The syllables struck Katya like iron on bone. The sterile dining room, the polished chrome, the cold gaze of Irina—all of it dissolved. Her vision blurred, then snapped into a terrifying clarity. She was not Katya Sidorova, bride to Alek Volkov. She was Teia. And she was dying. The air thickened, heavy with the scent of ozone and burning circuitry. Alarms shrieked through the central lab of Rostova Innovations, a cacophony that vibrated deep in her bones. The experimental core, a lattice of pressurized magnetic rings, bucked on its plinth, its containment field discharging ribbons of ultraviolet heat. Teia’s hands, clad in singed thermal gloves, flew across the control panel, sweat stinging her eyes. "Stabilize!" she yelled, her voice raw, but the system refused to obey. Then, the access panel behind her hissed open. Not Mikhail, as she’d expected, but her brother, Dima, his face contorted in a mask of grim resolve she’d never seen. Beside him stood Irina Volkov, younger, sharper, a predatory gleam in her emerald eyes. The betrayal pinned Teia against the console. "Teia," Dima said, his voice flat, devoid of the warmth she’d always known. "It’s over. You’ve gone too far. This… this obsession with rewriting time. It's dangerous." He held up a data slate. On its screen, schematics for the manifold. An altered routing table, lined with purge protocols. Irina stepped forward, a faint smile playing on her lips. "Your old venture was meant to yield patents, Teia, not consume millions on unchecked hypotheses. Your family concurs. This engine will not preserve your work; it will wipe your records clean." "No!" Teia lunged for the manual cutoff, but Dima slammed her back against the railing, his grip ruthless. He had disconnected the failsafe. As the housing shrieked under the pressure spike, the emergency hatch hissed open. Mikhail Petrov, his face ashen, stumbled in. He saw Dima, Irina, the sabotaged panel, and the device spiraling out of control. His gaze locked with Teia’s, a desperate apology in his eyes. He lunged for the maintenance terminal, entering an override bypass before the relays fused. A split-second patch to the neural buffer. He diverted the baseline imprint instead of halting the purge. The core fractured anyway, bleaching the chamber in white discharge. The concussive blast obliterated the lab. Mikhail’s patch preserved an imprint—a fractured baseline tucked into the telemetry. *Not erased. Rescued. A fragment. A ghost.* The echoes resonated, a silent scream in the void. Katya drew air into lungs that smelled only of bitter roast beans and buttered toast. At the breakfast table. Alek held her forearm, his thumb pressing into her sleeve. Dima was still frozen, his fork halfway to his mouth. Mikhail’s face remained a carefully constructed mask. Irina, her predatory gaze still fixed on Katya, smiled slowly, a viper admiring its prey. "Ah, Teia. You still haunt this house, don't you? A shadow of past ambition." Her eyes flickered to Alek, a subtle, derisive curl of her lip. "My son always had a soft spot for tragic geniuses. Even their specters." Irina did not know. The matriarch was invoking a dead rival to taunt Alek, picking at the wound of an unconquered peer. She had aimed the name as a barb to unsettle the table, oblivious that the mind across from her had once carried it. Mikhail’s hand remained hidden; the transfer remained unmapped. The crucial unknown was not Katya's past, but the extent of the Sidorovs' collusion in that sabotage. Katya met Irina’s gaze, her expression now a placid, almost bored indifference. The ghost of a smile touched her lips. "Forgive me, Irina. Was there something you needed? I was merely… contemplating the rather sudden change in our morning routine." She subtly pulled her arm from Alek’s grasp, signaling him to maintain the facade. Alek waved a hand toward the doorway, his tendons rigid. "Mother, stop playing games. This charade, this… removal, is a gross abuse of power. The board will never ratify it permanently." His voice, though strained, held a dangerous edge. "The board is unified, Alek," Irina said, her smile widening. "And you are… unstable. A liability. Your handling of the acquired laboratories has been erratic. Now, I have an executive suite to occupy." Irina turned and walked out, her aides following, the latch clicking shut behind them. Dima, finally finding his voice, sputtered, "She can't just… she can't do that! Alek, your company!" His concern was genuine, almost endearing in its naivete. Mikhail, rising slowly, placed a hand on Dima’s shoulder. "Young man, the Volkov family charter is… comprehensive. But not impregnable." He glanced at Katya, a fleeting, almost imperceptible nod. A confirmation. *He* knew. And he had his own agenda. Alek pushed his plate away, the porcelain clattering loudly. His eyes, usually sharp, were now clouded with a mixture of fury and frustration. He looked at Katya, a desperate appeal in his gaze. "She moved sooner than the audit projected," he murmured, his voice dropping low. "She assumes the board will rubber-stamp her tenure before we mount an injunction. Katya, look at me. You went pale the second she dropped that name." The afterimage of Dima's hand against the panel lingered behind Katya's eyelids. Her family had traded her research for a foothold in the capital. She smoothed her silk cuff, burying the anger beneath a polished veneer. "She used Teia's name to see if my hand would tremble," Katya said softly, her gaze steadying on Alek. "Let her think she rattled an inexperienced bride. We begin by examining the acquisition ledgers from the laboratory explosion. Every line, every patent transfer. She left a paper trail, Alek. We will use it to strip her of the chair."

The Requiem's Echo