The plateau burned in silence. Not from fire. From memory.
The repeater signal crackled in the ruins of the Shardbone network, flooding the world with raw, untethered recollections, names, places, moments that the Supreme order had spent centuries trying to erase.
Reven stood in the centre of it all, blood dripping from a shallow cut across his brow, the vault shards on his back humming a slow, steady rhythm.
Kaela knelt nearby, her arms shaking slightly as she wiped her blades clean against the torn cloak of a fallen enforcer.
Lirien crouched behind broken stone, her wings folded tight, her breath ragged.
The battle was over. But the war was just beginning. Across the plains, the harmonized soldiers fell back. Not by command. By instinct.
The link had collapsed. Their perfect unity fractured. And with it, their false peace.
Some stumbled blindly into the wilds. Others simply sat down, hands pressed to their heads, as if trying to hold the weight of returning memory inside bones not built to carry it.
They weren't enemies anymore. They were survivors. Just like everyone else.
Reven exhaled slowly.
The Rift scar overhead pulsed, once, twice, then steadied into a dim glow. Not closing. Not widening.
Settling. The world wasn't healed but, it was awake.
Kaela dropped beside him with a grunt. She offered him a strip of cloth for the bleeding cut.
"You look terrible," she said.
Reven took the cloth with a dry smile. "You should see the other guy."
She chuckled once, low and tired, and leaned back against the shattered stone.
Lirien joined them a moment later, silent but present. She didn't have to say anything. Her presence was enough.
Together, they sat there, on the bones of a world that had tried so hard to forget itself and failed.
Because of him.
Because of them.
Because some memories were heavier than silence.
Hours later, when the first tribes crept back into the ruined valleys, Beast-Kin, Scavengers, even old Skyborn descendants, they didn't find conquerors waiting.
They found survivors and something else. A symbol.
Whispers moved through the gathering groups, quiet and uncertain:
"The Wanderer."
"The one who remembered."
"The anchor that broke the silence."
Reven didn't correct them. He didn't claim the title. He didn't claim anything at all. He just stood when his strength returned, gathered his weapons, and looked out over the horizon.
The world was broken but, it was free and freedom, he had learned, was heavier than chains.
At sunset, they left the plateau behind. No banners. No declarations. Only footprints in ash and earth.
As they walked, Kaela nudged Reven lightly with her shoulder.
"You think it'll last?" she asked.
"No," Reven said honestly.
She smirked. "Good. I'd hate to get bored."
Lirien walked ahead, silent, the faintest curve of a smile touching her lips.
Reven tightened the harness straps across his back, feeling the shards pulse once more, a heartbeat he would never forget.
He wasn't a weapon.
He wasn't a mistake.
He wasn't a relic of a dead world.
He was what remained when memory refused to die.
He was the Wanderer.
And his story was only just beginning.