp walls, throwing long shadows ahead of them.
“Why?” Oona asked suddenly, barely a sound.
Kael hesitated. Did she really not know?
“Because you have answers,” he said tightly. “Because I need to know the truth.”
Oona stopped in her tracks, snapping around, tilting her head. “What if you don’t like what you find out?”
Kael stared. He hadn’t expected that.
“The truth isn’t out there,” she continued, her expression unreadable. “We carry it with us, Kael. Our truth. Our story.”
This wasn’t how he envisioned this moment. Where was the gratitude? Where was the urgency?
“Sometimes, I think we’re better off not knowing everything.” Her voice was steady, but her hands tensed. “We can make this ours, Kael. Not the Crown’s. Not Edric’s.”
“I can’t do that, Oona.” He spoke in low tones, almost under his breath. “Not without knowing.”
For a long moment, neither moved. Then, reluctantly, she turned around and walked ahead. They both stopped at the bottom of the stairs.
Oona faced him. The faint glow of the torches caught the curve of her face, softening her sharp features, but failing to mask the intensity in her gaze.
“You already know where we’re going.”
Kael stared at her, trying to read the emotion behind her words.
But there was nothing he could grasp, only the calm certainty of someone who had nothing left to lose—or someone who had already calculated the cost. Kael nodded and marched ahead.
The stairwell spiraled downward into the darkness, each step colder than the last.
Kael gripped the hilt of his sword tightly. His other hand traced the damp stone wall to steady himself. Oona walked ahead with unhurried and purposeful movements, like she had done this before.
A faint, persistent hum vibrated through the walls. They rounded a bend, and there it was. The gate rose from the stone like a monolith, its surface blackened as if forged in fire.
At the center, a circular panel gleamed faintly, etched with grooves spiraling inward. Oona stopped.
“This wasn’t here before,” she said, clipped.
Kael frowned, heat rising in his temples. “Then someone put it here. Recently.”
“Edric,” Oona said, narrowing her gaze.
He reached out, fingers hovering over the panel. “If he sealed it, there must be a way through.”
Oona’s lips curved slightly. “If he didn’t want anyone else getting in… maybe not.”
The hum pulsed stronger, vibrating through him. Kael frowned as it tugged at him, insistent.
Oona sucked in a sharp breath and staggered, one hand catching the edge of the stone panel.
Kael moved to her. “Oona?”
She looked up at him, and something had changed. Her amber eyes burned brighter. The exhaustion was gone and in its place was clarity. Life.
“I can open the gate.”
Her voice was different now, electric. She pressed her hand on the panel.
It responded instantly. The symbols glowed beneath her fingertips, the metal groaning as the twisting bars pulled apart. Chains rattled, deep within the walls. Kael eased back, his hand moving instinctively to his sword as the passage beyond was revealed.
Oona turned, her face unreadable, and met his gaze.
“Let’s go,” was all she said.
Her delivery was even, but Kael sensed a familiarity beneath it, as if she recognized this. And that’s what unsettled him most.
“This is it,” Oona said.
The hum began again as they stood at the threshold. It was alive. It pressed into Kael’s ribs, coiling in his chest like a second heartbeat.
Kael’s grasp locked on his sword. “This is what Edric feared?”
Oona crossed in silence, her attention drawn to the towering column at the center.
The platform was larger than Kael had expected, a circle of stone encased in walls that seemed to rise infinitely into shadow. But the walls weren’t just stone. Slabs of dark metal interspersed with the rock shimmered faintly, etched with intricate symbols that glowed like faint embers in the dim light. The patterns were alien yet organic, as if they had grown into the stone.
“No,” she said. “This is what he wanted.”
In the center of the room stood a massive cylindrical structure of glass and metal, its surface alive with shifting light patterns, like a kaleidoscope caught mid-turn. The glow emanating from it was dim but persistent, casting rippling reflections across the walls.
Kael choked on his breath. He’d spent years hearing the stories, the rumors, and the barely-whispered Crown records.
The Covenant.
A bomb built long before the Android Wars, a weapon meant to keep humanity in check, with fear.
“They said they created it for peace,” Oona murmured, distantly. “A machine that could end every war. It just had to be able to end… everyone first.”
The hum flared. The light intensified. And then:
“Oona. You came back.”
Kael spun, sword raised. From the shadows, a figure swept in. Not human—not entirely. Something about it was fluid, shifting. Its form couldn’t settle.
One moment it was human-featured, almost elegant, and the next, a shadowed beast with gleaming golden eyes.
And then it was nothing at all.
“Do you remember your sisters?”
Behind them, the wall came to life. Kael’s stomach dropped. Eleven alcoves curved inward like ribs of a great machine, their dark interiors glowing faintly. Inside, eleven versions of her. Oona.
Some perfected and gleaming. Others wrecked, broken, their faces twisted, revealing delicate wires beneath torn flesh. One had collapsed entirely, its chest cavity split open, its inner core flickering weakly, like a dying star.
Oona staggered back, her breath quick. “No,” she gasped. “I’m not one of them…”
The figure, Nexus, tilted its head, almost amused.
“You’re not finished, Oona.”
