The plains stretched for miles—quiet, silver-washed under a sickle moon that hung too low in the sky. The grass barely moved. The air was dry, but not dead. It was waiting. Listening.
Kael walked ahead of the group, silent.
Since Ji'an… since the shrine… his presence had shifted. Not heavier. Not darker. Just… quieter. Sharper. Like a blade that had finally realized what it was meant to cut.
Juno followed close behind, muttering ancient protections under his breath. Not out of fear. Out of caution. Something had changed in Kael. And something else had noticed.
"Where are we even going now?" Rin asked, squinting at the endless horizon. "Everything past Ji'an was marked blank on every map."
"That's because nothing is meant to live beyond it," Juno said.
"And yet," Mace grunted, "here we are."
Kael finally spoke, eyes fixed on a distant shape ahead.
"There's one last place before we reach the Vale."
Rin raised an eyebrow. "The Vale of What?"
Kael stopped walking.
"The Vale of Names."
They arrived at dawn.
It wasn't a city. Or a village. Or ruins.
It was a field.
Of graves.
Endless.
Each one marked not with stones, but words.
> Here lies a girl who dreamed too loud.
Here rests the man who said yes too many times.
This soul dared to remember.
This one forgot.
Rows and rows. Stretching for miles. Every grave written in a different language. Some in symbols older than fire.
Kael stepped between them like he was walking through memories. Because he was.
Rin walked beside him, hands in her coat pockets. "These aren't people, are they?"
"No," Juno said quietly. "They're choices. Each name… is a path someone never got to take."
Mace scratched the back of his neck. "So it's a graveyard of what-ifs?"
"Exactly."
Near the center, they found it.
A prayer stone.
A monolith so black it reflected nothing. No light. No faces. Just darkness so deep it felt warm.
Kael approached.
And a voice whispered.
Not aloud.
Inside him.
> Do you remember what you were before you were Kael?
He froze.
The others didn't hear it.
Only him.
The voice was old. Familiar.
The same voice that whispered in his dreams. In the tethered space between memory and fate. The voice that once screamed at Zeyrox in a field of broken stars.
Kael touched the stone.
And he remembered.
---
He was a child.
Not born. Spun.
Woven from thread, light, and defiance.
A weapon. A vessel. A placeholder.
He was created by a name no one dared speak aloud anymore.
The voice that had called to him his whole life.
Not the throne.
The one who hated the throne.
The fallen sovereign. The outcast of the light.
Cast down for power too vast.
Rejected by the dark for being too merciful.
The forgotten ruler.
The one who first refused to bind.
And Kael was meant to be his return.
Not reincarnation.
Rebellion.
The memory faded.
Kael pulled back.
Sweating.
His hands were shaking.
He wasn't chosen.
He was built.
But not to serve.
To break.
"Kael?" Rin's voice was soft.
He didn't respond.
He just turned to the stone again.
And knelt.
He didn't pray.
He didn't ask.
He declared.
> "I am not your vessel."
The wind screamed.
The graves reacted.
Words began vanishing from the headstones. Whole choices, whole roads, erasing themselves. As if Kael's rejection was contagious.
Juno stumbled back. "He's unraveling possibility."
"Is that a bad thing?" Mace barked, drawing his blades.
Juno shook his head, terrified. "It's a new thing."
Then, the sky tore.
Not with thunder.
But with a sound like crying.
Dozens of them.
Children.
Wailing.
Shapes poured from the sky like ink turned sentient—twisted figures made of forgotten futures. Bodies stitched from regrets and abandoned dreams. Shadows that begged to be remembered.
Rin backed up fast. "What are those?!"
Juno's eyes blazed. "The throne's countermeasure. When fate breaks, it sends the unmade."
Kael stood.
Unshaken.
Threadcutter snapped into his hand like lightning seeking a storm.
The battle was chaos and poetry.
Mace tore through the shadows, blades spinning in furious arcs, his warcry louder than the shrieking ghosts.
Rin burned crimson through the air, spells igniting the grass as she shattered regrets with every rune.
Juno chanted from behind, anchoring them to reality with every forbidden syllable.
And Kael—
Kael danced with the unmade like he knew them.
He did.
Every strike of Threadcutter wasn't just a kill. It was a mercy. A release.
Each shadow dissolved in light and sorrow.
Until one remained.
Smaller.
A child.
Wearing Kael's face.
Kael hesitated.
It looked up.
Eyes wide.
Trembling.
Voice like a prayer.
> "I was the version of you who chose to run."
Kael's breath caught.
He didn't lift his sword.
He knelt.
And whispered, "Then I honor you."
The child smiled.
And faded.
Without pain.
Without regret.
Silence returned.
The field was empty.
The graves were gone.
And before them, where the plains had once been—
A cliff.
Beyond it?
The Vale of Names.
A sea of stars, stitched together by golden thread. Floating islands, flickering in and out of time. Bridges made of light and grief.
The final gate before the throne.
Juno stepped forward, voice tight. "Kael… the arc's nearly ended."
Kael looked down at Threadcutter.
It didn't pulse.
It waited.
Because the next choice?
Would define everything.