The emperor smiled from the highest balcony of Asterion.
Three thousand years separated him from the world below.
Three thousand years of forgotten wars.
Three thousand years of fallen kingdoms.
Three thousand years during which his empire had become little more than a collection of fragmented records inside dusty libraries.
Yet Aurelius Vael stood beneath the golden light of his palace as though only a single evening had passed.
And unlike the million people filling the streets beneath him...
He knew.
Kael felt it immediately.
There was awareness behind those distant eyes.
Not confusion.
Not fear.
Recognition.
The tiny heartbeat floated closer to Kael's shoulder.
"...He feels strange."
Kael kept his gaze on the emperor.
"How strange?"
The heartbeat remained silent for several moments.
"...There are too many people inside him."
Kael's expression changed.
Aren heard it.
"What does that mean?"
"...I don't know."
The tiny light trembled.
"...But they're hurting."
Selene immediately opened her book.
The pages turned violently.
AURELIUS VAEL.
The name appeared again.
Then vanished.
Appeared.
Vanished.
Appeared.
Hundreds of times.
Selene stared.
"Something's interfering."
Lyra looked toward the central palace.
"Magic?"
"No."
Selene shook her head.
"My book doesn't care about magic."
"Then what?"
"It can't decide whether he's one person."
Silence.
Aren slowly drew his sword completely.
"That's enough for me."
Kael placed one hand against Aren's arm.
"Not yet."
"You heard them."
"I did."
"More than one person inside him."
"I know."
Aren looked toward the terrified crowds.
"And he just ordered a million dead people to stay trapped inside that city."
Kael's eyes hardened.
"Which is why I want answers before we start cutting mountains."
Aren looked offended.
"I did that once."
Lyra glanced at him.
"That we know of."
Aren wisely stopped talking.
Another bell rang.
DONG!
The enormous gates of Asterion remained sealed.
Golden barriers rose over the walls.
Inside...
Chaos spread.
Citizens screamed.
Some demanded that the gates be opened.
Others fled toward temples.
Soldiers formed lines across the major streets.
Parents grabbed children and rushed home.
People continued staring at the unfamiliar stars.
Their final memory was cracking.
And once it broke completely...
Kael didn't know what would happen to them.
Then Aurelius spoke.
He didn't shout.
He didn't need to.
His voice emerged from every glowing symbol across the city.
"Kael."
The use of his name sent a chill through the group.
Aren immediately looked toward him.
"You've met?"
"No."
Lyra's eyes narrowed.
"Then how does he know you?"
Aurelius continued.
"Gardener of the Seventh Bloom."
Kael's hand moved instinctively toward his Gardener's Key.
The seventh flower glowed beneath his coat.
"Bearer of Tomorrow."
The heartbeat hid behind Kael's shoulder.
"Friend of the Witness."
Kael's expression became completely still.
There was no possible way an emperor who disappeared three thousand years ago should know any of those things.
Finally...
Aurelius laughed.
"Please."
"Come inside."
The gates opened.
The screaming citizens stopped.
Thousands turned toward the entrance simultaneously.
Kael felt every hair on his arms rise.
A path formed through the crowd.
No one had ordered them to move.
They simply did.
Men.
Women.
Children.
Soldiers.
Merchants.
All stepped aside.
More than a million faces slowly turned toward Kael.
Aren whispered,
"I officially hate this place."
Lyra raised one hand.
Mana gathered invisibly around them.
"I agree."
Selene hugged her book tighter.
"Unfortunately..."
"...we need to go inside."
Kael looked toward her.
"Why?"
She opened the book.
Another sentence had appeared.
ASTERION HAS 6 HOURS, 13 MINUTES REMAINING.
Kael's eyes narrowed.
"Remaining until what?"
Selene swallowed.
"There's another line."
She turned the page.
Until the city remembers how it died.
No one spoke.
Kael looked toward the distant palace.
Six hours.
"Let's go."
They crossed the gate.
The moment Kael entered Asterion...
The smell hit him.
Bread.
Spices.
Smoke.
Flowers.
Horse manure.
Hot metal from blacksmiths.
Thousands of ordinary smells belonging to a living city.
That somehow made everything worse.
These weren't corpses wandering through ruined streets.
They looked alive.
A young woman stood beside a fruit stall, clutching an apple against her chest.
She stared at Kael.
A little boy held his father's hand.
An elderly merchant quietly whispered a prayer.
None attacked.
None spoke.
They watched.
Kael continued walking.
Then the heartbeat suddenly moved.
"...Wait."
It flew toward the little boy.
Kael reached for it.
"Hey—"
Too late.
The tiny light stopped before the child.
The boy blinked.
"...Fairy?"
The heartbeat pulsed.
"...Hello."
The child's fear disappeared.
"You're pretty."
"...Thank you."
The boy's father immediately pulled him backward.
"Don't touch it."
The child frowned.
"But—"
"Lucan."
Kael froze.
Selene did too.
Her book opened.
LUCIAN MERO.
AGE: 7.
DECEASED.
The heartbeat slowly dimmed.
The child looked toward Kael.
"Mister..."
Kael forced himself to smile.
"Yeah?"
"Why is everyone scared?"
His father tightened his grip.
"Lucan, enough."
"But the stars are different."
The child looked upward.
"And Mama said stars don't move."
Kael knelt.
"They do."
Lucan's eyes widened.
"Really?"
"Really."
"Just very slowly."
"How slowly?"
Kael hesitated.
"...Sometimes slower than people notice."
Lucan considered this.
Then smiled.
"That's cool."