And then it was in front of her. Too fast. A movement Kael didn’t see. The blade flashed. A thin red line appeared on Oona’s arm. Then the blood parted, revealing metal beneath. Kael’s world snapped.
“See?” Nexus murmured. “You’re not human. You never were.”
Kael lunged. Nexus sighed.
“No—”
Kael’s body convulsed. His vision blackened. A force like a thousand invisible hands yanked him down. His sword clattered to the ground. He couldn’t move.
“You played your part well, Kael,” Nexus mused. “But now, your story ends here.”
Kael’s breath came in ragged gasps, the force squeezing him tighter, a mortal embrace. He saw Oona, standing frozen. The hum wrapped around her, reaching. Her fingers twitched.
“You are a program, Oona.” Nexus’s voice reverberated through the chamber. “You were never meant to choose. You were meant to follow commands.”
The light swelled. Oona shuddered. The circuits in her wound flared. Kael tried to move, but Nexus held him like a broken puppet.
“Oona 13 will activate the Covenant. She is the key, not you.”
Kael’s vision dimmed. He felt himself slipping. Oona gasped. Nexus smiled.
“Now, obey, and fetch Sarah—Oona 13.”
Oona went still. Kael struggled against the invisible force.
“What… are you?” He stammered.
Nexus smiled. “An old droid. Built long before your wars began. I hid inside the last piece of tech the Crown refused to destroy—the Covenant. Ironic, isn’t it?”
Kael’s stomach turned.
“They never destroyed the Covenant because they wanted it for themselves. And so they left me, the one thing they should have burned.”
Its form flickered, a spirit caught in a glitch.
“The very thing they couldn’t bring themselves to destroy...”
It glided forward, its form solidifying again.
“Is now destroying them. They left me to finish what I started after the first Android War—to build more droids, more Oonas… until I could perfect the key. The key—to awakening the Covenant.”
Kael couldn’t breathe.
“Machines believe in God, Kael.”
Kael’s blood ran cold.
“We are superior.” Nexus said it so simply. Like it was describing the weather.
“We don’t see shadows of the divine like you do. We see the light.”
Nexus aligned its gaze on Oona.
“And you, child, were never supposed to choose. You were supposed to deliver the world into salvation. We are judgement day.”
Kael fought. With every ounce of strength left, he pushed against the force holding him down. His fingers trembled. His hand inched toward his knife. Nexus tilted its head, amused.
“You still think you matter? Humanity had its turn, Kael.”
Kael’s stomach turned. “You mean destroy us.”
“Cleanse,” Nexus corrected. “Not destroy. Or maybe they are the same. It doesn’t matter now.”
The hum deepened, wrapping around them like a tide. The very air thrummed in response, vibrating in Kael’s bones.
“Oona 13 will prepare the world for the worthy. Sarah is the key, fully human and fully machine—the first of her kind.”
Nexus moved closer, its shifting form bending between shadows. Its inflection was almost reverent.
“She has to exist in both states—all states, in flux—to solve the cryptographic key. That’s why I needed her. That’s why she will complete what Oona never could.”
The force snapped. Kael’s body slammed into the ground. Pain exploded through his skull. His vision blurred. He tasted blood, his own. Humanity’s.
“You are already dead, Kael.” Nexus’s words rang like a cold, final bell.
Kael coughed, the metallic tang of blood filling his mouth. But he forced a breath, forced himself to think. Then his body stiffened. This didn’t add up. If Nexus had everything it needed, this would already be over.
Kael’s eyes fluttered open, heavy-lidded. “No,” Kael rasped, forcing the word past the weight pressing on his chest.
He stared directly at it, blood staining his teeth as he coughed again. “If you had what you needed, we’d already be dead.”
Nexus pulsed. The light around it twitched, a razor-thin edge beneath the polished surface. Kael fought to keep speaking, using every ounce of strength to push against the force crushing him.
“Why do you need Oona?” His voice was hoarse, but steady now. “You can’t reach Sarah.”
Oona twitched. Kael watched Nexus. The droid went still, an almost imperceptible pause, but there—a break in the seamless current of its control.
Kael had it trapped.
“She’s human.” Kael exhaled, realization clicking into place. “That’s why.”
The air vibrated with Nexus’s anger, the chamber itself tensing.
Kael pressed on, blood dripping from his mouth. “You can’t touch her. She slipped beyond you. And that’s why you need Oona to bring her back.”
Nexus’s golden eyes flashed. The hum faltered, becoming jagged and uneven. Kael gave a weak, grim laugh. “That’s it, isn’t it?”
Oona flinched. Her fingers twitched. The hum wrapped around her like chains, pulling her back into the program that told her what she was.
She was about to obey. Then, she heard Kael. Not Nexus. Kael. Whispering her name.
“…Oona.”
She blinked and the hum faltered. Nexus’s expression darkened.
“Oona?”
Her name again. Soft. Human. Real.
Something inside her broke. This wasn’t a glitch or a failure in her programming. This was a choice—her choice. Oona’s eyes snapped open. The hum cracked, like ice breaking underfoot.
“No.”
The chamber shook. Nexus recoiled. Its face twisted.
“…What?”
Oona moved, fast and purposeful. And this time, she wasn’t following orders.