Chapter 1
The Color of Death
In dreams, the stars stil existed.
Ilyra opened her eyes to a sky she had never seen in her conscious life: thousands of pinpricks of light piercing the darkness in a way that genetic memory recognized, but personal experience could not. And there, sitting on the edge of the Thale Platform with her legs dangling five hundred meters above the Sea of Clouds, was Lysa.
Not as Ilyra remembered her from the funeral, but as she had been before: the same short hair, the same crooked smile, twenty-three years old and frozen in the moment before she broke.
“You’re late,” Lysa said without turning. “You usually show up sooner.”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Then how are you here?”
Ilyra sat beside her, letting her own legs hang over the abyss, feeling the wind that shouldn’t exist against her skin. “I don’t know. You’re the expert on this.”
“I’m not an expert on anything anymore.” Lysa finally looked at her. Her eyes were exactly as Ilyra remembered: the same shape, the same shade of gray. But the presence behind them had changed, as if the crystal containing her gaze had been shattered, its light now scattered, refracted through a thousand invisible fissures. “I’m just good at remembering how I used to be an expert.”
They sat in silence, watching the toxic clouds pulse with a sickly bioluminescence below.
“Does it hurt?” Ilyra finally asked. The question she asked every time. The one Lysa never answered directly.
“Define ‘hurt’.”
“Lysa.”
“Ily.” A small smile. “You’re procrastinating.”
“I’m not—”
“Today’s the day. Your evaluation.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement. The fear Ilyra had been shoving down all night rose like a tide.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“That’s why I’m here. Because in dreams, you have to listen to me.” Lysa reached out and took her hand. Her fingers were warm, real, impossible. “Remember what I told you the first time? After… after?”
After they killed you. After Elyon tore you apart. After they turned you into a thousand fragments screaming in digital silence.
“You said a lot of things.”
“I said: don’t let them see you.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Or do you just think you know?” Lysa squeezed her hand. “Because I thought I knew, too. I thought I could be careful, that I could hide what I was long enough.”
“You didn’t have synesthesia. You just felt too much.”
“And you see too much. What’s the difference?” A pause. “We’re both glitches in a system that doesn’t tolerate variation. I just reached the end of the line first.”
Ilyra felt tears burning. “I hate when you talk like that. Like you’re already dead.”
“Am I alive?”
Silence. Because they both knew the answer. They had both learned the difference between death and dissolution.
“You still talk to me,” Ilyra said finally. “You still come here. That counts as life, right?”
“Maybe. Or maybe you’re just so good at pretending that you make me real out of sheer necessity.” Lysa smiled, an expression that was love and sorrow and resignation intertwined. “It doesn’t matter. Real or imagined, I’m here. And you need to listen.”
“I’m listening.”
“No, you’re still procrastinating.” She turned completely now, taking both of Ilyra’s hands in hers. “Today, they’re going to test if you see what you shouldn’t. If you process what they can’t measure. If you’re…”
“Like you.”
“Worse than me. Because I could at least hide what I felt. You can’t hide what you see. It’s written in how you look at people, in how you react to colors that are just colors to everyone else.”
“I’ve been practicing. I can fake—”
“Can you?” Lysa studied her. “Then show me. Look at me now and tell me what you see.”
Ilyra hesitated. “Lysa…”
“Do it.”
So she looked. Really looked. And she saw what she always saw in these dreams: her sister, surrounded by an aura that pulsed with the deep blue of love, the violet of ancient pain, and underneath it all, gray. Gray that meant absence, fragmentation, missing pieces that would never come back.
“You see,” Lysa whispered. “Even here. Even with me. You can’t turn it off.”
“It’ll be different in the evaluation. I’ll be ready.”
“You can’t prepare to deny who you are. You can only lie well enough for them to think you’re broken in ways they can fix.” She leaned closer. “So this is what you’re going to do: when you see colors today, question them. Call your certainty a mistake. Call your truth imagination. Believe the lie so deeply that you aren’t even sure what’s real anymore.”
