The drifted spire still creaked, even though no wind touched it.
Kael's fingers worked slowly, reverently, dusting the remnants of the curved metal ring he'd scavenged days ago from one of the warped benches in the reappeared spire. The frame looked like a segment of a once-larger scope—a precision tool meant for tracking movement across great distances. But this one buzzed faintly in the hand, like it had an opinion about being held.
"It doesn't match any forge I know," Kael muttered, adjusting his goggles and rotating the frame. The outer edge shimmered with a dim, pulsing sheen—fold-tinged, though irregular. "This piece… it wants something."
Riku stood behind him, arms folded, watching the makeshift workshop Kael had set up inside the storage tunnel just beneath the second tower. Obsidian shelves lined the walls, and a thin steam of heat drifted up from the vents underfoot.
"I brought the cracked scope," Sira announced from the entrance, holding a bent length of brass-and-smoked-glass tubing, broken near its midpoint.
Kael nodded quickly. "That might do."
It took nearly half an hour, and three failed attempts, before the parts clicked into place—not mechanically, but intuitively, as if the fragments knew where they belonged. A faint pop echoed from the tool as Kael made the final adjustment.
The scope came alive.
A soundless shudder filled the air around it. Not a noise. A suggestion. As though the air remembered what it was like to carry sound.
Kael stepped back instinctively.
Riku stepped forward.
The lens shimmered, then went clear.
He bent slightly to look.
The camp.
Blackridge, exactly as it stood.
But not in this moment.
The sky above it was the same. The layout—familiar.
Yet everything was wrong.
The tower was broken halfway up its spine, collapsed inward like it had imploded. The forge stood cold, rimmed with ash. No smoke, no workers, no voices. The gates hung open and twisted. Bones—human bones—littered the courtyard, strewn among shattered weapons. A glaive jutted from the rampart wall, still slick as though freshly used.
Kael held his breath. "What are you seeing?"
Riku didn't answer.
His jaw clenched.
In the corner of the image, a banner fluttered in slow wind.
It was Blackridge's emblem.
But wrong.
The warbrand was cracked down the middle, split into halves like it had been torn, then stitched back with something that pulsed faintly.
The image flickered.
Shifted.
And Riku saw himself.
Lying face-down beside the forge.
Alone.
No blood. No wound.
Dead in silence.
Riku staggered back as if punched, hand flying from the scope.
The lens rippled.
Then fractured.
A hairline crack sliced diagonally across the glass. With a sharp pop, the entire structure buckled inward and shattered. Kael lunged too late to catch it.
"Damn it—"
The fragments tumbled across the floor, curling inward like scorched leaves. Some turned to dust before they landed.
Sira approached slowly. "You saw something?"
Riku didn't respond.
His eyes were still locked on the scorched patch where the bones had been. Or would be.
Or were.
Kael moved beside him, carefully brushing away the last slivers of lens from the bench. Then he whispered, "That wasn't the future."
Riku turned toward him.
Kael's voice dropped to a rasp.
"It was now… elsewhere."
The words settled in the room like ash.
Riku stared down at his hand. There was a mark—barely visible—on the edge of his palm. Not a wound. A dusting of soot that hadn't come from this chamber.
None of them said anything for a while.
Finally, Riku turned toward the exit. "Double the night watch. No movement beyond the southern ridge until I say."
Kael nodded.
Sira frowned. "You think we're being copied?"
"No," Riku said.
He didn't elaborate. But in his mind, the burned Blackridge, the broken tower, the body with his face—it hadn't felt like imitation.
It had felt like option.
Like a reality waiting for him to make the wrong move.
He clenched his fist slowly, watching the soot vanish into his skin.
And somewhere, behind the walls of memory and mirror, another version of Blackridge waited in ruin.