The sky had darkened by the time Aela and Kael emerged from the Archive. Not with nightfall—but with clouds, thick and restless, coiling like smoke above the valley.
"Those aren't natural," Aela murmured.
Kael nodded. "They're not. Vaults don't close without consequence. Every time we retrieve a shard, reality... shifts."
They stood for a moment at the mouth of the canyon. Behind them, the broken Archive groaned as if exhaling for the first time in centuries. The ground beneath their feet trembled slightly—barely noticeable, but enough to remind them that time itself had been stirred.
Kael's map reappeared in his hand with a whisper of light. A new mark glowed where the Archive had once been dim. Two out of seven.
Aela eyed the map. "Where's the next?"
Kael frowned. "It hasn't revealed itself yet. We may need to wait for the echoes to catch up."
"Or maybe they're waiting for us," she said, half-joking, half-serious.
He gave a tight smile. "Wouldn't be the first time."
---
They made camp that night in a grove just off the old ridge trail. Aela gathered dry wood while Kael traced protective sigils around the perimeter, murmuring in a language she barely recognized but found strangely comforting.
The fire crackled gently. For once, the silence felt earned—not ominous.
Aela sat back and let her gaze drift to the stars.
"They're different," she said. "Since I touched the second shard."
"How?"
"Sharper. Brighter. Like they're... watching."
Kael stirred the fire with a stick. "They probably are."
She arched a brow. "That was comforting."
He smirked. "The stars have always held memories. The ancients used them to record history—burning truths into the sky so they couldn't be rewritten. Some say that's why the Dawn was shattered in the first place. To stop that light from spreading."
Aela went quiet. The shards in her pouch pulsed gently, as if agreeing.
She turned toward him. "You've seen more of this world than I have. Tell me something true."
He blinked. "Something true?"
"Yes. Anything. I've been living in half-truths and secrets my whole life. Tell me something real."
Kael leaned back, thoughtful. Then he said, "When I was twelve, I saw the past collapse."
She waited.
"There was a temple near the edge of a memory rift," he continued. "We thought it was abandoned. But the closer we got, the more we realized time didn't move the same there. One of the Guardians—Elaris—stepped too far inside and aged a hundred years in a heartbeat."
Aela winced. "Did he die?"
Kael shook his head. "Worse. He forgot who he was."
They sat in silence for a moment longer.
Then Aela said, "I used to think I was broken."
"You're not," Kael said.
She smiled faintly. "I know that now. But even knowing the truth… it doesn't make the fear go away."
"It shouldn't," he said. "Fear means you still care."
A long silence stretched between them. Then Aela leaned back and let her eyes close, trusting—for the first time in a long time—that she wouldn't wake up alone.
---
She didn't.
But she did wake up to whispers.
Not from the trees.
From the sky.
Voices twining through the mist, urgent and panicked. She bolted upright.
Kael was already awake, blade drawn, crouched low beside the fire.
"What is it?" she whispered.
"The echoes," he said. "Something's wrong."
The mist parted, revealing a figure at the edge of the grove.
A girl—no older than Aela—with silver eyes and torn robes.
She stood perfectly still, her gaze locked on Aela.
Kael didn't move. "She's not real."
"She's... me," Aela said.
Not a twin. Not a reflection. But her—older. Worn. Eyes heavy with knowledge no one should carry.
Kael reached for her arm. "Don't touch it."
But Aela stepped forward.
The silver-eyed version of herself opened her mouth—
—and screamed.
The sound wasn't audible. It wasn't even sound.
It was memory—flooding Aela's mind with fire.
Children running from shadows. Cities swallowed by silence. The pendant split in two. Kael falling. Riven laughing. The stars going out.
Then darkness.
And a single word:
"Run."
---
Aela collapsed.
Kael caught her before she hit the ground. "Aela!"
She gasped, clutching her head. "She's real. She's from a timeline I haven't lived yet. A warning. Something's coming."
Kael looked up sharply.
So did the sky.
The mist pulled back to reveal a tear in the air itself—a thin black line across the stars, growing wider by the second.
A rift.
"No," Kael whispered. "Not yet. It's too soon."
A shadow spilled from the rift—long, serpentine, and crackling with energy.
A Wraith unlike any they had seen before.
A Severed One.
A creature that had once been human, but had drowned in too many timelines, corrupted by the echoes it couldn't contain.
Aela stood shakily. "It's after the shards."
Kael drew his blade. "Then we protect them."
But the Severed One didn't attack.
It spoke—in a thousand voices all at once.
"Three days until the Dawn breaks again."
Then it vanished.
And the sky split into rain.
---
They stood there for a long moment, soaked in silence.
Then Kael turned to Aela, voice low.
"We have to move. Now."
She nodded, heart racing. "What happens in three days?"
Kael didn't answer.
Because they both knew.
The war that ended time… might be starting again.