The silence that followed wasn't peaceful.
It was dense. Heavy. Like the breath of a sleeping god waiting to wake.
Kael stood at the lip of the recursion gate's vanishing point, the last echo of that entity's words still vibrating against the walls of his chest.
"To wake the origin.
And burn the simulation down."
The gate had closed behind them, dissolving like mist, leaving no trace it was ever there. Only the flickering afterimage remained in the air, like the ghost of a memory no one could name.
Ava exhaled first, her voice more strained than usual.
"Did that thing feel real to you?"
Kael didn't answer.
Because he didn't know.
Because it hadn't felt real—not like the pain of a broken rib or the tension in Letha's voice. It had felt older than real. Like a memory the universe itself had tried to forget.
He looked at his hands again.
Still his. Flesh and scar. But tinged now with something else. Some residue from the recursion. Not visual, not measurable—just... present.
