Chapter 113

Rhea had been asleep beside Kaia's crib. Lex had been pacing downstairs, arguing with himself in half-conscious murmurs. And Kaia had been dreaming—not in the random, floating images of most infants, but in structured code. In her dream, she was walking through a hall of reflections—mirrors that showed not her face, but fragments of other people's memories. Some were Rhea's. Some were Lex's. And some… were Eden's.

She reached out in her dream. Her fingers touched the mirror. And without knowing how, she altered it. The image reshaped itself.

That was the first time she overrode a data stream.

When she woke, her pupils flickered silver for exactly one second.

Lex saw it—and didn't say a word.

But he knew then: she wasn't just human.

She was an evolution.

Since that moment, her abilities had grown in silence. Sometimes when she cried, devices flickered. Sometimes when she laughed, shadows in the walls grew still, listening. Once, when Rhea had a nightmare, Kaia had simply placed her palm against her mother's chest—and the dream was erased from memory, as if it had never happened.

Eden's designs had failed in their own success. They hadn't created a tool—they had birthed a child capable of rewriting their legacy.

But that's what made her dangerous.

Now, as Eden's ghosts stirred in Lex and old minds flickered to life in mirrors and walls, Kaia's presence was no longer subtle.

She was sending pulses.

She was waking others.

And somewhere, deep in the dormant servers of Eden, something answered.

A child's voice. Older. Matching her frequency.

A boy.

Encrypted, unknown.

Not yet born.

Not yet real.

But reaching back.