The shard burned in Elara's palm, its edges shifting like liquid metal. Tiny veins of violet light pulsed beneath its surface, matching the rhythm of her own heartbeat.
Kael reached out, then hesitated. "It's singing."
Elara frowned. "I don't hear anything."
"Not with your ears." He tapped his temple. "With this."
The silver crown on his brow shimmered in response, its glow intensifying. The moment the two fragments resonated, the shard in Elara's hand jumped, embedding itself into the amulet's chain around her wrist.
The fusion sent a shockwave through both of them. Elara's vision whited out as memories not her own flooded her mind:
_A silver-haired woman weeping over a broken throne_
_A child with Kael's eyes swallowing a shard of darkness_
_A door—not of wood or iron, but of flesh—slowly peeling open_
When she came to, she was on her knees, Kael gripping her shoulders. His pupils were blown wide, his breathing ragged.
"You saw it too," she gasped.
He nodded, face grim. "The door. And what's behind it."
The vision led them to Ilthoris—or what remained of it.
Once a gleaming metropolis of white spires, now a graveyard of shattered architecture. The buildings hadn't simply collapsed; they looked dissolved, their edges too smooth, as if some great acid had eaten away at reality itself.
Kael's boot kicked up a swirl of iridescent dust. "This wasn't war. This was erasure."
Elara's mark prickled as they reached the city center. There, standing amidst the ruins, was a figure in tattered silver robes.
The moment he turned, she knew.
"Another Keeper," Kael muttered.
But this one was different. His eyes were sewn shut with golden thread, his lips stitched into a permanent smile. When he spoke, the voice came not from his mouth, but from the ruins themselves:
"The key demands balance. Light for dark. Memory for truth. What will you sacrifice?"
The Keeper's price was simple: a day.
Not a day of their lives. A day erased from history.
"You're asking us to undo something that's already happened," Elara said slowly.
The Keeper's smile stretched impossibly wider. "All doors swing both ways."
Kael crossed his arms. "Which day?"
"The day the Bastard Prince was born."
The air left Elara's lungs. She turned to Kael, but his expression had gone terrifyingly blank.
"You can't be serious," she said.
The Keeper tilted his head. "No sacrifice, no truth."
Kael's voice was eerily calm. "Do it."
The ritual required blood—theirs mixed together in a basin of black stone. As the liquid swirled, the Keeper began to unravel time itself.
Elara felt it like a hook in her navel, yanking her backward through her own life. She saw flashes:
_Herself at twelve, stealing a kiss from a stable boy_
_Kael at fifteen, carving his first kill into his skin_
_The moment their paths first crossed—except now, it was different_
In the new version of events, Kael had never been born. His father's line ended that night. And without the Bastard Prince to oppose him, the God-King's cult had spread unchecked.
The world was darker. Colder.
And Elara—
Elara was alone.
She came back to herself screaming, clutching at Kael's arm like a drowning woman. He wasn't faring much better; sweat poured down his face, his fingers leaving bruises where they gripped her.
The Keeper watched, satisfied. "Now you understand the balance."
Elara spat blood onto the stones. "We're not your pawns."
"No." The Keeper's stitches strained as he smiled. "You're the hands that turn the key. And the door is almost open."
He collapsed then, his body dissolving into golden dust. Where he'd stood, a new shard hovered—this one darker than the others, its edges blurred like smoke.
Kael reached for it.
The moment his fingers touched the surface, the crown on his brow screamed.
The glamour shattered.
What had appeared as silver now showed its true form: a band of twisted shadows, its surface writhing with faces trapped in eternal agony. The crown wasn't just a fragment of power.
It was a cage.
And the voices inside were getting louder.
Elara grabbed Kael's wrist. "We need to go. Now."
He didn't argue. The crown's whispers followed them out of the ruined city, growing more insistent with every step:
"Let us out. Let us in. Let us free."