Married My Enemy To Save My Family
Chapter 73. Beneath the Light, a Lie

Chapter 73: 73. Beneath the Light, a Lie

The Wraith cut through subspace like a blade honed in fire, its hull aglow from radiation drift left behind by Architect destruction. The path ahead shimmered with fractured graves like reality was fraying, pulling apart thread by thread.

But the heart of the Nexus lay ahead.

And the Fifth Seed was waiting.

In the command deck, Damien’s fingers flew across the console. "We’re one pulse wave away from the Core Barrier. Once we pass through, we’re blind to all external systems. No uplinks, no sensors. Just dead silence."

"Sounds like my kind of party," Nova muttered, rolling her neck. "Remind me why we’re not bringing a warship again?"

"Because we’re trying to not start a war," Valen said as he checked the final overrides for the stealth field. "Just end one."

Aeron stood near the viewport, arms folded, eyes locked on the glimmering mass of the Nexus ahead a lattice of silver and violet, spinning slowly around an artificial sun, like a divine clockwork designed by madmen.

And at the center of it all: the Core.

Elara joined him, her voice quiet. "Still think we should’ve gone in alone?"

Aeron glanced at her, tension softening. "No. Not anymore. You don’t face ghosts alone."

She nodded, hand brushing his briefly.

Behind them, Valen saw it how she looked at Aeron now. How she didn’t flinch from his touch. But he also saw something else in her posture. Not confusion.

A deep, terrible clarity.

He turned away before she could notice.

As they neared the convergence zone, the Fifth Seed sent another pulse.

It wasn’t a weapon. Not exactly.

It was a message.

A memory.

Elara gasped as it struck her.

The world spun and suddenly she stood on glass under a red sky. A mirror-world. Silent. Empty. Except...

Valen stood there, his hand outstretched.

Not the current Valen. A different one. Younger. Unscarred. The version who’d once saved her during the siege on Ventralis Prime. The version she might’ve followed into exile.

"Do you ever wonder," he said, "what we could have been if the war hadn’t happened?"

She reached toward him, her heart aching.

But before she could touch him, the world fractured—cracking like a frozen lake.

And Aeron appeared.

Wounded. Wild-eyed. Kneeling over a version of her dying in his arms.

He looked up at her.

"You left me."

The real Elara screamed

and woke on the floor of the ship, panting, her palms wet with tears she hadn’t realized she was shedding.

Damien knelt beside her. "Another pulse?"

Elara nodded. "They’re not just showing possibilities anymore. They’re making me feel them."

Aeron crouched on her other side. "You okay?"

She nodded shakily. "Yeah. Just... memories that never happened."

Valen stood apart from them, his face unreadable.

But inside, a question churned: What if that version of him wasn’t just a lie?

What if it was a choice Elara still carried?

The Wraith docked at a forgotten interface node just outside the Nexus Core an old Architect relic buried in a moon fragment that now hovered like a ghost satellite.

The docking clamps hissed. The lights dimmed.

And silence swallowed the ship.

Elara, Aeron, Valen, Nova, and Damien suited up. Each wore custom armor reinforced with anti-seed disruptors, neural dampeners, and failsafe injectors just in case the Core tried to rewrite them.

"Alright," Nova said, locking a plasma round into her launcher, "who votes we don’t get turned into philosophy projects today?"

Damien raised a hand.

Valen followed.

Even Aeron cracked the faintest grin.

Elara nodded. "Let’s make this fast."

The team moved through the relic’s winding corridors, each step echoing like it might awaken the entire galaxy.

Inside, the walls pulsed with soft, organic light. Symbols etched into the metal shimmered between languages: Architect runes, Old Earth Latin, and something eerily resembling Elara’s own handwriting.

"How are these here?" Damien whispered.

"They’re not carved," Elara said, touching one. "They’re grown."

They reached the central chamber: a spherical hall, floating platforms arranged like petals of a metallic flower. At the center was the Seed.

Or... something like it.

It hovered, unmoving, its surface iridescent and breathing—like it wasn’t just alive but aware.

The moment Elara stepped forward, it flared to life.

ELARA-PRIME DETECTED. FINAL CONVERGENCE INITIATING.

A wave of golden light struck the chamber—knocking the rest of the crew off their feet.

Only Elara remained standing.

And from the Seed, a voice echoed—

But not from her mouth.

From the Seed itself.

"You have walked through recursion."

"You have loved across timelines."

"You have broken your own design."

"And still, you seek more."

Elara clenched her fists. "I’m not your code."

"You are everything," the voice replied. "You are the anomaly. The fracture. The possibility we could never predict."

"Then stop trying to contain me."

"Very well," it said.

And from the Seed emerged someone.

A perfect copy of Elara.

Down to the scar above her brow.

But the eyes... were endless.

Cold.

Timeless.

The Seed-Elara stepped forward.

"To end the recursion," she said, "you must destroy me. The you that still believes in control."

A blade of light appeared in her hand.

Valen drew his own sword and leapt to intercept—but the Seed-Elara parried him midair and flung him across the chamber without touching him.

Aeron charged next.

"Wait!" Elara cried.

Too late.

The Seed-Elara extended a hand—

—and Aeron froze.

Mid-motion. Suspended in time.

His face locked in fury.

His body unmoving.

"No!" Elara screamed.

The Seed-Elara turned back to her.

"Only you can choose," she said. "The future must be yours alone."

Elara dropped to her knees.

Her voice trembled. "Then let them go."

"Only when you choose what you are."

"Not a Seed," she whispered.

"Not a soldier."

"Not a god."

She stood, slow and steady.

"I am Elara. And I choose freedom."

She raised her hand and reached inside the Seed.

Light exploded.

Pain.

Memory.

Love.

Fear.

Every possible version of her. Every fractured choice. Every moment where she had said yes or no, stayed or run, kissed or killed.

She held them all.

And then—

Let them go.

The Seed screamed.

Cracked.

Collapsed inward.

The echo vanished.

Aeron hit the floor with a grunt.

Valen groaned from the far wall.

Nova coughed. "Well, damn."

And Elara stood alone in the ruin of recursion.

Back aboard the Wraith, as the Nexus fractured behind them, no one spoke for a long time.

The galaxy would never know what they had done.

But Elara knew.

And in the medbay, watching Aeron sleep, she whispered—

"I chose."

And across the ship, Valen stood alone at the viewport.

He whispered, too.

"I know."

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