[Kael — The Missing Hour]
He came to the garden.
Alone. Blood on his hands. Black and gold. Not his.
He looked down at his reflection in the fountain basin.
It didn't blink with him.
And worse
It smiled.
He stood fast.
The system whirred in warning, voice dull like muffled glass:
[Time Gap Detected: 58 Minutes Lost]
[Core Self Unresponsive – Partial Override Event Confirmed]
Kael whispered aloud:
"I wasn't here."
[Arin — Searching Through the Archives]
The dream hadn't left her.
The name Aurethis still echoed in her bones.
And when she opened the old scrolls the ones even the royal family feared to preserve
She found him.
Not Kael.
But the same eyes.
A sketch of the First Sovereign.
Aurethis.
His arm wrapped in the Seraph Codex.
A throne built not from wood or metal
but from the bodies of chained gods.
And below the image, a warning in forgotten tongue:
> If he remembers fully,
he does not return.
He reclaims.
[Kael — Trying to Lie to Himself]
He returned to his chamber. Closed the doors. Locked the light out.
He touched the mirror again. This time, it didn't mock him.
It begged.
"You were more than this once.
You ruled by right.
Not emotion.
Not hope.
Not weakness."
His hand shook.
And for just one moment
he looked at the dagger on the desk…
And imagined carving the name out of his own throat.
[Selis — Beneath the Blade, At the Vault]
She followed the path carved into her skin.
The one she hadn't chosen.
The one from her past self Seythra the version that killed Kael before.
She entered the Vault of Whispering Bone, deep beneath the Hollowshade ruins.
A voice greeted her.
Not cruel.
Not kind.
Just… tired.
"Back again."
She pulled the Godkiller blade from her hip.
"Tell me how to kill him a second time."
Silence.
Then the vault whispered:
"You don't kill him.
You break what he remembers."
[Kael — Losing Control]
Arin found him just after sunset.
He sat beneath the palace archway, the stone burned beneath him.
Not warm.
Melted.
He didn't hear her at first.
When he did, he whispered not to her, but to someone inside his skull:
"I didn't mean to burn it."
Arin knelt.
Took his hand.
And for the first time since the Leviathan
He pulled away.
Not in anger.
In shame.
[The Throne Speaks Without a Body]
That night, as Kael lay awake
Not asleep. Not dreaming.
The throne spoke again.
But not in his head.
In the walls of the palace.
In the stone beneath the city.
And in a dozen cities beyond Solmere's edge, where flames sparked for the first time in centuries.
And all it said was:
"Aurethis rises."
[Kael — Standing at the Window of the End]
He didn't sleep anymore.
Because sleep was when Aurethis dreamed.
And every time Kael closed his eyes, he woke up with less of himself.
He stared out over the city. Torches burned. Banners still hung, stitched with a crest he no longer felt connected to.
Below him, the people whispered of peace.
Above him, the stars rearranged themselves into warnings.
And inside him
The system pulsed.
[Override Expanding | Core Identity 67%]
[Aurethis: Present. Watching. Waiting.]
He whispered, "What do you want from me?"
And the voice inside him whispered back
"You.
But better."
[Arin — The Memory She Wasn't Supposed to Find]
She dug deeper.
Into the vaults, into the forbidden chronicles sealed by her own mother, into the writings of queens who'd vanished without burial.
And there it was.
A cycle.
An old one.
A woman named Elira.
Who looked like her.
And a man named Kaelion.
Who wore Kael's face.
And in that life he ruled.
He took the throne.
He kept the world safe for a thousand years.
But…
She died in his arms,
begging him to forget her.
Because she said:
"He always forgets her when he chooses the crown."
Arin dropped the scroll.
She knew then
This was their final chance.
[Selis — The Decision]
The Vault was colder now.
It hadn't spoken since her last question.
Because it was waiting for her choice.
Kill him?
Or break the memory?
The blade in her hand still hummed.
It remembered Kael's body.
How it had once bled like a god and died like a man.
She whispered:
"I'm not here to kill him."
And the Vault replied, for the first and final time:
"Then you'd better be ready to kill what's inside him."
[Kael — Final Moment Alone]
The sky above Solmere cracked.
Not literally.
Just… conceptually.
A ripple passed through time itself.
Birds scattered.
Fires went out in unison.
And Kael turned slowly.
Because behind him, in the mirror that had stopped showing his face days ago…
Was Aurethis.
Smiling.
Kael asked:
"Are you going to kill me?"
The reflection answered:
"Why would I kill myself?"
The mirror shattered.
[System Collapse Delay Triggered]
[Sovereign Split Incomplete – Conflict Extended]
[Arin Anchor Link: Holding – 52%]
[Godkiller Blade Location: Within Range]
[Aurethis Status: Manifesting Soon]
[Kael — On the Edge of the Mind]
He stood alone in the middle of his chamber, surrounded by shattered reflections.
Each shard showed a different version of himself.
One with a crown.
One with black wings made of pure shadow.
One holding Arin's lifeless body.
One smiling Aurethis, radiant with divinity and completely, terribly alone.
He reached down to pick up a piece of glass.
His own reflection blinked at him out of sync.
Then spoke.
"You can't keep fighting me."
Kael closed his eyes.
And stabbed the shard into his own palm.
Blood fell.
Not gold.
Not black.
Red.
[System Alert: Conflict Delayed – Anchor Shock Applied]
[Override: 67% Stabilized | Identity Holding at Cost of Core Damage]
[Warning: Sustained Rejection of Aurethis Will Result in Soul Fracture]
[Arin — Outside the Door, Listening to Him Bleed]
She hadn't knocked.
She couldn't.
What if he wasn't the one to answer?
What if Aurethis already stood behind the door wearing Kael's skin and voice and silence?
She rested her forehead against the stone.
"Don't go," she whispered.
"I've followed you into gods, into monsters, into the Abyss but I don't know how to follow you into forgetting me."
A single, hot tear touched the runes carved into the threshold.
They glowed.
Not with magic.
With recognition.
[Selis — Looking at the Blade, Then Away]
The Vault behind her had gone dark.
The air was cold. Not dead, expectant.
She drew the Godkiller, knelt, and set it across her knees like an offering.
Then whispered:
"You were made to end him.
But maybe now,
you'll help me bring him back instead."
The blade pulsed.
Like it understood.
Like it remembered what Kael had once meant to her even in another life.
[Kael — Last Words of the Chapter]
He bled.
And the shard fell.
And Aurethis, in the shattered mirror pieces, tilted his head.
"You can't stop me forever," the god said.
Kael looked up, jaw clenched.
And whispered
"I don't have to stop you forever.
Just long enough… for her to get here."