Chapter 61: Shadows in the Wound of Time
The Cathedral of Truth had not yet healed. It stood in silence, a monument to what the cosmos once believed was immutable. But silence, in a world rent by the Rift, was never a lack of noise. It was memory. Waiting.
Kael could feel it breathing.
The wind that swept through the bone-pillared ruins carried whispers that had no language. They were impressions: a mother's scream, a child's last question, the sound of a sword dropped by a man who could no longer kill. Kael moved slowly through the shadows, each step stirring ghosts.
He had not returned here since the Thread shattered. Fifty years of exile, myth, and blame had passed. Now, they called him many names. In the Wastes, he was Saint Kael the Mad. In Terra's deepest hollows, he was Kael the Riftbringer. To himself, he was only Kael.
And Kael was tired.
Ash fell like snow from the cathedral's broken spires. Beneath his boots, glyphs cracked and twisted in the floor like veins of regret. He knelt before the altar, though no god remained to answer, and laid down a single coin.
A Rift-Coin.
Etched into it was a memory not his own—a dying woman clutching a photograph that had never been taken. It shimmered, unstable. Like everything else.
"You shouldn't be here," a voice said behind him. It wasn't threatening. It was mournful.
Kael didn't look up. "And yet, here I am. Like all cursed things. Drawn back."
Ashriel stepped from the broken nave, his silver armor dulled with time and sin. He looked older, not in face, but in bearing. The weight of all the timelines had carved new lines in his stance.
"The Rift still calls to you?"
Kael smirked. "Did it ever stop?"
Ashriel approached and stood beside him. Together, they watched the last fragment of the Thread—still suspended in a field of frozen time. It pulsed faintly, like a wounded heart.
"They're gathering again," Ashriel said. "Elaris sent word. The Abyss has started leaking into the Mirrorlands. Lucien is missing. And the Order of Forgetting no longer answers."
"Eris has her reasons."
"Do you still trust her?"
Kael didn't answer. He stared into the thread.
Then, quietly: "No. But I remember when I did. And that memory still burns truer than any truth she could tell me now."
Ashriel nodded, silently understanding.
They walked through the remnants of the cathedral, their boots echoing against cracked marble and shattered stained glass. Each window once told a part of the cosmos' story—now, only shards remained. A face here. A crown there. The broken foot of a giant long slain.
In the Chapel of Whispers, Kael paused. The walls bled light. Not metaphorically—they wept actual luminescence, soft tendrils curling through the air like liquid memory.
"This place shouldn't exist anymore," Ashriel said.
"Neither should we."
Kael reached out and touched the light. It recoiled, as if recognizing him. Or fearing him.
Suddenly, a tremor. Not of the earth, but of thought.
Voices flooded the chamber. Echoes from timelines that never were. Kael screaming at himself. Lucien begging for forgiveness. Eris laughing, then sobbing. Sameer—younger, hopeful—saying, "I can fix it. I swear."
Kael fell to one knee. The Rift was awake.
Ashriel drew his blade. Not because he feared Kael, but because the Rift respected sharp things.
"Hold on," Ashriel said, bracing his friend. "You have to anchor. Use a memory."
Kael grasped onto one.
A girl, on a hill, holding a red kite against a cobalt sky. Her laughter was a bell. Her name was Asha.
He breathed. The voices fell silent.
Ashriel helped him up. "You're getting worse."
"No. I'm remembering too well. The Rift punishes truth."
"Then why come back here?"
Kael looked at the remaining thread. "Because it's not done with me. And I—I need to ask it something."
Ashriel waited.
Kael stepped to the thread, placed his hand upon the broken light, and whispered, "What am I without it?"
The thread pulsed. Once.
A shockwave erupted. The cathedral fell into color inversion—blacks became white, shadows became light, sound inverted into silence. And from that silence, a shape emerged.
It was not a being.
It was an answer.
A mirror.
Kael saw himself.
But not as he was.
This version wore robes instead of armor. A halo of threadlight floated above his brow. His eyes held no hate. No memory.
"Who are you?" Kael whispered.
The mirror-Kael spoke.
"I am the you who never broke."
Ashriel stepped back. This was not supposed to happen.
Kael clenched his fists. "Then you are a lie."
"No," the mirror-Kael said. "I am your truth. You chose this path. But you could have chosen mine."
"Then why show me now?"
"Because the second thread has been found. And it will offer all of us a choice. Again."
Kael's eyes narrowed. "Where?"
The mirror faded.
In its place, a map etched itself into the cathedral floor. Seven points of light. Seven temporal zones. One central spiral.
Ashriel gasped. "It's the Spiral of Aeons. I thought it was a myth."
Kael turned to him. "We leave at dawn. Gather the others. We need to speak to the child."
"The Riftborn orphan?"
"No. Not an orphan. A key."
As they left the cathedral, the light behind them dimmed. The last fragment of the thread floated upward and vanished into the stars. Somewhere, far away, the Order of Forgetting burned another city into memorylessness.
And in the wastes beyond Terra, Eris opened her eyes.
She had seen the vision too.
The Second Thread was calling.
And this time, not everyone would survive remembering.