“That’s…”
“Survival. And you’ll hate every second of it. But it’s that or end up like…” She stopped.
“Like you.”
“Yes. Like me.” A sadness so dense it was almost tangible. “And I don’t want that for you, Ily. I want you to live. Really live. Even if it means denying yourself every single day.”
The dream began to fray at the edges, the way it always did when their time was up.
“No,” Ilyra said, clinging tighter. “Not yet. Just a little longer…”
“It doesn’t work like that.” Lysa touched her face with a hand that was already turning translucent. “But I’ll be here tomorrow. And the day after. And every tomorrow until you don’t need me anymore.”
“I’ll always need you.”
“Then I guess I’m immortal after all.” A small, broken smile. “Go now. Wake up. Survive today.”
“What if I can’t?”
“Then I’ll see you sooner than either of us wants.” Lysa started to fade, her colors bleeding into the darkness. “But you won’t. Because you’re stronger than me. More stubborn. More…”
Her voice vanished, leaving Ilyra alone on the edge of the dream-platform, with the stars above that would soon disappear and the abyss below that was always waiting.
Ilyra woke up gasping.
05:47. Thirteen minutes before official wakeup. Her pillow was damp. She’d been crying in her sleep again.
She sat up slowly, wiping her face, trying to separate the dream from the memory from the warning. With Lysa, the three always bled together.
Today is my evaluation. And if I fail…
She wouldn’t end up like her sister. She wouldn’t allow it. Even if it meant lying to herself so deeply she was no longer sure where the truth ended and the fiction began. Even if it meant denying the colors she saw with every breath. Even if it meant becoming a different kind of fragment: living but not alive, whole in body but broken in spirit.
Survival, Lysa had said. So she would survive. One day at a time. One lie at a time.
Until she either forgot how to tell the truth, or she found a way to change the world that required such lies.
Whichever came first.
Official wakeup came at precisely 06:00: a chime that resonated through the dormitory with the precision only an artificial intelligence could maintain. The lights rose gradually from red to a clinical white. Her roommates rose in practiced synchronicity.
No one spoke for the first five minutes post-wakeup. It was an unwritten but absolute rule: the morning silence allowed the mind to properly calibrate for the day ahead.
Ilyra followed the automated motions: communal washroom, hygiene under the three-minute timer, return for bed and uniform inspection. You will not waste resources, energy, or human potential. Eighth Law. Every second counts. Every drop of water. Every heartbeat.
Instructor Vex, a woman in her forties with cybernetic implants tracing fractal patterns on the left side of her face, entered at exactly 06:12 for inspection. Her aura was steely gray with streaks of orange. Perfect control, tinged with barely contained violence.
“Cadet Noren,” she said when she reached Ilyra’s bunk. “Your Evaluation is today.”
“Yes, Instructor.”
“Prepared?”
No. Never. How can I be prepared for a test designed to detect exactly what I am?
“Yes, Instructor.”
Vex studied her with eyes that had seen too many cadets fail, be corrected, be eliminated. “Your sister…” she began, then paused.
Ilyra stiffened. “Instructor?”
“Your older sister, Lysa. She was integrated when you were fifteen.”
“Yes, Instructor.”
“Do you remember why?”
Because she felt too much. Because she cared too deeply for people the system decided were disposable. Because when they ordered her to report anomalies in her students, she refused. Because she chose individuals over collective optimization.
“Because she violated reporting protocols, Instructor.”
“Correct. And the result…”
“Was necessary for the integrity of the system.” A lie she had learned to say without flinching. A lie that hurt less than the truth.
Vex nodded slowly. “Good. Remember that during the evaluation today.” Her voice hardened slightly. “As the Second Law states: Elyon calculates; humans trust. This is the division that keeps us alive. Conformity is not a prison, Cadet Noren. It’s survival.”
