Kael woke screaming.
The sound tore out of him before he knew where he was, before his eyes opened, before his body remembered how to exist. His throat burned. His heart felt like it had tried to beat its way out of his chest.
Hands grabbed his shoulders.
"Kael! Kael—look at me!"
Lysandra's voice cut through the panic like a blade through fog.
He sucked in air, ragged and painful, eyes snapping open.
Stone ceiling. Vein-light crawling faintly through the cracks. The massive cavern from before lay quiet now—too quiet. The central node had dimmed to a dull, unstable glow, its fracture sealed but angry, like a wound scabbed over too fast.
He was lying on the ground.
Alive.
Barely.
"You were convulsing," Lysandra said, still gripping him. "You stopped breathing for almost half a minute."
Kael swallowed hard. His hands were shaking violently.
"She was here," he whispered.
Lysandra stiffened. "Who?"
"The girl."
The air seemed to thicken.
Kael pushed himself upright, ignoring the wave of nausea. His head throbbed with a deep, rhythmic pain, like something knocking from inside his skull.
"She wasn't just a vision," he said. "She spoke to me."
Lysandra's eyes narrowed. "What did she say?"
Kael hesitated.
Because it wasn't what she'd said that terrified him.
It was how familiar she felt.
"She called me by a name," he said quietly. "Not Kael."
The Veins hummed softly, almost imperceptibly, like they were listening.
Lysandra stood, pacing a few steps away. "Describe her."
He closed his eyes.
Immediately, she was there.
White hair drifting as if underwater. Skin luminous, almost translucent. Eyes the same color as the Veins when they surged—blue-white, endless.
And her face—
Kael's breath caught.
"She looks like me," he said. "Same bone structure. Same eyes. Same mouth."
Lysandra stopped cold.
"But she's female," he continued. "Older. And younger at the same time. Like… like she's me if the world made a different choice."
Silence stretched between them.
"That's impossible," Lysandra said, but there was no conviction in it.
Kael pressed his fingers to his temple. The pain flared.
"She was crying," he whispered. "She kept saying she was sorry. That she tried to stop it. That she didn't know it would hurt so many people."
Images bled into his thoughts again—uninvited.
Cities breaking. Light tearing continents apart. People running, screaming, vanishing.
Kael gasped and doubled over.
Lysandra was at his side instantly. "Enough. Don't chase it."
"I'm not," he said hoarsely. "It's chasing me."
The relic beneath his coat pulsed once, warm and deliberate.
Lysandra noticed. Her hand went to her blade.
"It's syncing with you faster," she said. "That's bad."
"Bad how?"
She met his eyes. "Because the Veins don't awaken memories unless they want something back."
A sudden sharp tone rang through the cavern.
Not loud.
Precise.
Intentional.
The Veins shifted again.
Symbols ignited along the walls, forming a circular pattern Kael hadn't seen before—more refined, more deliberate. A platform slid upward from the floor, ancient mechanisms grinding as if unused for centuries.
At its center hovered a crystalline recorder.
Lysandra inhaled sharply. "No…"
"What is it?" Kael asked.
Her voice was barely above a whisper. "A pre-Sundering archive."
The recorder flickered.
A projection burst to life.
A figure appeared in the air—holographic, unstable, but unmistakably human.
Kael felt the blood drain from his face.
It was him.
Not exactly—but close enough that his knees nearly gave out.
The hologram stood tall, expression cold, eyes glowing faintly. Vein-symbols crawled across his skin like living circuitry. Behind him, continents burned.
The image stuttered.
Then stabilized.
And the figure spoke.
> "If you are seeing this, then the cycle has reached instability."
Kael couldn't breathe.
Lysandra stared in horror.
> "The hero must die."
The words echoed through the chamber, amplified by the Veins themselves.
Kael shook his head. "No. No, that's not—"
The recording continued, emotionless, merciless.
> "I failed to end it cleanly. I failed to erase myself completely."
The hologram turned slightly, revealing the devastation behind him—cities collapsing into light, oceans boiling, skies tearing open.
> "If Kael Arden survives, the Veins will complete what I began."
Lysandra took an unsteady step back.
"That's… a kill order," she whispered. "Encoded into the system."
The hologram's gaze snapped forward again—locking directly onto Kael.
> "I am the proof."
The projection shifted.
For a fraction of a second, the image overlapped—
The girl.
The same white-haired girl Kael had seen.
Her face aligned perfectly with his.
Same eyes.
Same sorrow.
Same bone-deep exhaustion.
Then the final image resolved.
Kael—older, colder—raising his hand.
The continents fell.
The projection ended abruptly.
The chamber went dark.
Silence crashed down like a tomb.
Kael sank to his knees.
"That's not me," he whispered. "That can't be me."
Lysandra didn't answer.
She was staring at the space where the hologram had been, her face pale, lips parted.
Because deep down—
she knew.
The Veins pulsed again.
This time, alarms screamed.
Red light flooded the tunnels.
Far above them, boots thundered.
Voices echoed through the shafts.
"Target located!" "Sunbound soldiers—move in!" "Orders confirmed: eliminate Kael Arden on sight!"
Kael looked up, terror and disbelief colliding in his chest.
"They're here," he said.
Lysandra snapped out of her shock instantly, blade flashing into her hand.
"Then listen to me very carefully," she said, grabbing his arm.
"Because from this moment on—"
The tunnel entrance exploded inward in a shower of stone and light.
Sunbound Sentinels poured in, rifles raised.
Lysandra dragged Kael backward into the shadows as energy bolts scorched the air where they'd stood.
"—you're no longer a hero."
Her eyes burned with something fierce and unresolved.
"You're a liability."