I woke to frost on my lashes and the whisper of breath that wasn't mine.
Something cold and alive licked the edge of my ribcage—wind? No. Air shouldn't hum like that.
My first movement was pain.
Second: weight.
Third… her voice.
"He fell from light," she whispered, "but he's bleeding red."
Branches above me curled in spirals, fractal patterns etched into every limb. The trees here weren't trees—they were veins of obsidian carved through frost-glass. Crystalline leaves shimmered like memories half-recalled, pulsing faintly in blue and gold.
And she sat over me, her hair braided with runes that flickered in a language I almost remembered.
Lyra.
She was younger than I remembered her.
No—she wasn't.
Time doesn't move forward here. Not really.
"You're not supposed to be here," she said, narrowing her eyes. "This place doesn't allow second arrivals."
"And yet," I coughed, "I'm here."
My blood pooled into the snow—except it wasn't snow. It was… stardust, compressed and chilled. My blood hissed as it touched the ground, fracturing the surface like molten glass dropped in cold water.
She didn't flinch. Didn't run. Just tilted her head slightly, like a hunter listening for the deeper growl beneath the leaves.
"Name?" she asked.
I opened my mouth—and forgot it again.
Not the name they gave me.
The true one. The one the Rift whispered when my mind cracked open.
"Aether—" I started, and then something coiled in my throat. Not a choking sensation. A silencing one.
Her eyes flicked.
"So you're broken, then," she said, not unkindly. "Or still rebooting. Which is worse."
"You know me," I said, struggling up on one arm. "You've said that name before."
She stared. Said nothing.
But I felt it.
Her aura.
It shimmered with recognition, denial, longing, and warning—like four truths tangled around her heart.
Her hand moved reflexively to her side, where a blade—not of metal, but bound light—rested in a hilt carved from moonbone.
I froze. My body ached in too many places to count.
"If I remembered you," she said at last, "it would be a problem."
"Because of them?"
"Because of what remembering does." Her voice cracked slightly. "To both of us."
Silence stretched.
Somewhere above, one of the frost-branches cracked and wept golden sap into the air like it was bleeding light.
She stood, brushing snow off her knees.
"Come on. The hunters will be here soon."
"You're not one of them?"
"No. I'm worse."
I didn't ask what she meant. Something in her voice told me not to.
She helped me up. Her grip was firm, not gentle. Her fingers pulsed with quiet energy—runes dancing down her braid, across her wrists, vanishing under her sleeve.
I remembered touching her once before.
Another life.
Another fall.
Another end.
But she didn't remember that.
Not yet.
"Why are you helping me?" I asked as we staggered through frost-woods that hummed with soundless echoes.
"Because you looked at me like I was real."
She didn't elaborate.
And I didn't push.
Every step through this forest was a memory whispering at the edge of hearing—too faint to understand, too loud to ignore.
The frost here wasn't natural. It hummed when we passed, sometimes coiling away from my body as if unwilling to touch me. Other times it reached out, trailing after my blood with eager tremors.
She led us through a ruin buried in the snow—a shattered spire, its glass spine twisted into a spiral. Glyphs crawled down the length of its bones like ivy feeding on secrets.
"We'll rest here," she said. "If they track your blood, they won't step on sacred ground."
"What is this place?"
"Where gods come to die."
Her eyes flinched when she said it. Not physically. Something deeper.
I collapsed against a fragment of black stone, catching my breath.
The pain was dull now.
But something else pulsed in its place.
Power.
Like a chord being strummed too slowly.
Like the Rift still breathing in my chest.
"They stabbed me," I muttered. "Lucien. With something divine."
"Then it's starting," she said, without looking at me.
"What is?"
"You."
I turned toward her.
"You said helping me would be a problem. That remembering would hurt us both."
"It would."
"But you're helping anyway."
She walked toward me. Slowly. Carefully. The snow didn't crunch beneath her feet—it hummed.
When she knelt in front of me, she touched my cheek.
Her fingers were cold.
Her eyes were colder.
"Because despite everything, there's still a piece of me that wants to believe."
"Believe what?"
"That you didn't betray us."
The word betray echoed like thunder in my chest.
I didn't remember doing anything.
But I believed her.
Because it felt true.
Something in my soul twisted around it—like the shape of guilt without memory.
"If I did," I whispered, "then I regret it. Whatever it was."
She stared at me for a long time.
Then leaned forward.
Not to kiss me.
But to press her forehead to mine.
And when she did—it all lit up.
For a split second, we burned with shared memory.
Not images. Not moments.
Feelings.
Her hand in mine as the sky cracked.
Her scream when the blade went through me.
Her voice as she said my name for the last time, before they erased it.
And then it was gone.
She staggered back, clutching her head.
"You shouldn't be real," she gasped.
"Neither should the Rift."
Outside, the wind stopped.
And that's how I knew we weren't alone.
"They're here," she said, rising, unsheathing her lightblade. "Too soon."
From the woods, figures emerged.
Not men.
Not exactly.
Armor that bent light around it. Faces hidden behind chrome masks.
And in the center—
A shape like a priest and an executioner combined.
Wrapped in black prayer cloths.
His voice rang like a bell dipped in blood.
"The Riftborn speaks with the Forbidden. Judgement will be immediate."
Lyra stepped in front of me.
I stood anyway.
Even broken, my body hummed with something that refused to stay silent.
The lead figure raised a blade that screamed with every movement.
"Aetherion Vale," he intoned. "By order of the Echoed Council, your soul is hereby nullified."
I smiled.
Lyra didn't understand why.
Not yet.
But I could feel it.
The Rift hadn't left me.
It was still listening.
And it had just opened a door inside me.
I didn't remember what I did to deserve their fear—
But I was about to show them why it was justified.