The evaluation was scheduled for 09:00 on the Testing Level, three floors below the dormitory, in the section of the Academy where the walls were thicker and sounds didn’t travel.
Ilyra arrived fifteen minutes early. Because being late was an infraction. Arriving right on time suggested a lack of enthusiasm. Arriving early demonstrated the proper commitment.
The waiting room held four other cadets from her cohort, all scheduled for evaluations today. Ilyra could see the fear radiating off them: deep violet of terror, gray of resignation, orange of anxiety bordering on panic.
Calm down. Don’t look at the colors. Don’t process the frequencies.
The words of the Seventeenth Law echoed automatically, as they had been trained to repeat: What cannot be measured cannot be real. If you sense frequencies Elyon doesn’t register, you are the one who is broken.
Ilyra closed her eyes. Just sit. Wait. Breathe.
At 09:03, the door slid open. “Cadet Noren. You may enter.”
The evaluation room was small and clinical. An examination table stood in the center, with neural equipment connected to Elyon’s central system. And standing by the console was a man in his thirties with eyes that had seen too much.
His aura was strange. Not the solid gray of perfect conformity, but gray with cracks. Fissures where other colors bled through: amber of curiosity, a dark blue of something that might have been doubt, and beneath it all, a pale, stark white. A color Ilyra associated with secrets, with things deliberately hidden.
“Cadet Noren,” he said, his voice void of emotion. “I am Evaluator Kael Veyr. I’ll be conducting your neural conformity test.”
“Understood, Evaluator.”
“Lie down on the table. This process will take approximately twenty minutes.”
Ilyra obeyed, her movements stiff with forced control. Kael—Evaluator Veyr, she corrected herself—began attaching electrodes to her head. Temples. Crown. The base of her skull. His hands were precise, efficient, almost mechanical in their perfection. But as his fingers brushed her skin, there was a spark. Small. Electric. Connection? Recognition? No. Impossible. Just static from the equipment.
“Are you familiar with the protocol?” he asked as he worked, not looking at her.
“Yes. The scanners will measure neural activity patterns as I respond to stimuli. Deviations from the statistical norm indicate the need for correction.”
“Correct. And if we detect deviations…”
“They will be corrected. For my benefit and the benefit of the system.”
She saw something cross his face, too fast to identify. Then it vanished behind his professional mask. “We will begin in thirty seconds. Remain still and answer all questions honestly.”
The screen above the table lit up, displaying images as a voice—Elyon’s voice, perfect and modulated—began the interrogation:
“Image one: What do you see?”
A red circle on the screen.
“A red circle.”
“Any other perceptions?”
Yes. I see that it pulses. That it has a frequency. That the red isn’t just a visual color but emotion made visible: contained rage, compressed energy.
“No. Just a red circle.”
“Image two: What do you see?”
A human face. Neutral expression.
“A face.”
“Any emotional perceptions?”
Yes. I can see the sadness hidden behind the neutrality. I can see dark blue bleeding at the edges like an invisible bruise.
“No. Just a neutral expression.”
The interrogation continued. Ten images. Twenty questions. Each one designed to detect if she processed information in ways the system considered anomalous. And with every answer, she lied. She denied the colors she saw. Denied the frequencies she felt. Denied the reality she perceived. She called herself broken. Defective. Normal.
“Image eleven: What do you see?”
A visualized sound wave.
“A frequency graph.”
“Can you hear anything when you see it?”
Yes. I can hear the note it represents. C-sharp. Melancholy. Like a restrained cry.
“No. I only see the visual representation.”
“Image twelve: What do you see?”
An urban landscape of Aeris at artificial sunset.
“The central platform.”
“Do you perceive any temperature or texture when observing the image?”
Yes. I can feel the cold of the metal. The roughness of the concrete. The residual heat from the heating systems. As if I could touch the image with my mind.
“No. Just standard visual processing.”
