Chapter 4

"You're shaking, Mara. And you can't remember your brother's name."

I glared at him. He didn't even blink.

"Maybe stop trying to fight the only person who can give it back,"\ he added.

I didn't think. I just lunged. My fist connected with his jaw with a satisfying crack, sending him stumbling back into a pile of scrap.

He didn't fight back. He just sat there, tasting blood, a slow, dark smirk spreading across his lips.

"There she is," he murmured. "The fierce little hunter. Now, are we gonna play punch-bag, or are we gonna talk to the man who can actually help us?"

"Shut up," I hissed, chest heaving. "Just shut the hell up."

"Mara! Holy shit, you're alive!"

Nico practically tumbled out from under a gutted hover-rig, grease smeared across his forehead. He didn't even look at Cael. He looked at me, then at the brand glowing through my sleeve.

"I saw the alert. The Crown put a black-level bounty on you. Why the hell are you back in Sector 4?"

"I need you to crack this, Nico." I stepped forward, shoving my wrist toward him. "The brand. It's eating my head. It took my brother's name. Just... wiped it. Like it was never there."

Nico froze. He looked at the brand, then flicked a glance toward Cael. The air in the garage shifted. Nico wasn't just scared of the Crown; he was terrified of the man sitting in the scrap pile.

"You brought *him* here?" Nico whispered, his voice cracking. "Mara, do you have any idea who that is? This isn't some fugitive. This is the Royal Traitor. The man who burned the archives."

"He's chained to me," I spat. "Literally. If he dies, I probably die. Now stop being a coward and tell me if you can read the code."

Cael stood up slowly, brushing dust off his coat. He stepped into my space. Too close. I could smell the metallic tang of blood and old parchment. He didn't touch me, but his presence felt like a physical weight, pinning me against the workbench.

"He can read it," Cael murmured. His voice was a low vibration that echoed in my own skull. "But he's scared. He knows that once he plugs in, the brand will scream. It’ll tell the network exactly where we are."

Nico backed away, hands shaking. "He's right. I can't just 'crack' a royal brand. It's a living circuit. It needs a bridge. A biological key."

"What kind of key?"

"A blood-link," Nico said, eyeing Cael with disgust. "The brand binds two people. To read the data without triggering the alarm, I need both of you synced. Neural resonance."

"Resonance," I repeated. "What the hell is that?"

"It means," Cael said, stepping even closer, his chest almost brushing mine, "that we have to be close. Very close. And we have to be honest. The brand feeds on the truth of the connection. If one of us lies, the circuit blows."

My pulse spiked. My heart drummed against my ribs, and it wasn't just the anger. Cael looked at me like he knew every single thing I was terrified of. And he was enjoying it.

"I don't trust him," I whispered to Nico. "I want him dead. I've wanted him dead since the day my brother vanished."

"I know," Nico said, glancing at the door. "But you're out of time. Seventy-two hours before the reset. If you don't find the Ash Crown by then, you'll be a blank slate, Mara. A ghost in a shell."

I looked at Cael. He wasn't pitying me. There was something sharper in his gaze. Hunger.

"Fine," I snapped. "Do it."

Nico scrambled to his console, pulling out jagged, copper-threaded needles and a humming interface deck.

"Sit. Both of you," Nico commanded, pointing to two modified chairs bolted to the floor.

I sat. Cael sat beside me. The chairs were barely six inches apart. I could feel the heat radiating off him—an oppressive, constant warmth. Nico worked fast, fingers flying, face pale under the flickering lights.

"Inserting probes," Nico warned. "This is gonna feel like a migraine with teeth. If your heart stops, tell me immediately."

"Just get on with it," Cael said.

He reached out. His fingers grazed the back of my hand. A ghost of a touch. A light pressure that sent a jolt of electricity straight up my spine.

I tried to pull away, but the brand flared. A blinding, white-hot flash of pain erupted from my wrist, locking my hand to his. I gasped, back arching, my fingers involuntarily curling around his.

"Don't fight it!" Nico yelled. "If you resist, the feedback will fry your nervous system!"

I squeezed my eyes shut, gripping Cael's hand like it was the only thing keeping me from falling into a void. The world blurred. A violent rush of images hit me—not mine, but *his*.

A golden hall. The smell of burning ozone. A scream like a thousand mirrors breaking at once.

And then, a voice. Cold. Commanding.

*'The boy is a liability, Cael. Burn the records. Leave no trace.'*

My eyes snapped open. Cael was staring at me, pupils blown wide, breathing ragged. For a second, the mask slipped. He didn't look like a traitor. He looked haunted.

"You..." I whispered. "You were there."

"I was," he breathed. "Now be quiet. Nico's almost through."

Nico was sweating, eyes glued to the monitor. "I'm in. Bypassing encryption... wait. There's a hidden partition. It's a storage drive. The brand is archiving your memories, Mara. Every time it saves you, it stores a piece of you here."

"Can you get them back?" my voice trembled. "Can you give me my brother's name?"

"I'm trying," Nico muttered. "Pulling corrupted files now. Just a few more seconds..."

Suddenly, the humming spiked into a high-pitched shriek. Every dead, cracked screen in the garage flickered to life at once.

I gasped, trying to pull back, but the brand held me locked to Cael.

One by one, the screens flashed. Not code. Not data. Names. Thousands of names scrolled past in a blur of red text, like a digital massacre. Then, they all stopped.

Every single screen froze on one name.

My breath hitched. It was the name I had forgotten. The name ripped out of my soul.

But as I stared, the text began to glitch. The name shifted, morphed, and a new line of text appeared beneath it, flashing in a violent, rhythmic crimson.

"Nico, what is that?"

Nico didn't answer. He was staring at the screen in pure horror.

"Mara," he whispered. "The brand... it's not just returning your memory. It's flagging a match."

"A match for what?"

Nico pointed to the screen. A royal dossier had popped open, stamped with the seal of the High Crown.

"The name isn't just your brother's," Nico said, his voice barely audible. "It's a cross-reference. And the system just flagged you."

I looked down. Underneath my brother's name, in bold, black letters, was my own. And next to it, a single word that made the world tilt on its axis:

**TRAITOR.**