Her Name Was Liora
There are no photos of Liora Rains.
No digital records.
No trace in the world.
But Kael remembers her.
The girl who used to read to him in the library under the royal estate.The one who brought him food when he was grounded.The one who kissed him in secret, the day before Lucan Sterling had her erased.
He thought she was dead.
Until now.
The signal from Siroth led Kael to a small island off the coast of southern Argaria — an abandoned research station known only in underground files as The Atrium.
He landed alone.
Inside, the air shimmered with dream dust.
Lucan's signature.
The walls were overgrown with bioluminescent ivy, but everything was arranged in the exact pattern of the old royal library. Kael knew it was artificial.
Yet his heart still beat faster.
Because sitting in the center, surrounded by ancient books and flickering candlelight, was Liora.
Exactly as he remembered.
Unchanged.
Untouched by time.
She looked up.
Smiled.
"Hello, Kael."
His voice faltered. "How...?"
She tilted her head. "I was never gone. I was kept. Protected. Because he knew... one day, you'd come back."
Kael raised his weapon.
"Are you real?"
She touched her chest.
"Does it matter?"
Trix's voice crackled in Kael's earpiece.
"Abort, Kael. The room is crawling with scent mines and mirror projectors. She's not who she was. She's been engineered."
Kael didn't move.
Liora stepped closer.
No threat. No anger.
Only eyes that held every stolen piece of his youth.
"Lucan didn't kill me. He made me forget you. Then he made me remember you wrong."
Kael said nothing.
She continued. "He turned your love into a disease, Kael. And now I carry the cure."
The lights exploded.
Reaper Seven activated.
The room shifted.
Kael's HUD blurred—optics failing. His skin buzzed as magnetic waves distorted his body's balance.
And Liora?
She moved like a ghost.
Too fast.
Too graceful.
Not human.
A dancer of death.
Kael fought back.
But his hesitation cost him.
Every strike he threw, she countered with moves she used to playfully mimic in their youth.
She knew him.
Down to the way he dropped his shoulder before a feint.
Down to the breath he held before committing.
Because Reaper Seven wasn't just a clone or machine.
She was his first love—fed every moment of his affection, every memory of his longing, and twisted into a perfect hunter.
Kael backed against a pillar.
She pinned him.
Her voice was a whisper.
"End me. Or I'll end you."
He reached for her cheek.
Felt real skin.
Not metal.
Not circuitry.
Just warmth.
"I don't want to kill you," Kael said.
She closed her eyes. "But I want you to."
Then she moved—fast and lethal.
But Kael didn't dodge.
Instead, he whispered one word:
"Rainsong."
She froze.
The safeword. The one they made up when they were kids, in case either of them was ever taken, changed, broken.
Her blade dropped.
Hands shook.
And then she screamed.
A scream so full of confusion and betrayal, it cracked the glass above them.
She collapsed into Kael's arms, shaking violently.
"I don't know who I am anymore."
"You're not a weapon," Kael whispered. "Not anymore."
Back at the base, Trix scanned her neural structure.
She was a Reaper. But her mind was rejecting the code—fighting the programming every second.
"She's a ticking bomb," Trix said. "Lucan designed her to kill you emotionally. And if she failed... she has a last-stage failsafe. Full cerebral meltdown."
Kael placed a hand on Liora's temple.
"Can we save her?"
Trix hesitated.
Then nodded.
"If we reach the Black Vault in time."
Kael turned to his team.
"Then we go."
But far away, on Lucan's floating citadel, he watched the feed.
Not angry.
Not panicked.
But smiling.
He turned to a child standing beside him.
The boy's eyes glowed black.
Another Reaper.
This one untouched.
Lucan spoke softly:
"You see, my child... even Kael's mercy is a weapon."
"And we will turn it against him."