Chapter 4 The Ashborn
Rhea POV
When I opened my eyes again, the candle had burned itself into a puddle.
My shoulder ached like I’d been kissed by lightning, but I was breathing, technically. The world felt sharper somehow. Louder. I could hear Maris pacing in the next room and the faint drip of water several floors below.
Maybe that was what dying and not dying did to a girl.
Maris kicked the door open with the same subtlety she always had. “You’re awake! Good, because I was two minutes from checking for a pulse again.”
“I’ve got one,” I said. “Mostly.”
She frowned, stepping closer. “You were ice cold last night, Ghost. Thought I lost you for sure.”
“Sorry to disappoint.” I forced a smile, though my chest felt strange....light, but wrong. The bite mark under my bandage pulsed once, twice, like a heartbeat that didn’t belong to me.
“Still hurts?”
“Not as bad.” That was a lie. It didn’t hurt at all. It throbbed.
Maris crossed her arms. “We should get you to a healer.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Rhea...”
“Mar.” I met her glare. “You know what happens when healers start asking questions. They report anything weird straight to the Command. Next thing you know, I’m in quarantine while they poke me with relics and needles. No thanks.”
She sighed. “You nearly died.”
“Nearly is my brand.”
I swung my legs off the cot, the floor cold against my bare feet. My muscles didn’t feel weak; they felt… too strong, like they didn’t remember exhaustion. I stretched my arm. The wound beneath the bandage burned faintly, then settled into that alien rhythm again.
Maris scowled while I grabbed my leathers from the chair. “You’re really doing this.”
“I am. The Alpha bit me, not broke me.”
“That’s catchy,” she muttered. “Put it on a t-shirt.”
I pulled on the reinforced pants, buckled the vest, and slid my knives into the shoulder harness. My reflection in the cracked mirror stopped me. My eyes looked the same, but there was something off about the way the light caught them, a flicker of gold that hadn’t been there before.
I blinked. Gone. Maybe exhaustion. Maybe something worse.
“Rhea?”
“Coming.”
She tossed me my boots. “You sure you can walk?”
“Yeah. Walking I can do.” I strapped the last knife to my thigh. “Falling down’s my concern.”
Maris snorted and opened the door to the street above Haven-9.
Old Denver was a corpse city. The skyscrapers had rotted into jagged skeletons, the streets had been swallowed by frost and moss. Steam rose from the sewer grates like the city itself was still trying to breathe.
Four hundred years ago, the Rift tore open the sky and dumped the supernaturals into our world, wolves, dragons, vampires, and a dozen other things that thought “human” meant “snack.”
The Dominion Pact ended the chaos. Wolves got the wilds. Dragons took the forges. Vampires claimed the night.
Humans were left with collars and good memories.
We built rebellion out of whatever was left.
Maris motioned to a rusted manhole half buried under snow. “After you.”
“How flattering.”
“Command’s waiting,” she said. “Solen’s been asking for you since you stopped being unconscious.”
I pried the cover loose and dropped into the dark. The metal ladder groaned under my boots. The smell hit first, oil, damp stone, and smoky ozone from the old generators below.
Welcome home.
Haven-9 used to be a maintenance tunnel for the pre-war trains. Now it was the heart of the Ashborn, the last rebellion humans hadn’t managed to destroy. Pre-war tech kept us off supernatural scanners, and ancient wards etched into the concrete made our signals look like ghost echoes. Fitting, given my name.
At the bottom, lights flickered through the corridor. We passed coded graffiti sprayed along the walls, symbols only rebels understood. Each mark told a story, where to run, who to trust, or who’d already died.
Maris walked ahead, her flashlight bobbing. “You ever think about how this started?” she asked.
“All the time.”
“Four centuries ago, we opened a door we couldn’t close.”
“Correction,” I said. “They opened it. We just tripped over the welcome mat.”
She smiled faintly. “And the Ashborn?”
I shrugged. “We’re what happens when you burn the world and someone’s stubborn enough to sift through the ashes.”
Our motto had been carved into the tunnel wall near the checkpoint, Ashes remember the fire. I brushed my fingers over it as we passed.
The checkpoint guards nodded when they saw us. Both wore ragged uniforms stitched with the rebellion’s mark, a phoenix feather carved into a circle. They scanned us with old tech, humming and sparking but still functional.
“Welcome back, Ghost,” one said. “Commander’s in the war room.”
“Lucky me.”
We kept walking. The tunnels widened into chambers lit by salvaged floodlamps. People moved everywhere. There were engineers calibrating relics, medics stitching wounds, and soldiers cleaning rifles older than their grandparents. Despite everything, Haven-9 pulsed with life. The Dominion could crush cities, but not the will to fight.
Maris elbowed me. “You sure you’re okay to face him?”
“As okay as I ever am.”
She laughed quietly. “That’s not comforting.”
“Never promised comfort.”
We turned left down a narrower passage. Pipes lined the walls, dripping condensation. The deeper we went, the more I felt the hum under my skin. My senses stretched too far, I was hearing whispers from rooms we hadn’t reached yet, and feeling the thrum of generators through my bones.
Something was wrong. I wasn’t tired anymore. I was wired. Alive in a way that felt unnatural.
Maris must’ve noticed my silence. “Still with me?”
“Yeah. Just thinking.”
“Dangerous habit.”
“Tell me about it.”
We reached the final descent, an ancient iron door painted with the rebellion symbol. Two guards flanked it, rifles at their sides. The air here was warmer, carrying the tang of oil and magic. Beyond that door waited Commander Solen Vare, the man who’d built the rebellion from smoke and ruin.
Maris shifted beside me. “He’s not going to like that you’re on your feet already.”
“He’s never liked anything about me.”
“That’s because you make his blood pressure a full time job.”
“Everyone needs a hobby.”
She groaned softly. “Can you try not to mouth off this time?”
“I can try,” I said. “Success is another matter.”
The guard knocked twice, then opened the door. Light spilled out, maps, relics, and shadows were moving beyond. Solen’s voice drifted through, calm and steady, the kind of tone that made even alphas flinch.
Maris looked at me. “Ready?”
“Not even close.”
I adjusted my weapons, feeling the weight of them, and the pull of the bite mark beneath the leather. It pulsed again, in time with a heartbeat that wasn’t mine.
I didn’t tell her. Some secrets weren’t ready for daylight.
“Let’s get this over with,” I said, and stepped through the door.