The world returned in pieces.
Starlight. A heartbeat. A memory that wasn't his.
Caelum hit the floor of the Celestial Archive hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs. He gasped and braced himself—but the ground kept shifting beneath him, as if the Archive couldn't decide what gravity meant.
The Emissary stood above him, its voice calm. "You saw the first fracture. Now you understand why the seal was placed."
Caelum pushed himself upright. "I saw… me. A version of me. Older. Fighting something worse than the Harbinger."
"Not fighting," the Emissary corrected. "Fleeing."
Before Caelum could respond, the Archive pulsed. Shelves bent and twisted into spirals of shimmering runes. A new corridor formed—a narrow, trembling hallway of dark blue glass.
"The second memory awaits."
Caelum stepped forward.
The Emissary didn't follow.
"This one you must walk alone."
THE GLASS CORRIDOR
Every step Caelum took echoed like a dropped stone in a cavern. The glass walls reflected not his face, but dozens of possible faces—older, younger, scarred, empty-eyed, crowned.
One reflection stopped him cold.
A version of himself stood with the Crown blazing upon his brow—but his eyes were black voids.
Caelum shuddered and moved on.
At the end of the corridor, a door appeared. Not made of glass, but of memory itself—shifting images flickering across its surface.
Him laughing with Lyra. Astra sparring with him. Aradia smiling softly. Seraphine arguing about strategy. Elowen's quiet gaze.
Then—
Fire.
A world burning.
Caelum touched the door. It dissolved.
THE SECOND MEMORY
He stood in a throne room made of starlight and ruin.
Walls cracked. Constellations dim. A Crown—his Crown—rested on a shattered pedestal.
A figure knelt in the center.
Not a stranger. Not a monster.
Caelum.
But older again. Worn. Bleeding golden light from wounds that didn't heal.
The older Caelum lifted his head slowly. His voice was sand and sorrow.
"You shouldn't have come."
Caelum stepped forward. "What is this place?"
"The last place I saw before I erased myself."
Caelum's breath caught. "You erased your memories… on purpose?"
"To stop him."
"Who?"
"Not the Harbinger." Older Caelum's voice cracked. "Someone I failed to kill. Someone who needed me… naive."
The room trembled violently. Darkness pooled behind the throne.
A shape coiled inside it. Alive. Aware. Watching.
Older Caelum staggered to his feet. "You need to leave. Now. If he sees you—if he remembers you—your seal will break."
Caelum's pulse thundered. "Seal?"
"You are living behind a lock I forged with the last of my strength." The older version grabbed his shoulders. "I killed worlds trying to defeat him. I killed myself to keep him from reaching you."
The darkness behind the throne shifted. Listening.
Older Caelum hissed in panic. "Go!"
The memory cracked. Reality bent.
Caelum felt himself being pulled backward—away from the darkness, away from the ruined throne, away from the broken future he never knew he'd lived.
As the world shattered, one last whisper reached him.
"Don't trust the Crown."
BACK IN THE ARCHIVE
Caelum collapsed onto the starlit floor, shaking. His hands glowed faintly with golden cracks—echoes of the wounds from the memory.
The Emissary watched him. "You saw more than intended."
Caelum looked up, voice hoarse. "That thing in the throne room. What was it?"
The Emissary hesitated. A rare crack in its composure.
"The Harbinger," it said slowly, "was created to fight something. And that something… survived."
Caelum's heart dropped.
"You mean—"
"Yes." The Emissary bowed its head. "The Harbinger is not the final enemy. It is the warning."
Before Caelum could reply, the entire Archive shook. Hard.
Shelves ripped apart. Stars dimmed.
A voice—cold, familiar, ancient—echoed across the halls.
"Caelum Aetheris."
The Emissary froze. "No. He found you."
The voice deepened.
"I remember you now."
The starlit floor cracked beneath Caelum.
"Come to me," the voice whispered.
The Archive shattered.