The forest was wiped out.
Behind them, the sanctuary had been flame and rock where before it was, the casualty of the Circle's wrath. But ahead of them—nothing but rolling desert, wind-scoured ridges, and sun-seared rock.
"This place is… cursed," Kairos growled as they trudged over broken ground.
Veyra nodded. "It ought to be. We're traveling over the Shattered Vale. A prison built to contain those who've meddled with fate."
Kairos stared. "You mean reincarnates."
"No," Arius snarled, his tone icy. "We're talking about you. One of your former lives was locked away here."
Kairos stopped in his tracks.
"What?"
Veyra turned to him. "The Eater of Names. A life you've lost years and years ago. A man who bartered thousands to steal time from death. He meddled with soul-weaving, flouted holy laws… and nearly destroyed the fabric of reality."
Kairos's rage seethed in his throat.
"I was a monster."
"You were," she replied. "But you're not anymore. And that you has a secret—the location of the next reincarnate: Riven."
Arius explained. "Riven is a dream-walker. He exists between timelines, drifting in and out of memory and possibility. Without him, we can't find the Nexus—the gateway that controls the reincarnation cycle."
Kairos took a deep breath. "Then let's go get him."
They journeyed on to dusk. Along the climbing moon, they climbed to the lip of a canyon—black as stone, profound as night, thrumming with unnatural vigor. Symbols coursed along cliff faces. Memory hung in the heat.
"This is it," Veyra panted. "The grave of the Eater."
Ground bucked around them. Sand exploded up. A wave of deformed power flung them to the sand.
From the canyon emerged a figure—a man in chains, his form plunged in leaping shadows. His face. Kairos's.
Old. Shattered. Crushed. And mad.
"Who is it that awakens me?" the ghost snarled, voice echoing with the howls of hellspawned damned souls.
Kairos got up, looking at the ghost.
"I do," he informed him. "I am you. And I need your memory."
The Eater's laughter was cruel. "Then earn it."
The canyon was divided by fire as deceptions poured—thousands of Kairos' past incarnations all at once. Blade-dancers, shadow-walkers, sorcerer-kings, assassin-priests—all yelling, all emptiness.
Kairos brawled like mad. Each enemy was him—but twisted. He parried, bobbed, sliced with tempest and flame. He invoked the Flameheart, and it answered—inflaming his enemies.
There were too many, though. For every one that he slayed, there seemed to take his place another.
"We must break the cycle!" Arius exclaimed. "He is keeping you captive to your own shame!"
Veyra extended her hand into the air and pulled free a soul-thread—glowing with white-blue light—and sent it flying to Kairos.
He caught it.
And in an instant. he saw.
All the suffering. All the destruction. The blood on his hands. The empire that he ruined. The gods that he disobeyed. And yet—why.
The Eater had once loved. The woman, Elira. The Circle had taken her away from him. And in grief, he had tried to bend time to save her—killing himself as a result.
Arises walked through the falsehoods, no longer fighting.
He stood in front of the Eater and breathed gently: "You weren't a monster. You were just broken. As am I."
The ghost struggled. Its chains fell off. And then it dissolved into light. The End.
The canyon trembled. A new route was revealed—a spiral stair leading down into the ground.
"Below Riven," Veyra said. "We must get to him before the Circle can."
As they descended, Kairos gave a final look over his shoulder.
And whispered: "Rest now, old soul. I'll carry us on.".