Lucan's breathing slowed, but the fire didn't fade.
It coiled beneath his skin—memory turned to motion, an ache that wasn't pain. The vision had ended, the white void shattered—but its shards clung to him. He felt broken open and stitched back together in the same breath, reshaped by truths not meant to survive.
Around him, the chamber's bioluminescent glow returned, flickering like candlelight in a storm. The low hum beneath the stone resurfaced, steady and familiar—like a song once forgotten, now humming beneath his bones.
But Lucan hadn't returned whole.
He blinked, his vision swimming, until Lyra's face sharpened before him. Her eyes locked on his—wide, worried, grounding. She didn't speak. Her hands were already there, gripping his shoulders with quiet strength.
"I'm fine." he rasped, the lie crumbling as soon as it left him.
She didn't call him on it. Just helped him sit up, calm and efficient. Her fingers pressed against his back—warm, steadying.
Lucan let himself breathe. Slowly. The ache in his limbs into something manageable, but inside—inside, the pressure still surged.
His hands trembled. He gripped them into fists, then released. Again. Again. Until it became a rhythm that tethered him.
Across the chamber, Thal'ryn stood by the memory seed, its glow reduced to a fading ember.
Lucan exhaled, then looked down at his arms. No swirling light. No golden threads in his veins. But the hum—he could still feel it. As if something ancient had taken root beneath his skin.
"What was that?" he asked, voice rough, quiet.
Thal'ryn approached but remained silent.
Lucan looked up, eyes shadowed. "I saw them. My parents."
The words seemed to weigh the air.
"They didn't leave me. They were hiding me. Protecting me."
Lyra stiffened but didn't interrupt.
Lucan pressed on, his voice steadier now. "They were in a different place—Earth, but... changed. I was just a baby. My mother… she blamed herself for bringing me back. My father kept talking about something pushing through the layers of reality. He said Earth's veil was too thin."
Thal'ryn's gaze darkened slightly, but he still didn't speak.
"They mentioned the Spiral Bastion." Lucan continued. "Said staying there would've exposed me. They chose Earth because it gave them time. Five years."
His throat caught, but he forced the words through. "There was this box. Hidden codes. Something about guardians left behind in the Sunken Systems. A last effort in case I survived."
Lyra's eyes searched his face, silent.
Lucan clenched his jaw. "Then it found them. That thing. I didn't see its face. I don't think it has one. It wasn't a creature. It was a… shape of nothing. A void wearing limbs and light. And when it reached for me—"
His voice faltered. "They left. They shielded me and vanished. My father lit up like a dying sun. My mother said something in a language I didn't recognize. And then... they were gone."
A silence followed.
Not empty—but full. Heavy with the gravity of truth.
Thal'ryn finally spoke. "Then you saw it."
Lucan's head lifted.
"The entity your father tried to hold back." the old warrior said. "The one your mother feared."
Lyra frowned. "What was it?"
Thal'ryn looked at the seed—its light now gone.
"There are scars on the Fold that never healed. Places even we refused to name. Not because we were afraid... but because no word could describe what dwelled there."
He turned toward them.
"That thing your father faced—it predates the war. It predates memory. It's not just older than history…" Thal'ryn's voice dropped, reverent and bitter. "It birthed it."
Lucan narrowed his eyes. "What does that mean?"
Thal'ryn's shoulders straightened. "It means this fight… the one your parents ran from, the one that took your past… it didn't begin with Velkros. He's just a spark. A symptom. The flame you saw in that vision? That wasn't him."
"Then what was it?"
Thal'ryn met his gaze, the fire reflected in his war-worn eyes.
"The first breach."
He looked back at Lucan.
"And if what you saw is true... it's waking again."
His voice broke on the last word.
Lyra's grip on his shoulder tightened in solidarity, but she said nothing. Her silence was not avoidance—it was respect.
Thal'ryn gave him space before speaking again. "Most never unlock what you did. The seed rejects nearly everyone. You were not just compatible—you belonged to it."
Lucan shook his head. "I don't feel special. I feel... heavy."
"That's what truth does." Thal'ryn replied. "I guess it roots you deeper."
Lucan finally looked up, catching his own reflection in a sliver of polished stone on the chamber wall. His eyes had changed. Not in color, not in shape—but in depth. Like something behind them had widened.
"What now?" he asked.
Thal'ryn folded his arms, his expression unreadable. "Now you decide. The Weeping Spires hold the remnants of the Spiral Bastion—what your parents referred to in the vision. Its codes, its last records. If there's more to their mission... more to your identity... that's where you'll find it."
Lucan felt Lyra's gaze on him. He looked at her for a moment, then turned back to Thal'ryn and spoke—not in Earth-tongue, but in the sharp, fluid cadence of the enclave's ancient dialect.
"Irh'vaz tal'kuren... I'll go. Whatever lies buried there, I need to see it with my own eyes."
Thal'ryn gave a small, acknowledging nod, the flicker of something like approval in his stare.
Lyra stepped forward, frowning slightly. "What did you say?"
Lucan shifted, then offered a small smile. "I said I'm going. I have to."