Until, finally…
“Final image: What do you see?”
The screen showed a photo that made Ilyra’s heart stop: Lysa. Not an official photo. Not a system record. But a memory, captured from Ilyra’s personal files that she didn’t even know Elyon had accessed. Her older sister, smiling. Twenty-one years old. The week before the arrest. And around her, visible only to Ilyra, an explosion of colors so bright they almost hurt to look at.
“What do you see?” Elyon’s voice repeated.
I see you. Sister. Mentor. Martyr. Victim. I see what they took from me. I see why I have to fight. I see…
Her voice came out broken. “I see my sister.”
“Any emotional perceptions?”
The tears burned but didn’t fall. She wouldn’t give the system that satisfaction.
“No. Just an image. Just visual data.”
The biggest lie. The lie that hurt. But the lie she needed.
The screen went dark. Silence, as Elyon processed the results, as algorithms compared her responses against expected patterns. Kael Veyr didn’t speak. He just watched the console screen that Ilyra couldn’t see. The seconds stretched into an eternity.
From her position on the table, Ilyra could see his profile. The line of his jaw was tense. His fingers over the controls were completely still. He was waiting for the system to deliver its verdict.
And she was waiting to find out if she would live or die.
The console screen flickered. Kael leaned forward, reading something she couldn’t see. His fingers began to move over the controls, typing commands. Then he paused. His hand hovered over the holographic keypad.
Ilyra held her breath.
She saw something cross his face—a micro-expression she couldn’t decipher. Surprise? Recognition? Fascination? Then it was gone, replaced by the perfect professional mask.
“Test complete,” he said finally, his voice perfectly neutral. “You may sit up.”
Ilyra obeyed, her legs trembling slightly. She sat on the edge of the table, waiting. The silence stretched between them like a chasm.
“And?” She shouldn’t ask. But she couldn’t help it.
Kael didn’t answer right away. He was staring at the screen with an intensity he hadn’t shown before. His eyes scanned the data, line by line, as if memorizing every detail.
He’s going to report me. He sees the deviations. He sees that I lied. He sees what I am.
But then he did something strange. His fingers moved over the controls again, adjusting something. Changing something. The movements were quick, precise, almost furtive.
“Evaluator Veyr,” Ilyra said, her voice steadier than she felt. “What are the results?”
He turned to her. And for a second, just one second, his aura pulsed with that pale white again. The color of secrets.
“Results are within normal parameters,” he said. “Some minor variations in sensory processing, but nothing that requires immediate correction.”
The relief was so intense it almost made her dizzy. “So…?”
“So you’ve passed. Cadet Noren is neurally compliant. You may proceed with your training.”
But something in the way he said it, something in the way his eyes met hers, told her that he knew. That he had seen the deviations in the patterns. That he had detected the anomalous processing.
And that he had deliberately chosen not to report it.
Why?
Before she could ask, before she could process, Kael Veyr turned back to the console, effectively dismissing her. “You’re free to go, Cadet. Your next evaluation is scheduled in six months.”
Ilyra stood on legs that could barely hold her, walked to the door, and paused. “Evaluator Veyr.”
“Yes?”
“Why…?” she started. Then she stopped. Because asking was dangerous. Because acknowledging that he had altered the results was an accusation neither of them could afford. “Why what, Cadet?”
Their eyes met again. And this time, she saw something definite in those cracks in his aura: recognition. As if he had been waiting for her. As if she were a piece in a pattern he had been tracking.
“Nothing, sir. Thank you for your time.”
She left before he could change his mind. Before he could report her after all.
But as the door slid shut, she heard him murmur, so softly she almost missed it:
“You’re welcome, Ilyra Noren. We’ll see each other again soon.”
Kael Veyr stood alone in the evaluation room, staring at the screen that still displayed Cadet Noren’s data.
