The nursery's walls sagged, plaster peeling like dead skin. Moonlight speared through shattered windows, illuminating rows of broken cribs. Inside each squirmed a hybrid—infants with Kael's storm-gray eyes and Lyra's cobalt veins branching across their cheeks. Their cries were jagged, dissonant, as if a choir of knives scraped bone.
Lyra staggered, her scarred hand pressed to her chest. "They're… us. But how?"
Kael's blade trembled. "Gideon's work. Our blood, our time—he's been farming it."
A crib rattled. One hybrid, larger than the rest, clawed at the bars. Its voice spilled into their minds, a child's plea wrapped in Gideon's venom: "Mother… don't let him hurt us."
Lyra recoiled. "It's in them. Gideon's voice, his power—"
The nursery door slammed shut. Shadows pooled on the ceiling, coalescing into Gideon's spectre. "Correction: I am them."
The hybrids' cries crescendoed. Kael's blade aged mid-swing, crumbling to rust. Lyra's veins ignited, her stolen time surging uncontrollably.
"Fight it!" Kael grabbed her wrist, but her power lashed out, withering his sleeve to dust.
The largest hybrid giggled, its crib dissolving into sand. It toddled forward, eyes glowing cobalt. "You'll join us, Mother. Or we'll take you."
Lyra's scars burned black. "Kael—they're pulling me in!"
He lunged for the hybrid, but the floor warped, slowing time. The infant grinned, its tiny hand brushing his arm. Agony erupted—memories flooded him.
Gideon stitching Lira's DNA into Lyra's clone. A nursery built from stolen time. A legion of hybrids, each a fuse for Gideon's resurrection.
"They're batteries," Kael gasped. "He's using them to rebirth himself!"
Lyra screamed. Her veins split her skin, cobalt light engulfing the room. The hybrids levitated, their cries harmonizing into a single command: "Yield."
Kael tackled her, pinning her thrashing body. "Don't let him in!"
"I can't… stop it—"
The largest hybrid seized her ankle. Lyra's power inverted, draining into the child. Its form swelled, limbs elongating into monstrous proportions.
"Thank you, Mother," it gurgled, Gideon's voice now dominant. "Now die."
Kael grabbed a splintered crib leg, its wood rotting in his grip. "Lyra! Now!"
She rolled, slamming her palm to the hybrid's chest. "Take it back!"
Time ripped sideways.