Kael hit the ground harder than he should have—but it wasn't the ground.
It was water. Cold, silent, black as unlit obsidian.
He didn't sink.
He floated.
Suspended in a sea that reflected nothing, not even him. Every breath he took was wrong—too heavy, too loud. Around him, the void whispered in voices stolen from dreams.
"Your name… was not always Kael."
"You once chose fire over mercy."
"You held her… and let her go."
Kael screamed, but the sound didn't reach the surface. It folded in on itself, crushed by the pressure of forgotten truths.
And then, the girl appeared.
Not walking. Not swimming.
Just… there.
The same child from the Hollow Path. Cloaked in stars. Veyra's shattered blade still strapped across her back. But her eyes—gods, her eyes—they weren't just glowing now.
They were watching. Ancient. Ageless. Empty.
"Hello again," she said, her voice rippling across the water.
Kael tried to move, but his limbs refused. He could only stare.
"Why are you doing this?" he rasped.
She blinked slowly. "Because it's my turn."
The water around them rippled, revealing fragments beneath the surface—memories trapped in glass bubbles. Kael saw Dray as a child, crying over a burning sigil. Aeris, wingless, screaming in a void. Veyra, kneeling over a corpse, clutching a ring.
Kael's own memory surfaced—a night under the twin moons, his lips almost brushing Aeris's, before he pulled away.
The girl touched the memory.
"I wondered why you never kissed her," she said. "Even though you both wanted it."
He snarled. "Because we didn't have time. We were always at war."
"No," she said softly. "Because you were afraid of hope. Afraid it would die like everything else."
The water darkened.
The girl stepped closer, her bare feet creating ripples that hissed like broken glass.
"You don't know me yet," she whispered, "but I was born the moment time fractured. The moment Null was made. I remember all the futures. All the deaths. All the almosts."
Kael clenched his fists. "Are you Null's puppet?"
She shook her head.
"I'm his daughter."
The words hit harder than a blade.
"You're lying."
"I wish I were."
She looked up, and for the first time, Kael saw a crack in her expression—something human. Something scared.
"I wasn't supposed to exist," she murmured. "He made me from paradox. From pieces of all that should have been erased. I'm not real in any timeline. But I remember them all."
She reached into the air—and tore it.
A portal yawned open, showing Aeris in a prison of flame, screaming as she tried to break through ethereal chains. Her wings were bound. Her heart exposed. And floating before her was a crown made of Kael's name, bleeding light.
"She's waiting," the girl said. "She never stopped."
Kael surged forward, trying to reach the portal, but the water turned to hands—grabbing, pulling, drowning.
"Not yet," the girl whispered. "First… you must choose."
A second portal opened beside the first.
Dray was kneeling in the ruins of his kingdom, facing a mirror version of himself. The tyrant from before. They were locked in a duel not of weapons—but of belief.
"You can save only one," the girl said, eyes flickering. "For now."
Kael's heart thundered.
"No," he said. "I won't choose between them."
She smiled, tears in her star-glow eyes.
"Then you've finally learned what Null never did."
She clapped her hands.
The void shattered.
Kael fell upward—toward Aeris, toward Dray, toward the war not yet won.
And far below, the girl stood alone in the darkness.
Watching.
Waiting.
Whispering.
"I remember everything."