Silence clung to the frost‑laden clearing long after Umbra vanished, as if the world feared what would happen if it dared to speak again.
Kael sharpened his blade in a ritual of control.
Seris vanished into shadow—her breathing too still to be natural.
Lyra hovered near me in uneasy orbit, turning a glowing rune‑stone restlessly between her fingers.
Aeris sat on my shoulder but refused to sleep, shimmering scales dimming whenever my pulse shifted.
I didn't speak. I didn't need to. The air around me vibrated with something—memory or prophecy or madness.
I had called something older than gods.
And it had answered.
I should have been terrified.
I wasn't.
That scared me more.
When she arrived, it was not with footsteps.
It began with softness—a breeze that did not disturb branches yet brushed my skin like the ghost of a forgotten mother. Air thickened with pale luminescence, as though moonlight condensed into breath.
Then warmth.
Not heat. Not fire.
A warmth that felt like… truth.
I turned.
And she stood there.
Eirin.
No sound preceded her. She simply existed—like she had been there before the world remembered her absence.
Moon‑pale hair flowed like liquid silk. Her eyes weren't eyes but shifting dusk—translucent, luminescent, reflecting not light but memory. Her robes drifted like mist clinging to dreams.
Kael's hand froze mid‑sharpen.
Lyra inhaled sharply.
Even Seris, who had reappeared near the treeline like a shadow regretting its return, stiffened.
Aeris hid behind my collarbone. I felt his tremor.
Yet I couldn't breathe.
Because I knew her.
Not her face, not her voice—
Her presence.
She bowed her head slightly. "You are still incomplete," she whispered, voice soft as a lullaby, heavy as a verdict.
My throat tightened. "Who are you?"
Her gaze lifted.
"I am Eirin of the Veil. Healer. Soul‑weaver. Witness to echoes."
Then her gaze met mine fully—and I felt the ground fall away beneath reality.
"You called me once, in your ninth life. I arrived too late."
My vision dimmed.
Ninth life.
That number dug claws into my chest.
"How many?" I rasped.
She blinked slowly.
"You do not wish to know."
And yet—I did.
I feared the number more than I feared gods, void, judgment, myself. But I needed it.
"How many times have I died?"
Eirin stepped closer. Air shuddered around her like memory rebelling.
Her voice, when it came, was silk over a blade:
"Thirteen."
The world tilted. Lyra swore. Kael's blade slipped, drawing blood. Seris closed her eyes as though bracing for an impact she had witnessed before.
Thirteen times.
Not three. Not five.
Thirteen lives.
Thirteen deaths.
Thirteen failures.
My blood beat in my ears like war drums.
"Why don't I remember?"
"Because each time you ascend further, the world intervenes. The threads resist you. The gods rewrite."
Her expression did not change, yet sorrow radiated from her like moonlight after a funeral.
"They fear you."
My jaw clenched. I had suspected this. Felt it in my bones—the weight of a destiny denied and denied until destiny bared its teeth.
"And you?" I whispered. "Do you fear me too?"
Eirin reached out.
I didn't stop her.
Foolish.
Or necessary.
Her fingertips touched my sternum—right where Lucien's blade once entered.
The world split.
I wasn't standing anymore.
I wasn't one anymore.
I was a thousand me's, layered atop each other like shattered stained glass.
A boy in chains, eyes hollow with dreams yet dreaming still.
A crowned warrior bathed in astral flame.
A corpse floating in void‑silence.
A blood‑soaked sovereign with stars for veins.
A laughing child holding a dragon egg.
A weeping tyrant kneeling before a throne of cosmic bone.
A monster.
A martyr.
A god.
All of them looking at me.
All of them me.
A scream crawled up my throat.
Not fear.
Recognition.
Eirin's voice echoed inside my skull, inside every version of me, inside every timeline where I rose and fell and bled and ascended:
"You are the Rift that remembers.
The Sovereign who refuses to stay dead.
The one destiny cannot cage."
My breath shattered.
"And you," she continued, softer now, almost reverent—
"are beginning to remember them."
The fragments of myself moved.
Not toward me.
Through me.
Memories slashed across my mind:
A god kneeling.
A throne cracking.
Stars screaming.
Lucien's blade pierces my chest—again and again and again through different cycles—
Seris' dagger at my throat, her tears burning like meteors—
Aeris hatching in my arms under three moons—
Umbra bowing before me in an empty universe—
And then one final memory:
My own hand tearing open reality, ripping existence like a veil, and stepping through while the world burned behind me.
I gasped.
The visions stopped.
And I collapsed to my knees, trembling, breath hitching like the air was too thin for mortality.
Eirin's hand hovered above me, still glowing faintly.
"You are dangerous now," she whispered. "Not because of what you can do."
Her eyes widened slightly, awe and dread intertwined.
"But because of what you are remembering."
I struggled to my feet. My voice came out raw, scraped hollow, yet heavy with something ancient.
"What do I become, Eirin?"
Her lips parted.
But she didn't answer.
Because she didn't have to.
The name blossomed in my mind like a forbidden star.
Sovereign.
Rift‑Sovereign.
Breaker of cycles.
Devourer of destiny.
Uncrowned god of endings‑and‑beginnings.
The future me.
The one I was always crawling toward with blood‑scraped fingers and teeth bared at fate.
Eirin stepped back—but only barely—like one would step away from a holy flame before deciding whether to kneel or burn.
"I will help you," she murmured. "As I always have. As I always will."
Then, soft as prayer, soft as warning:
"But next time you die, Aetherion… you will not return as you are."
Aeris trembled.
Lyra turned pale.
Kael's hand gripped his sword like a lifeline.
Seris watched me, horror and devotion locked in war.
I swallowed the truth like poison.
Death was no longer an ending.
It was evolution.
Eirin leaned close, her lips brushing my ear.
"You have one final life left before you ascend."
Everything in me froze.
"One," I breathed.
She nodded once.
"And Lucien knows."
My heart stopped.
The forest wind died.
The world held its breath—
—and somewhere far away, a spear of divine light ignited.
He was coming.
For my last life.
And I was not ready.
Not yet.
But I would be.
I would have to be.
Because this time…
I wasn't planning to die.
I was planning to become.