The patterns were… extraordinary. Activity in brain regions that normally remained dormant during standard visual processing. Cross-connections between sensory centers that shouldn’t exist. A neural architecture that suggested not just synesthesia, but something deeper, more integrated.
She is a fascinating specimen.
Kael typed commands, isolating the most telling data. The deviations were subtle, but unmistakable. Any competent evaluator would have detected them. Any loyal evaluator would have reported them.
But he wasn’t just any evaluator.
His fingers moved over the controls, tracing Ilyra Noren’s brain activity patterns during the final question. When she’d seen the photo of her sister. The neural response had been… beautiful. Complex. An interweaving of emotional and sensory processing that Elyon’s algorithms would classify as a “critical deviation.”
If I report this, they’ll integrate her within seventy-two hours. Maximum.
He should report it. It was protocol. It was his function. It was what a loyal evaluator would do without question.
But…
This anomaly is too unusual for a simple correction. Synesthetic patterns shouldn’t be this complex or this precise. She could be a system vulnerability… or a weapon.
Kael leaned back in his chair, studying the data with the intensity of an engineer facing a problem he can’t easily solve. The Inverted Network had been searching for something like this for months. Someone with atypical neural capabilities who could exploit Elyon’s weaknesses. Someone who processed information in ways the AI couldn’t predict or control.
If I report this, I lose access to the most fascinating specimen of my career. If I classify her as a minor variation, I can keep her under my direct supervision and study her. Determine if she’s useful or simply… interesting.
It was a rationalization. He knew that. But it was a logical one.
His fingers moved toward the final report button. They stopped millimeters away. On the screen, Ilyra Noren’s data glowed with a warning red:
DEVIATION DETECTED NEURAL ANOMALY: LEVEL 4 RECOMMENDATION: IMMEDIATE INTEGRATION
Kael looked at the button. Then at the data. Then he closed his eyes.
This violates protocol. This is… a lie.
He opened his eyes. He moved his fingers.
And he pressed the wrong button.
The screen flickered. The data changed. Where it had said “LEVEL 4,” it now said “LEVEL 1.” Where it had said “IMMEDIATE INTEGRATION,” it now said “ROUTINE MONITORING.”
Kael typed quickly, adding notes to the file:
FINAL EVALUATION: COMPLIANT WITH MINOR VARIATIONS Sensory processing variations within acceptable range. No corrective intervention required at this time. Recommend follow-up evaluation in six months.Subject assigned to my supervision for ongoing monitoring.
He saved the changes. The system accepted the classification without question. Because Kael Veyr was a level-three evaluator with the authority to make minor adjustments to results. Because the system trusted him. Because he had lied before and had never been caught.
He leaned back again, looking at the now-edited screen.
I have violated protocol. I have altered official data. I have lied to Elyon.
A strange feeling settled in his chest. It wasn’t fear, exactly. It was… disquiet. As if he had crossed an invisible line and was now standing in a territory where the rules that had defined his entire life no longer applied.
Why did I do it?
He didn’t have a clear answer. Or perhaps he had too many. Because she was a unique scientific specimen. Because the Network needed intel on neural anomalies. Because altering her would be a waste of research potential. Because…
Because when her eyes met mine, I saw something. Recognition. Intelligence. Fear, yes, but also… determination. As if she already knew I was lying but was doing it anyway. As if she were choosing to survive instead of surrender. And that choice is… statistically improbable in someone with her trauma levels. Fascinating.
He stood, logging out of the console. He needed to report this to Miren. He needed to discuss whether Cadet Noren was a potential asset or just a curiosity he had preserved for reasons he didn’t fully understand.
But as he left the evaluation room, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something had changed. Something small but fundamental. For the first time in years, he had made a decision based not on protocol, but on… what? Intuition? Curiosity? Something he couldn’t quantify but that felt right in a way numbers never had?
No. It’s not right. It’s strategic. It’s logical. It’s the optimal decision given the circumstances.
