The air had turned colder by the second, as if the warning embedded in the static hadn't been just audio it had been a curse.
Lucien gunned the accelerator.
The SUV surged down the countryside road, eating up distance beneath its tires. Hana's fingers gripped the armrest so tightly her knuckles turned white, her gaze locked on the screen, still frozen on the last frame of Jisoo before she'd vanished.
Gone.
Or worse.
"This wasn't supposed to happen," Lucien muttered, jaw tight.
"You said that site was secure," Hana shot back, voice edged with panic. "You said..."
"I know what I said."
Silence.
The kind of silence that only sits between people who've shared something intimate they don't yet understand.
Lucien's knuckles flexed on the wheel. "That voice wasn't Jisoo's. Whatever's in that tomb… it wasn't meant to be touched."
"Then why bring me there?" Hana asked. "Why now?"
Lucien hesitated.
"You're changing," he said. "The closer you get to your origin, the faster the veil weakens. I thought that site would stabilize it."
"Instead, it cracked something open."
Lucien didn't reply.
But they both knew it was true.
The ruins weren't hard to find again.
Lucien parked a short distance away, killing the engine and dousing the lights. The dawn had barely broken, and yet, the entire forest felt like it was holding its breath.
No wind.
No birds.
Only stillness.
Like something ancient had been disturbed.
They approached cautiously. The ceremonial gate was still open, the mossy clearing bathed in faint mist.
But where the altar had stood… the ground had changed.
No staircase.
No ancient vault.
Just earth.
Untouched, as if nothing had ever existed beneath it.
Hana whispered, "This can't be…"
Lucien dropped to his knees, digging with his bare hands.
Nothing.
No stonework. No hollow. No trace of the mechanisms.
"She was just here," Hana whispered.
Lucien stood slowly, brushing soil from his hands. "They closed the veil."
Hana blinked. "They?"
But Lucien was staring at the air, as if trying to see something that couldn't be seen.
"She called it the wrong tomb. Which means there's another one."
Hana swallowed. "One meant for me."
Lucien met her gaze. "You weren't reborn by accident, Hana. You're part of a pattern that started centuries ago. Jisoo's disappearance isn't the beginning. It's the middle."
They returned to the safe house in Seoul by midday.
The usually cold and sleek facility now felt haunted, shadows creeping in the corners, every hallway echoing with the memory of Jisoo's last call.
Lucien moved quickly. Every screen lit up as he pulled surveillance feeds, ancient blueprints, and quantum spectrograph readings from the Silla site. Hana hovered behind him, her arms crossed.
"Stop," she finally said.
He did.
She walked to his side, eyes never leaving the data. "We've both been dancing around the truth. So stop treating me like glass. Who was I, Lucien?"
He hesitated. Then clicked open a file labeled Ha-eun.
A woman appeared on screen in ceremonial robes, long obsidian hair, eyes that shimmered with tragic fire.
Hana leaned in.
Her breath caught.
"That's me."
Lucien nodded.
"She was the key protector of the Gate of Memory. A living conduit. When the first rift opened in 1910, the council tried to kill her before she could fulfill the prophecy."
"And you?"
"I was supposed to kill her."
Hana flinched.
Lucien met her gaze. "But I couldn't."
He pulled up another image a younger man in royal uniform, standing beside imperial officials.
His eyes were unmistakably Lucien's.
"I was known then as Ryu Jae-won. A high-ranking general who defected after meeting her."
"You died protecting me," Hana whispered.
Lucien looked away. "We both died. But I think something anchored us.
A vow. A blood oath. That's why we returned."
"Reincarnated. Drawn together again."
Lucien nodded.
"And Jisoo?" Hana asked. "Where does she fit?"
Lucien's jaw tightened. "She… wasn't meant to awaken yet. But her bloodline runs parallel to yours."
"That's why she could open the tomb."
"And why she was taken," Lucien finished quietly.
That night, Hana couldn't sleep.
She sat on the rooftop of the safe house, staring out over the Seoul skyline, heart pounding with truth too big to contain.
Her fingers brushed her collarbone, then stopped.
There was something there.
She tugged her shirt aside to reveal a faint glowing symbol.
A mark.
It hadn't been there before.
It looked like a compass or perhaps a seal. A map without coordinates.
Suddenly, the door below slammed.
She stood instantly.
Lucien ran up the stairs, breath caught in his throat. "We have a problem."
Hana followed him downstairs to the command center.
On the screen, security footage from a private hospital flickered into focus.
Lucien zoomed in.
Room 7C.
Inside, a woman lay unconscious on a surgical bed.
It was Jisoo.
Alive.
But hooked to a monitor system that pulsed with light, not electricity.
Lucien whispered, "They're extracting her memories."
Hana's breath hitched. "How is that even possible?"
"They're unlocking her timeline. Rewinding it. Trying to find your origin through her."
He tapped a key. Coordinates appeared.
"She's being held underground. Not government. Not Mirror."
"Then who?"
Lucien's eyes darkened.
"Something older."
Elsewhere. Unknown Facility.
The chamber was submerged in silence, save for the soft hum of temporal engines.
Jisoo floated in a glass containment field, her body suspended midair, eyes shut tight.
Three figures in black robes surrounded her, whispering in an ancient tongue.
One of them a woman stepped closer.
She held a small shard of obsidian in her palm. Pressed it gently to Jisoo's forehead.
And suddenly....
Jisoo's eyes snapped open.
But they were not her eyes anymore.
They were someone else's.
Someone who remembered fire.
Someone who had once betrayed a queen.
The woman stepped back.
"She's awake."
A voice spoke from the darkness behind them.
"Yes," it said, calm and cruel. "And now, she'll lead us to the true tomb."