The fall never ended. It only changed shape.
Caelum plunged through the shattering remains of the Celestial Archive, fragments of starlight whipping past him like burning snow. The voice—cold, ancient, remembering—echoed through every crack in the collapsing realm.
"Caelum Aetheris."
He twisted mid‑air, but there was no ground. No sky. Only a spiral of broken memories swirling around a single point of darkness far below.
"Come to me."
Caelum's heartbeat stuttered. "No—no, I'm done running."
The Emissary's voice cut through the chaos. "Do not answer him! The seal is not yet broken!"
"He already found me!" Caelum shouted.
The darkness pulsed.
"He always would."
The Archive convulsed violently. Books screamed—actual, physical books—shedding pages of stored existence. Constellation‑paths buckled. Aetheric bridges snapped.
The Emissary appeared at Caelum's side in a flare of blue fire. "Hold on!"
"To what?!"
The Emissary grabbed his arm. Light seared against shadow. "Yourself. Before he does."
The void below them opened like an eye.
THE FALL ENDS
They slammed down onto solid ground—stone, cold and trembling. Caelum gasped and rolled onto his hands and knees.
The Archive was gone.
Or rather—this was a piece of it. A surviving shard. A floating island of obsidian shelves suspended in a star‑drenched void.
The Emissary landed beside him, wavering. Its once‑radiant form flickered like a dying lantern.
"Where are we?" Caelum asked.
"A fragment. The Archive's core memory vault." The Emissary lifted its face to the trembling air. "He is forcing his way in."
The sky—or what passed for one—split with a crack. A fissure of pure shadow veined across the void.
Caelum's breath froze.
"That's him," he whispered.
The Emissary stepped forward. "Listen to me. Whatever happens, do not speak your name to him. Not the one you were. Not the one you are."
"Why?"
"Because names have power. And your true one is the key he needs to unseal what you locked away."
"Which is?"
The Emissary turned to him—and for the first time, Caelum saw fear.
"You."
Before Caelum could respond, the fissure tore wider.
THE PRESENCE ARRIVES
The void dimmed.
Light bent.
And a silhouette stepped through the fissure.
It wasn't a creature. It wasn't a person. It was a shape carved from absence—humanoid only because Caelum's mind demanded it be something.
Darkness swirled around it like a galaxy of dead stars.
"Caelum Aetheris." The voice was velvet and void. "You hid well."
Caelum couldn't breathe. His knees shook. His pulse screamed.
The presence took another step.
The Emissary threw out an arm, a shield of aether shaping around them. "You do not belong here!"
The darkness only smiled.
"Child of memory. You cannot stop what is returning."
He lifted a hand.
The Emissary's shield cracked.
Caelum staggered backward. "Who—what are you?"
The shadow turned its head slowly toward him.
"I am what you made."
The words struck him harder than any blow.
"What I… made?"
"Yes. You forged me in the final war. When you realized the Harbinger was not the threat."
Images surged through Caelum's mind—fire, broken stars, a ruined throne. His older self collapsing beneath the weight of a dying sky.
"You created me," the entity said. "To kill the Harbinger. To kill everything he touched."
The darkness smiled.
"But you gave me purpose without limits."
The Emissary shouted, "Caelum—do not listen!"
The shadow raised a hand.
The Emissary was hurled across the platform, crashing into a spire of shattered memories.
Caelum's heart stopped.
"Stop!" he cried.
The shadow stilled.
"Ah. There it is." Its voice dripped with satisfaction. "The command tone. You used it last time too."
"What do you want from me?" Caelum demanded, voice shaking but steady.
The darkness stepped closer. "I want what you stole from me."
He reached out a hand.
"Your unfinished name."
The Crown above Caelum's head flared violently, runes sparking in protest.
Caelum staggered. "My name… is Caelum Vale."
"No." The shadow leaned forward, face inches from his. "That is the name you wasted on mortality."
The ground quaked. Memory shards cracked.
"Speak the one you sealed."
"I don't remember it!" Caelum shouted.
"Ah." The shadow's grin widened. "Then let me show you."
A tendril of darkness shot forward.
Caelum couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.
Darkness touched his forehead.
And the world detonated.
THE NAME
Flashes. Worlds. Battles. Choices. Mistakes.
He saw himself—older, brighter, crowned with aetheric light—standing before this very shadow.
His older self whispered a single word.
A name. Caelum's name. His true name.
The moment Caelum heard it—
The Crown exploded with light. The platform cracked. The darkness recoiled with a hiss.
Caelum screamed— Not in pain. In recognition.
The name burned through him like a star finding its core.
His power surged—raw, waking, remembering.
The shadow snarled. "Not yet—he cannot awaken yet!"
The fissure behind it warped violently. A force pulled against the darkness.
The Emissary—broken, flickering—rose to its knees. It whispered one word.
"Run."
The platform collapsed into the void. Light swallowed everything.