The morning air was thick with tension.
Evelyne stood before the great vault of the Lost Library, its doors etched with shifting runes, whispering secrets in tongues forgotten by time. Alaira flanked her, ever-watchful, while Scholar Lys held a crystalline key forged from condensed Rift remnants—the only way to access what lay sealed within.
"You don't have to do this," Alaira murmured.
Evelyne glanced at her. "We need answers. The Continuance knows more than we do. If there's even a fragment of their knowledge buried in the restricted archives, we can't ignore it."
The key turned, and the doors parted with a sigh that sounded too human to be metal.
Inside, silence reigned. Dust motes drifted like fallen stars. Shelves loomed high, carved from stone that shimmered with old magic. Here were the forbidden texts, records of corrupted spells, alternate timelines, and identities erased by time's collapse.
Evelyne moved through the aisle as if drawn. Her fingers brushed one tome—and it pulsed.
"This one," she whispered.
It opened on its own.
Visions seared her mind: worlds where she reigned with fire, worlds where she was executed by Alaira, timelines where their bond twisted into hatred or withered into nothing. But amid the chaos, a single recurring presence emerged—a woman in shadow, wearing a crown of glass. The architect of the Continuance.
Lys gasped, reading over her shoulder. "She's called the Shard Queen. A being composed of lost selves. Fractured, yet whole."
Alaira read the passage aloud: "She seeks the Convergence—a moment when all echoes align and reality can be reforged."
Evelyne snapped the book shut.
"Then we can't wait. We need to find the others who've crossed over. The Shard Queen is building toward something. If she finds the Convergence before we do, this reality will fall."
Back in the council chamber, Thane brought news.
"Two more anomalies. One in the Sunken Fens. Another in the broken spires of Aethra. Reports claim people are... changing. Speaking in languages they never knew. One child drew a map that matches a continent we know never existed."
Evelyne's pulse quickened. "That's where we go next. Aethra first."
Alaira didn't argue. Not this time.
That night, Evelyne couldn't sleep.
She stared at her reflection in the mirror, watching it flicker—for just a breath—into a version of herself with eyes of molten silver. She touched the glass, and the image mimicked her perfectly.
But the smile it wore was not her own.
The war for reality had only just begun.