The megacity of Tal-9 never slept.
A labyrinth of steel and neon stretched across the horizon, layer upon layer of towers scraping the stars, with transit rails weaving between them like the arteries of a living god. Drones zipped through the air like flocks of metal birds. Skyscrapers pulsed with data streams. The sky wasn't visible—just a dome of artificial light.
In the lower depths, beneath the shimmer and hum, in a sector where light rarely reached and the air tasted like rust, a boy moved through the wreckage of a forgotten district.
His name was Riven.
Fifteen years old. No family. No registry. Another ghost child of the city's underbelly. He made his living scavenging broken tech and repurposing old code. But he was more than just a scavenger. He had a secret.
Riven could hear machines speak.
Not in words. In frequencies. Patterns. Songs. Ever since he could remember, he had felt the pulse of machines in his veins—heard the hum of old terminals like lullabies, felt the flicker of dead screens like static on his skin.
Today, they were louder.
The underground chamber he'd found was deep—buried beneath layers of scrap and steel. It wasn't listed on any of Tal-9's schematics, and no signal reached it. But Riven had found it. Or maybe it had found him.
He slipped inside, flashlight mounted on his shoulder. The walls weren't made of standard plasteel—they were smooth, seamless, marked with geometric runes that glowed faintly as he passed.
His breath hitched. He recognized the symbols. Not from any database, but from his dreams.
He approached the center of the chamber, where a pod hovered slightly off the floor. It looked like an egg of dark crystal, veins of silver running through it. It pulsed faintly with life.
Riven reached out without thinking.
The moment his fingers brushed the surface, light exploded.
A blast of blue-white energy knocked him backward, slamming him into a wall. The pod rose higher, spinning. Symbols ignited across its surface, and in the air above it, a holographic figure shimmered into existence.
A woman—tall, radiant, not human. Her skin glowed like molten chrome, and her eyes burned with starlight.
"Starborn unit: Riven Aln."
Riven staggered to his feet. "What… what are you?"
"I am the Echo of Arin'Zhal. Sentinel of the Ninth Seed. Your awakening was detected. The Core recognizes you."
"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, backing away. "I'm not—"
"You are," the Echo said. "Your bloodline traces back to the Arc-Splicer of the Second Collapse. You were born of starfire and code. You are one of seven."
"I'm just a scav," Riven whispered. "I fix broken things. I sleep on rust. You've got the wrong guy."
The Echo extended her hand. "Your powers have been dormant. Until now."
A surge of heat ran through Riven's body. His vision blurred. He fell to one knee, clutching his chest. Lines of light began to spread from his hands, running up his arms like glowing circuitry.
Visions slammed into his mind—just like Lyra's before him.
A fleet of ships engulfed in shadow.
A voice calling out from deep space.
A planet burning.
A sword—split into three pieces—hidden in three Realms.
And above it all, the symbol: the Sigil of Unity. A circle with seven stars. One pulsing brighter than the rest.
When he came to, the chamber had gone silent. The pod was gone. The Echo vanished. But the runes on the walls still glowed faintly, pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat.
Riven stood, breathing heavily. His palms shimmered with power. His veins looked like they were made of light.
Whatever had happened to him… it was real.
He wasn't just a kid anymore.
He was something else.
And he had no idea what to do next.
Above Tal-9, cloaked in orbit, the Eclipse watched silently.
Kaelen studied the new energy flare, his brow furrowed. "Another one."
Seris nodded. "That's two awakenings in under twenty-four hours."
"They're connected," Kaelen said. "The Starborn always are. One rises, the others follow."
"Should we make contact?"
Kaelen hesitated. "Not yet. We need the third. The circle can't begin until three awaken."
Seris turned to him. "Then where's the third?"
Kaelen stared at the holomap.
"We'll find them. And when we do… we pray we're not too late."