Her expression softened. "Then I'm coming with you."
There was no pause. No hesitation.
Lucan blinked. "You sure? It might not be safe."
"I wasn't expecting safety." she said. "Not after the Fold, not after the world we woke up in. But this... this is something we have to face together."
He didn't respond immediately, but there was a subtle shift in his posture—shoulders back, chin lifted. For the first time in hours, he felt stable.
"Thank you." he said, voice rough.
A faint smile tugged at Lyra's lips. "Just don't expect me to carry your burdens. I'll only carry you if you pass out."
Lucan chuckled—a short, tired sound—but real. The tension in the room lightened, slightly.
Thal'ryn stepped back toward the memory seed, laying one hand on its side. "Rest tonight. Leave at dawn. I'll prepare what I can—coordinates, maps, supplies. The route will take you through the Dead Verge, past the Screaming Sand. It won't be easy."
Lucan nodded. "It shouldn't be."
That night, the enclave was quiet.
Lucan stood on a balcony near the highest ridge, overlooking the valley of fractal trees below. The sky above was a mosaic of deep violet and scattered crimson, pierced by unfamiliar stars and floating embers that drifted like fireflies across the horizon.
He held a photograph in his hand—faded and soft around the edges. It hadn't been there before. Somehow, impossibly, it had appeared in his coat pocket when he came back from the memory.
His first birthday.
The three of them, smiling. Whole.
He stared at it for a long time.
Then slowly, Lyra approached, sitting beside him with a soft grunt. She didn't say anything at first. She just sat, knees pulled to her chest, watching the sky.
"I'm not sure what to feel." Lucan admitted. "It's like... everything I hated myself for—being abandoned, forgotten—it was all based on a lie. And now that lie's gone, but I still carry the hurt."
Lyra was quiet for a moment. "Because pain doesn't ask for truth. It just... happens."
He nodded. "I don't even remember their faces. But now? I remember the weight in their voices. The fear. The way my mother held me like she was already saying goodbye."
"You were never forgotten." Lyra said gently. "You were protected. That matters."
Lucan turned the photograph over. On the back, a faint line of text shimmered, like ink that didn't want to be seen.
He angled it into the starlight and read:
"If you're reading this, it means the veil has thinned. The truth is rising. Don't follow our path—forge your own. But never forget why we burned."
Lucan closed his eyes.
"They fought for something." he said. "I don't know what yet. But I will."
Lyra looked at him. "What if it changes you?"
He stared into the sky, jaw tight. "Then I change. But I won't lose who I am."
She leaned her head gently against his shoulder.
"You better not." she said quietly. "You're all I've got out here."
Lucan turned slightly, resting his cheek against her hair. The silence that followed wasn't awkward—it was steadying. Like they both needed a moment to just exist, without words or expectations.
He didn't have the full picture yet. The questions still gnawed at him, still twisted in the corners of his thoughts. But right now, those could wait.
Right now, this was enough.
Even in the middle of a world coming apart at the seams, they had this—each other.
And somewhere beneath that quiet… a resolve had taken hold in his chest.
He wouldn't let the past control him.
He wouldn't run anymore.
At dawn, the enclave stirred. Low voices echoed through the stone halls as warriors and scouts prepared for departure. Packs were stacked with filtered water, nutrient spores, and gliders modified for the shifting Fold winds. Shimmering crystal plates, etched with coded paths, were tucked into protective sleeves.
Lucan and Lyra approached the outer gate, their cloaks drawn tight against the dry air. Their suits were lightweight but reinforced, stitched from Void-resistant fabric and armored at the joints with jagged plating harvested from creatures buried in Fold rock.
Thal'ryn stood waiting, his expression hard to read beneath his helmet's ridge. He gestured toward the open stretch of land beyond the gate.
"The Verge isn't like the paths you've seen so far." he said. "Its winds can tear away memory. Its sands… they don't follow the rules of time. But if the Bastion left anything behind, it'll be through there—embedded in one of the shard clusters your father marked."
Lucan gave a tight nod. "Then that's where we go."
Thal'ryn stepped forward and placed a hand on Lucan's shoulder. "You've already walked through fire to reach this far. Just remember—fire can clear the way… but it can also leave nothing behind."
Lucan met his gaze evenly. "Then I'll make sure I burn only what needs to be burned."
Lyra adjusted her pack, scanned the horizon, and gave a small nod without looking back.
The gate shuddered open.
Beyond it lay a fractured stretch of landscape—gray ash dunes and jagged copper glass, shimmering in heat that didn't seem to come from any sun. Shapes in the distance twisted strangely, bent by light that had forgotten how to behave. Time moved wrong here; the air buzzed with a silence that felt like pressure.
Lucan didn't pause.
He stepped through the gate and into the Verge, boots crunching over broken stone.
Lyra followed a step behind him, steady and quiet.
They didn't speak as the gate closed behind them.
There was no need.
Whatever waited out there—memories, monsters, truths long buried—they would face it together.
And Lucan no longer felt like the boy who'd been left behind.
He felt like someone who had chosen to walk forward.
No matter what waited on the other side.
[End of Chapter 14]