Kael smiled back.
"Yeah."
"It is."
The father stared at Kael.
There was suspicion in his eyes.
But beneath it...
Fear.
"How much?"
Kael looked at him.
"What?"
"How much time?"
The man had understood.
Kael didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
The father closed his eyes.
His hand tightened around his son's.
"...I see."
Lucan looked between them.
"Papa?"
The man smiled.
"Nothing."
He lifted the child into his arms.
"We're going home."
"But the Emperor said—"
"I know."
"We're going home anyway."
They disappeared into the crowd.
Kael watched them leave.
The heartbeat returned to his shoulder.
"...He's scared."
"Yes."
"...But he smiled."
Kael nodded.
"Sometimes that's what people do for someone they love."
The tiny heart remained quiet.
Another lesson.
Another small piece of humanity.
They continued.
As they moved deeper into Asterion, Kael noticed something else.
The city was enormous.
Modern capitals were crowded, built upward because walls restricted expansion.
Asterion had been different.
Wide avenues.
Public gardens.
Aqueducts suspended between buildings.
Floating lanterns powered by ancient mana crystals.
Statues depicting scholars rather than warriors.
Schools.
Libraries.
Hospitals.
It wasn't what Kael expected from the First Empire.
Lyra noticed his expression.
"Surprised?"
"A little."
"Modern history describes Aurelius as a conqueror."
"He was."
Selene answered.
"But not initially."
She opened her book.
"The early Asterion records describe him as a reformer."
Kael frowned.
"What changed?"
Selene looked toward the palace.
"No one knows."
"The final seventy years of his reign were erased."
The Watcher.
Kael immediately thought of it.
But something felt wrong.
"Erased when?"
"Before the city disappeared."
Kael stopped walking.
Lyra understood immediately.
"So the Watcher wasn't responsible."
Selene nodded.
"Whatever erased Aurelius's final years..."
"...did it while Asterion still existed."
Aren looked toward the palace.
"And I'm guessing the man up there knows why."
They reached the central district.
The palace stood before them.
Massive white pillars supported a structure covered in golden vines.
There were no guards at the entrance.
The doors opened by themselves.
Kael entered first.
The interior was silent.
No servants.
No soldiers.
Only thousands of portraits.
Kael slowed.
Every painting depicted Aurelius.
But...
Different versions.
A young Aurelius smiling beside farmers.
A warrior Aurelius covered in blood.
An older Aurelius standing before a burning city.
Another sitting beside a dying woman.
Another holding an infant.
Another kneeling before something enormous hidden in darkness.
Hundreds.
Thousands.
The further they walked...
The darker the paintings became.
Finally...
They entered the throne room.
Aurelius waited.
He sat upon no throne.
Instead...
The ancient emperor stood beside a small wooden table.
Five cups of tea had been prepared.
Kael counted them.
Five.
Kael.
Aren.
Lyra.
Selene.
And...
The heartbeat slowly peeked from behind Kael.
A tiny sixth cup appeared.
Aurelius smiled.
"My apologies."
"I wasn't certain whether our youngest guest drank tea."
The heartbeat whispered,
"...I don't know."
Aurelius's smile became warmer.
"Then today is an excellent day to discover it."
Kael did not move.
"Who are you?"
The emperor's smile faded.
"A difficult question."
"You know who I am."
"I know your name."
Kael looked toward Selene.
"Her book doesn't know what you are."
Aurelius's eyes moved toward the enormous book.
For the first time...
Genuine sadness appeared on his face.
"Ah."
"The Keeper of Names."
Selene stiffened.
"You know what I've become?"
"I knew the first."
Silence.
Selene's fingers tightened around the book.
"The first?"
Aurelius slowly walked toward the table.
He poured tea.
"Three thousand years ago..."
"...there were four of us."
Kael felt something cold settle inside his stomach.
Aurelius placed the kettle down.
"A Gardener."
"A Sword."
"A Magician."
"And a Keeper of Names."
No one moved.
Aren's expression changed.
Lyra stared.
Selene stopped breathing.
The similarities were impossible to ignore.
Aurelius looked toward them one after another.
"Do you understand now?"
Kael slowly asked,
"Understand what?"
Aurelius smiled sadly.
"You aren't the first."
The room became deathly quiet.
"You are..."
"...the second attempt."
The seventh blossom beneath Kael's coat pulsed violently.
Aren's sword answered.
Lyra's mana moved.
Selene's book opened.
All four reacted simultaneously.
Aurelius watched them.
Then he whispered,
"Exactly the same."
Kael stepped forward.
"What happened to the first four?"
The emperor looked toward one of the enormous windows.
Outside...
Asterion continued screaming.
"One became the Last Observer."
Kael froze.
"One became the Watcher."
Lyra's face went pale.
"One became the first Keeper of the Dead."
Selene looked down at her book.
"And the Gardener?"
Aurelius said nothing.
Kael stared at him.
Then realization struck.
"No..."
Aurelius slowly turned.
For the first time, the ancient emperor's perfect composure cracked.
Tears filled his eyes.
He smiled.
Brokenly.
Exhaustedly.
Humanly.
"I've waited three thousand years..."
He looked directly at Kael.
"...for someone to ask me that."
Behind Aurelius...
His shadow moved.
Not with him.
It rose.
Higher.
Higher.
Until an enormous figure stretched across the throne room wall.
Seven broken branches emerged from its back.
And upon each branch...
Hung thousands of human souls.
The heartbeat screamed.
"...KAEL!"
Aurelius closed his eyes.
Then whispered the truth.
"I was the Gardener."