Kael sprinted down the fractured museum corridor, gripping the Keystone tightly. It pulsed in his arms like a living heart, each thrum syncing with the pounding of his own.
Behind them, the Architect's sentinel—the Eye—moved like a virus given form. Walls crumbled as it passed. Lights blinked and died in its wake. Gravity lost meaning.
"Elara, this thing's gaining on us!" Reeva shouted, blasting another energy bolt that dispersed into blue static.
"We need altitude!" Elara yelled back. "Get to the roof!"
They tore through the stairwell. The higher they climbed, the more the Eye distorted its surroundings. Kael glanced down and saw the steps below folding into an impossible spiral. Space was unraveling behind them.
"Almost there!" Reeva called.
They burst through the rooftop door—and were greeted by a nightmarish skyline. New York twisted into a cyclone of debris and memory. Floating chunks of other Earths drifted above them, crashing like slow-motion meteors. The multiverse was bleeding into this dead city.
"Now what?" Kael asked, panting.
Elara snapped the stabilizer rod into the base of the Keystone. "We can't outrun it. But we can reset the field. I need thirty seconds to tune the drift harmonics."
"That thing's not giving us thirty seconds," Reeva said, turning to fire at the stairwell.
The Eye emerged.
Its form had changed—growing taller, broader. It sprouted wings made of data streams and sound, its voice echoing from nowhere and everywhere.
"Return what was taken. Or be unmade."
Kael stepped forward, defiant. "We're not giving you anything."
The Eye raised a hand.
The rooftop cracked.
Kael braced himself—until something unexpected happened.
The Keystone glowed blindingly bright.
Suddenly, Kael wasn't on the rooftop anymore.
He stood in a vast white void, floating. Around him spun fragments of himself—hundreds of Kaels from alternate lives. A soldier. A scientist. A villain. A child. A corpse.
One of them stepped forward.
"You're not ready," he said. "But you don't have a choice."
Kael blinked. "What is this?"
"The Keystone. It's communing with you. We are its echoes."
Another version of him—wearing a shattered mask—nodded. "You hold the power to bind or break the Drift. But you must choose what kind of anchor you will be."
Kael tried to breathe—but he wasn't breathing. Not really.
Then, a flash—he was back.
The rooftop exploded as the Eye unleashed a temporal blast.
Kael reacted on instinct.
He raised the Keystone.
A wave of golden energy surged outward, shielding Reeva and Elara as the Eye screeched and recoiled.
The blast knocked the sentinel off the edge. It didn't fall—it disappeared, blinked out like a deleted file.
Kael dropped to his knees.
Reeva ran to him. "What the hell was that?"
"I don't know," he whispered, "but the Keystone chose me."
Elara stepped closer. "Then you're the Driftbearer now."
Kael looked up. "What does that mean?"
"It means," she said grimly, "you're no longer just part of the war. You're the only thing keeping the multiverse from collapsing."
Lightning cracked above them. In the distance, another rift opened in the sky.