The train tunnel was silent after Madalena left.
Lucien leaned against the wall, arms crossed, his eyes on Amara like he expected her to break.
She didn't.
She stared down at the photograph, studying every detail of the face she hadn't seen in lifetimes.
"She doesn't look like me," Amara said finally.
"Not anymore," Lucien replied. "She's changed."
"No. She chose."
The woman in the image was statuesque. Regal. Her expression blank, but her eyes burned — sharp, calculating, merciless. The same eyes Amara saw in the mirror. Only colder. Older.
Her name came without warning, rising from somewhere deep and locked.
"Calia."
Lucien looked at her. "You remember her?"
Amara nodded slowly. "She wasn't always like this. She was... brighter. Laughing. Protective."
She dropped the photo on the floor like it burned.
"She was my sister."
Lucien stepped toward her. "That bond — it was strong. That's why the betrayal nearly broke you."
"I need to know what happened," Amara said. "Not just bits. Not flashes. I want the whole truth."
Lucien hesitated.
Then he opened his coat, pulled out a small, glass pendant suspended on a silver chain. Inside: swirling gold and crimson dust — like smoke trapped in time.
"This is called a memory anchor," he said. "Stored from the last cycle, just before we died. You left it for yourself. Said you'd know when you were ready to face it."
Amara stared at the pendant. Her fingers twitched toward it.
Lucien reached out and placed it in her palm.
The moment she touched it, the world cracked.
She was Selanar again.
Standing at the edge of a black stone temple. Calia beside her. Younger. Fierce. Their robes snapped in the wind.
Below them, an army gathered — not of warriors, but of seekers. People desperate for the knowledge the Circle had stolen. Selanar had been their light.
Calia? Her sword.
But something had shifted.
"You're going too far," Calia said. Her voice wavered, but her eyes were hard. "You're opening doors we can't close."
Selanar — Amara — turned to her. "They closed the doors. We're only unsealing what they buried."
"You're playing with power that doesn't belong to us."
"It always belonged to us."
Calia's face twisted with something like grief. "Then I can't follow you anymore."
Amara's chest cracked in the vision. "Calia—"
But her sister was already walking away. Toward the mountain. Toward the Circle.
That was the last time they spoke in that life.
Amara came back gasping.
Lucien was already kneeling beside her, gripping her shoulders.
"Breathe. Breathe."
She did.
The pendant was dim now. The smoke gone.
"She didn't betray us," Amara whispered. "Not at first. She thought she was saving me."
Lucien nodded. "That's how it starts."
"Why didn't I stop her?"
"Because you still loved her."
Amara wiped her face. Tears or sweat — she didn't know which.
"She's not saving anyone now," she said.
"No," Lucien agreed. "Now she's building something. And the last sanctum we burned? That was just a satellite. There's a core hub. A nexus point."
"Where?"
Lucien looked her dead in the eyes.
"Vienna."
Amara's breath caught.
That was where the photo had been taken. Where their first cycle had ended. Where everything had started.
"She's pulling us back," Amara said.
"No," Lucien said. "She's waiting. She wants you to come."
Amara stood. Straightened her shoulders.
"Then we go. And this time, we end it."
That night, Amara couldn't sleep. She sat by the window in the safehouse, the pendant still in her hand. It was empty now, but somehow warm. Like something still lingered inside.
A voice echoed in her skull.
Not a memory.
Real.
"You were always the favorite. But you never understood the cost."
It was Calia.
She was speaking directly to her.
Amara closed her hand into a fist.
"No more running," she whispered. "I'm coming for you."