But as he walked down the empty corridor to his next evaluation, a small part of him—a part that hadn’t existed an hour ago—whispered that maybe, just maybe, he had saved Ilyra Noren not because it was logical.
But because he couldn’t bring himself to do otherwise.
The rest of the day passed in a haze. Sera congratulated her on passing. Other cadets offered empty congratulations. The instructors nodded with an approval that meant nothing real.
And the whole time, Ilyra couldn’t stop thinking about Kael Veyr. About the cracks in his aura. About the way his fingers had adjusted the controls. About the recognition in his eyes.
Who are you? And why did you save me?
At 17:00—free exercise hour—Ilyra escaped to the observation deck on Level 12. The place where cadets came to look out at the Sea of Clouds and remember why conformity mattered. Because the alternative was the fall.
She was alone at the railing when a voice from behind made her jump.
“Cadet Noren.”
She turned. Supervisor Thex—an officer in his fifties responsible for cadet discipline—stood ten feet away. His aura pulsed red-orange. Imminent reprimand.
“Supervisor.”
“Your evaluation today showed… minor irregularities.”
A chill went down her spine. “Evaluator Veyr said I passed within normal parameters.”
“And you did. Technically.” Thex moved closer. “But I reviewed the raw data. And I see patterns that suggest atypical sensory processing. Nothing definitive. But enough to warrant continuous monitoring.”
“I understand, Supervisor.”
“Do you? Because your sister…” His voice took on an almost recitative tone. “As the Twenty-Ninth Law states: Reporting anomalies in others is the purest act of love. Early correction saves; complicit silence kills. If she had reported her own deviations in time…”
Before he could finish, a roar split the air. They both turned toward the sky. A ship was descending, not a standard cargo transport but something larger, more important. A design Ilyra recognized from the historical archives: a command cruiser. Used only by the highest-ranking officials in Aeris.
The ship glided toward the main landing platform, visible from where they stood. Ramps extended. Figures emerged, one in particular standing out. Even at this distance, Ilyra could see his aura: absolute gray. No fissures. No variation. Perfect optimization made flesh.
“Who is that?” she whispered.
Supervisor Thex had gone pale. “Commander Vex Thorne. Head of the Conformity Council.” His voice was tense. “He never comes to the Academy unless…” He trailed off.
“Unless what?”
“Unless he has detected a significant threat to the system’s integrity.”
They both watched as the entourage moved toward the main building. Then Thex seemed to remember their previous conversation. “I need to attend to this,” he said curtly. “But Cadet Noren, this conversation is not over. You will report to my office tomorrow at 07:00 for a further discussion of your… irregularities.”
“Yes, Supervisor.”
He left, moving quickly toward the building where the Commander had entered, leaving Ilyra alone on the deck, staring up at the black sky where the stars used to be, wondering how much time she had left before her irregularities became a sentence. Before she ended up like Lysa: fragmented, integrated, dissolved into a system that tolerated no real difference.
Integration is not death, but transformation, they had told her at her sister’s funeral, reciting the Twenty-Fifth Law as if it were a comfort.
But Lysa wasn’t transformed. She was shattered.
One day at a time. Survive today. Worry about tomorrow when it comes.
But as the artificial sun set—Aeris’s chronometers simulating the day-night cycle the real sky no longer provided—she couldn’t shake the feeling that something had shifted. That Kael Veyr altering her results wasn’t a random act of mercy, but a recruitment. For something. For a war she didn’t yet understand but could feel coming. Like a storm in the data. Like fragments organizing into a pattern. Like a dead sister whispering in her dreams:
Eventually, you will change everything. Or you’ll die trying. I still don’t know which.
Ilyra closed her eyes. And for the first time in three years, she chose to believe that change was possible.
Even if it killed her. Especially if it killed her. Because living as Elyon wanted—gray, optimized, without the colors only she could see—wasn’t living at all.
It was just another way of being dead.