The path was thin and fragile beneath Kael's boots—a bridge of crystallized memory, every step flickering with images from broken timelines. Some were familiar; most were not.
He held Aeris close, her body still trembling from the violent rupture within. Each time her pulse surged, it carried not one life—but dozens—flickering through her skin like trapped souls clawing for space. Her breath had become shallow, as if inhaling time that didn't belong to her.
Dray followed behind, silent, his eyes darting across the endless abyss. The mage's runes had dimmed, almost… reverent, like even magic dared not speak in this place.
"This bridge," Kael muttered, "it's made from choices."
Dray nodded grimly. "Unmade ones. Rejected paths. Things you almost did. Or wished you hadn't."
Kael stepped carefully as images sparked beneath him:
His hand around Aeris's throat, eyes hollow with betrayal.
A battlefield where he killed Dray.
Himself… seated on a throne of broken timelines, watching the universe collapse with indifference.
He forced himself to look away.
Aeris stirred in his arms, her voice faint. "Kael…"
He looked down.
Her eyes weren't hers.
They were blue and red—two timelines competing for control.
"I saw her again," Aeris whispered. "The other me."
Kael didn't ask which one. He knew she meant the creature from the Hall—the Aeris with the void-eyes and smile like a weapon.
"She called herself Eira," Aeris murmured. "Said she's what I would've become if I embraced the Rift's power without mercy. If I had chosen destruction over balance."
Kael's jaw tightened. "She's not you."
"No," Aeris agreed, "but she was me… somewhere."
A gust of memory wind blew across the bridge, carrying laughter—not cruel, but chilling. It was Aeris's voice. But not from her mouth.
Dray froze.
"Someone's here."
As if on cue, the air split open with a soundless scream—a long mirror rising from the void like a monolith, its frame jagged, woven with gold thread and bones. Its surface shimmered like disturbed water.
Kael instinctively drew his blade. The mirror pulsed, then showed them—
Aeris standing alone. Crowned.
The world behind her burned. Cities fell upward. Time screamed in reverse. Her skin glowed with the full power of the Rift, and in her hand was Kael's sword, blood still fresh along the edge.
"No…" Aeris whispered. "That's not—"
The image flickered—replaced by another:
Kael kneeling at Eira's feet, eyes glazed, strings of time wound around his limbs like a puppet.
"You chose wrong," said a voice behind them.
They turned.
Eira stood at the edge of the bridge, the void parting around her like royalty returning home. Her hair floated weightless, her eyes twin black holes, swallowing light and truth alike.
"I offered you a world," she said, stepping forward, "where you didn't have to bleed to be strong. Where no one had to die for balance. Where you could be free of fate's leash."
Kael put himself between her and Aeris. "You're not her."
Eira smiled. "I'm more her than she is. I made peace with what she hides."
Her gaze drifted to Aeris. "You think you're noble. A flame dancing on a wire. But you forget, little spark—the flame that burns the longest is the one that accepts the dark it's made of."
Aeris forced herself upright, wobbling.
"I won't become you."
Eira tilted her head. "You already are."
Without warning, the mirror shattered—and from its shards, hundreds of Eira's echoes burst out, each one from a timeline where Aeris lost control. Some were gods. Some were monsters. All of them wore her face.
Kael and Aeris stood back to back as they began to circle.
Dray raised his hands, chanting a binding spell—but the runes flickered and died before they could ignite.
The echoes closed in.
Then—
Boom.
The bridge beneath them cracked violently, and a massive pulse of energy erupted from Aeris—a ring of white and gold, blazing from her chest and flinging the echoes into the abyss.
When the light faded, Aeris collapsed into Kael's arms again, blood at the corner of her mouth.
Eira was gone.
But her voice echoed one last time through the void.
"You can't run from what you are. Every choice you've made…...I've already lived."
Kael held Aeris close.
She was burning up now, glowing faintly, like her body was starting to reject linear time altogether.
"We need to get out," he muttered. "Now."
But the bridge behind them was gone. The void had closed it off.
Only one direction remained:
Forward.
Where, in the distance, an ancient gate hung suspended in the dark—carved with symbols older than time, pulsing in sync with Aeris's heartbeat.
Dray approached cautiously. "The Gate of Origin," he breathed.
Kael frowned. "Origin of what?"
Dray's face was pale. "The first choice. The one that created time."