The steps coiled on and on downwards, chiseled into dark stone and encircled by pulsating runes. Time was disordered here. Kairos had no way of knowing if minutes or hours elapsed. The lower down, the more weighed his thoughts.
He wasn't just remembering past lives anymore—he was experiencing them.
There was a scream in the background of his mind.
A battlefield. Arrows in flight. Bloodied hands around a splintered sword hilt.
"Kairos," the voice from beyond the haze spoke at his back, urging him on. "You're skidding. Get a grip."
Grit his teeth, holding one hand tight around the stuck Flameheart through his chest. The heat attached to him kept at bay the storm of recall.
Down at the stairs they stepped out into a gigantic underground dome. Hovering boulders encircled the room with their marks of dead tongues. In the middle of the room floated a man cross-legged in the air, eyes closed, supported by a sphere of dreamlight.
Riven.
He seemed younger than two decades. Silver hair drifted on a wind that didn't exist. His complexion shone like starlight, as if he weren't entirely human.
"That's him," Arius replied. "But we've got an issue."
Riven's eyes opened wide—and everything dissolved.
The dome collapsed. The floor gave way. Abruptly, they weren't underground any longer. They were standing on a pillar of light over an endless sea, beneath a sky brimming with dying stars. The stairway behind them disappeared.
"Welcome to the Inbetween," Riven floated before them. His voice was odd, like numerous voices all simultaneously. "You sought answers. But to reach me, you must first survive… yourselves."
Arius unsheathed his sword. "Not another test."
"No," Riven replied quietly. "A reflection."
Mirrors burst up out of the sea. Dozens. Each showing a different Kairos.
But not illusions.
Regrets.
One showed Kairos leaving a child behind to save an army.
Another showed him killing Veyra in a past life to save a prophecy.
One showed him alone—love or power.
"They're fragments of your soul," Riven told him. "You can't leave them behind until you reclaim them."
Kairos faltered. The weight of it all rested on his chest.
"I'm tired of fighting myself."
Riven looked at him, hard. "Then stop fighting. Listen."
Kairos approached the mirrors one by one.
He spoke to his younger self, the boy who had run from war.
He wept with the one who lost Elira.
He seethed in the face of the tyrant—The Flame King—and asked why.
The answers were ugly. But they were true.
And truth, it was discovered, was power.
The mirrors broke. The ocean quieted. The stars condensed above them.
And Riven stepped forward at last, eyes aflame.
"You're ready."
Kairos drew a deep breath, the storm within him slowly ebbing.
"You'll help us?" he asked.
Riven nodded. "The Nexus lies beyond the veil of time. I can take you there. But the journey. requires sacrifice."
"What kind of sacrifice?" Arius asked.
Riven looked at Kairos. "One of your past lives has to stay behind. Forever. You can't take all of them across the portal."
Shock silence.
Kairos's head was reeling. Each life was part of himself. Part of his soul.
But he knew the cost of power. And what was to come.
"Then we make the decision," he said, with steel in his tone. "But not now. First… we resist."
Riven stretched out his hand—and the world altered once more. The dome regenerated. The dreamlight faded.
But first, Riven caught his breath: "The Circle has begun already. They're calling forth something older than any of us. If we don't arrive first at the Nexus. this war is fought in ash."
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