Darkness didn't feel empty to him anymore.
It felt… home-like.
Ramiel sat in silence, surrounded by crumbling stone and dripping roots. The veil between worlds pulsed behind him—cold, greedy, and alive.
He felt it the moment it happened.
Not a sound.
Not even a light.
Just… a tear in something that should have stayed broken.
His eyes snapped open. Gold light flared faintly from beneath his skin, then dulled.
"No," he whispered. "She didn't."
But she had.
Saryel had returned. Or maybe not her exactly. But something with her eyes. Her breath. Her defiance.
He stood slowly. Shadows peeled off him like wet cloth. Around him, the breach shifted restlessly, sensing his rage. It fed off his unease. It liked when he shook.
Ramiel clenched his fists. Magic hissed at his fingertips.
"You shouldn't have come back."
He didn't know who he was talking to—her, the girl, the gods, or himself.
---
He moved toward the edge of the veil—past the corpse-flowers, past the sigils that once burned when Saryel touched them. They were dark now. Cold.
She had sealed this breach with her dying breath.
He had opened it again with his.
"This world rejected me," he said aloud. "But you—" His voice broke like glass.
He could still remember her hands on his face. The way she smiled when she thought no one was watching. The way she forgave everyone except herself.
He hated that smile.
He loved it too much.
---
Behind him, something slithered into form—formless, whispering.
"She is the key. But the lock has changed."
Ramiel didn't respond.
"You must end her before she remembers everything. Before she becomes more than herself."
He closed his eyes. And when he opened them, the gold was gone.
Only shadow remained.
"I'll stop her. I'll end this. I should have, back then."
He looked up.
"Let her come. I'm not afraid of ghosts anymore."
The veil pulsed behind him—ready.
---
Samantha
The path to the Archives wasn't straight.
It wove through memory.
Stone steps shifted beneath her feet, not always forward. Sigils flickered on the walls, glowing softly as if whispering "welcome back"—or maybe "are you sure?"
Samantha walked at the front, the others behind her. Ron, J, and Alaric said little. The silence wasn't tense—it was reverent. Heavy with what they didn't yet understand.
The Archive was Saryel's place. But Samantha had never set foot in it.
Until now.
---
They reached the gate.
It wasn't a door—it was a veil. Thin and gold. Threads of light stitched like ancient runes. Samantha reached out and touched it gently. It rippled beneath her fingers, then parted like breath on glass.
Inside, the air changed.
It smelled like starlight and wet parchment. Dust floated in shafts of soft blue glow. Shelves spiraled up into nowhere, filled with relics, scrolls, sealed vials, and… memory.
The deeper she stepped in, the more she remembered.
Her fingers tracing those books.
Her voice echoing off those walls.
Her laugh, once. Rare, but real.
---
In the centre stood an altar.
On it: a stone orb—cracked, glowing faintly.
Samantha approached slowly.
Alaric inhaled sharply. "That's…"
"The First Spark," J whispered. "She made it the day she chose to seal the breach."
Samantha placed a hand on it.
Power surged—but didn't hurt. It recognized her.
Her mind slipped sideways.
---
A memory.
Saryel, younger, writing letters she never sent.
Alaric arguing with a council that never listened.
Ramiel, smiling at her through a mirror.
Then: fire.
Then: silence.
---
She pulled her hand back.
"It's not just memory," she said. "It's… part of me. A tether."
The orb pulsed once—then split open.
Inside: a single sliver of glass, embedded with a strand of her old hair.
A relic of herself.
"This will help anchor you," Alaric said softly. "So the power doesn't tear you apart."
Samantha nodded.
"Good," she whispered. "I'll need it."
---
Ron, arms crossed, squinted. "So… what now? You absorb the glowy thing and punch him into another dimension?"
Samantha laughed under her breath.
"Not yet."
Her fingers closed around the relic.
And her eyes glowed once more.