The six of them set off, moving across Ashar's rebuilt world. What once was twisted terrain had begun to correct itself with each surge of Mae's anomaly. What used to bend space now opened into fields of iridescent grass and obsidian trees with leaves like liquid silver. They walked for over an hour before they reached it, the place Ashar had brought Mae and Riven to before. A hollowed glade, quiet and pulsing with an unseen heartbeat. The central bench still sat in the center. Etched symbols now glowed faintly in the soil. The stone archways surrounding them curved toward the sky like guardians frozen in time.
Lucien slowed, eyes narrowing. "This place," Mae turned to him, her brow raised. "You recognize it?" But it was Sethis who stepped forward, his jaw slack, expression unguarded for the first time. "I've dreamed of this place," he said, voice hushed. "When I was still under the Council's watch, when I thought my powers were curses." He glanced around, spinning slowly. "I never told anyone. I thought it was something the experiments did to my brain."
Ashar's gaze sharpened. "It's not your imagination. Your species, the Neurobinds, your origins were part of the first failed attempt to replicate this sacred site." Sethis looked stunned. "Then it's real. It was always real." Mae stepped forward, her bare feet touching the etched path. As soon as she did, the symbols rippled beneath her, lighting from the point of her toes outward. "No one could activate it back then," Ashar said, watching the glow deepen to crimson-gold. "Not until her."
"And now me," Sethis murmured, stepping forward beside her. For a moment, the circle of energy pulsed between the two of them, Mae and Sethis, two sources never meant to overlap, until now. Riven whistled low. "Well, damn. Looks like training's gonna get weird." Mae grinned softly. "It already was." They stood in the center of that ancient place together. A team once formed out of chaos and rebellion. Now, they were gathering under purpose. And the deeper Mae stepped into the path of what she was meant to be, the more the world, this world, seemed to bend to let her in.
This was not the kind of vision that took her strength. It showed them now, and what they needed to do. And only a portion of what was to come. And just like that, it was over. Mae stood there watching the light pulse, how much will this happen? As she finished the thought she heard something. Faint, but it was there. "Hurry" The glow around the circle slowly faded, retreating into the etched stones like embers settling. Silence followed, thick and tense. Everyone waited for her to talk. Mae's chest rose and fell, shallow breaths catching against something deeper.
"I need to tell you what I saw," she said. "This was a warning." The group turned toward her. Ashar moved closer, his expression unreadable, but his focus entirely hers. Riven stood just behind him, arms crossed tightly, protective. The others waited. "In that place I went, when the scriptures pulled into me," Mae began, her voice quiet but clear, "I wasn't just resting. I wasn't just healing. I saw something. Or someone showed it to me." She stepped out of the circle, the air no longer humming but chilled with what she was about to reveal.
"There's a war coming," she said, and her eyes shimmered with that same eerie crimson-pink glow that had appeared during the last surge. "A real one. Bigger than anything we've ever fought. Bigger than what happened at the auction or what the Council already done, what I did," Ashar tensed. Riven muttered something under his breath. Lucien stilled entirely. "It's not just them. Not the Council. Not their pets or war machines or spies. Something worse is coming. Something old,older than Ashar's species, older than the fracture." Mae's fingers curled slightly as if trying to hold onto the memory without letting it swallow her whole. "It feeds on endings. Despair. Extinction."
Sethis looked sick. "And it's, coming here? Whatever it is, it's coming, here. Where nobody has been able to touch? Holy," Mae nodded. "I saw cities fall in flame and silence. Worlds folding in on themselves. You-" she looked to each of them, eyes sharp "all died in the vision where I didn't act. I was alone in the end. With nothing but ruin." Kaine lowered his gaze. Ashar finally spoke, softly, "But there was another vision." Mae turned toward him, a fragile hope trembling behind her eyes. "Yes. In the path where I chose, to accept what I am, to trust you, to train, to build instead of break, we survived. Together. Not 'untouched'. But whole."
Riven ran a hand through his hair. "Then we've got no time to waste little chaos bomb." Lucien stepped forward. "How long until the first sign?" Mae inhaled sharply. "Days. Weeks, maybe. But not that long. They are moving already. And we need to be ready." Ashar looked too the sky above them, fractured once, healing now, but the shadows hadn't left. Ashar was silent. He knew that what ever was coming, it would not be simple.
"Then it begins," he murmured. "Not the war, but our preparation." Mae did not know if she was going to choose the right thing when the time came. She could only hope. If she made the wrong choice, everything. Everything would burn. By her very hands. But what if she makes the right choice? The vision she had of her and the future, could that actually happen?