The sky above was still—too still for comfort.No clouds, no sun, no stars. Just a pale wash of gold that refused to move, like time itself was holding its breath.
Kael stood barefoot in the garden Aeris had created for them—a sanctuary stitched from memory and dream, blooming in soft spirals of violet flameflowers and vines that shimmered like nebulae. The world they'd built after reshaping time was perfect. Quiet. Safe.
But something was wrong.
He knelt by the edge of the koi pool, watching the glassy surface ripple without wind. His reflection didn't blink.
You've been here too long, he thought. Or not long enough.
Behind him, a familiar laughter echoed—a child's giggle, brief as a breeze. He turned.
No one.
He scanned the open path leading into the stone-ringed grove. The wind rustled through the silver-leaved trees, but the sound didn't reach his ears. Everything was... muted. Like the world had been recorded and was playing back at half-volume.
And then he heard it again.Not laughter this time. A voice. Her voice.
"Kael..."
He froze.
It wasn't Aeris.
It sounded like her—but deeper, weightier, threaded with something old. Like the memory of someone long buried, rising from the cracks of time.
He stood slowly. The air thickened as the light above dimmed, gold fading into the dull grey of storm-drenched stone.
Then—A sound like silk tearing.
Reality split open in front of him. A vertical seam in the air, glowing with molten starlight and shadows so black they bled the color from everything around them. A rift. But not like any he'd seen before. This wasn't space breaking.
This was memory unraveling.
A woman stepped through.
And his breath caught in his throat.
She had Aeris's face. The same high cheekbones, the glint of mischief at the corner of her lips. But her eyes—gods, her eyes—were wrong.
Not blue. Not gold. But mirrors.Reflecting him. Showing him memories he didn't know he had.
"You remember me," she whispered.
Kael reached for his weapon—instinct. But there was nothing on his back. He hadn't carried a blade since Book 5.
"Who are you?" he asked, voice sharp.
She stepped closer. Barefoot, her cloak trailing smoke and stars. Her presence shifted the garden—flowers wilting where she walked, light bending away from her skin.
"I'm the Original Spark, Kael. The first version of her. The one you buried when you rewrote time. I'm what was left behind."
His throat tightened.
That couldn't be true.They had made the world whole again. He and Aeris. Together.
"You're a paradox," he said. "A fracture."
She smiled, sad and cruel. "No. I'm a consequence."
Behind her, the Rift flared open wider. He saw flashes—the battle with the Architect, the child born between timelines, the moment Aeris chose to give up her soul to close the last loop.
And something else.
A version of himself—bloodied, kneeling, whispering Aeris's name into a void where she didn't answer.
"Your Aeris," the Spark said, her voice softening. "She wasn't the only one you loved. You just don't remember."
A gust of wind burst from the rift, shattering the koi pond's surface. The reflections dissolved.
Kael looked down at his hands. They were trembling.
And far behind them, in the sanctuary bedroom, Aeris stirred from sleep—unaware that her essence had just flickered like a dying light.
The Rift That Remembers had opened.
And the past was not done with them yet.