The Rift Sea was a wound—wide, jagged, and seething.
It stretched from the shattered southern cliffs of Lunareal all the way to the forgotten edge of the world, where starlight flickered like candle smoke and the sky broke into prismatic shards. No ship crossed it lightly. Fewer returned.
But Elara Thorne had never been one for caution.
"The Moondial lies somewhere in the heart of it?" she asked, bracing herself against the ship's rail. The Astriferra groaned as wind bit into its sails.
Cassian nodded. "That's what the chart says. Beneath the water, in a city swallowed by stars."
"Good," Elara said, eyes scanning the churning waves. "I like a challenge."
Ithiriel, who had insisted on joining them despite her distrust of Elara's newfound Flameborne power, frowned. "You say that like you're trying to provoke the sea."
"Elara provokes everything," Cassian muttered, half-smiling. "That's how we end up in situations like this."
The Astriferra sliced through water that shimmered with unnatural hues—violet, silver, and deepest black. Beneath the hull, something ancient and vast moved, not fish nor monster, but a weight in the deep.
Elara felt it in her bones.
"She's awake," Ithiriel whispered.
"Who?"
"The Rift Sea," the elf replied. "She listens."
By the third day, even the sky began to warp.
Constellations twisted subtly, blinking in and out of formation. The Flame beneath Elara's skin pulsed with unease, as though it, too, recognized the proximity of something older than the Pact—something that predated even the Fulcrums.
That night, Elara stood alone on deck, watching twin moons shimmer like melted opals on the waves.
She pulled the pendant from beneath her tunic.
It hummed.
Not with warmth, but with warning.
And then—a voice.
Not from around her.
From within her.
"You walk toward the end of your own thread."
She spun, but no one was there.
"Fulcrum. Child of Fire. Breaker of Balance."
"What are you?" she hissed into the dark.
"A remnant. A possibility. A whisper the Pact could not silence."
The voice faded, leaving behind a single thought, burnt into her mind like fire through frost.
"The Moondial does not show fate. It chooses it."
At dawn, they reached the coordinates.
There was no island. No city. Only calm water, as still as glass.
Cassian frowned. "This is where it should be."
"It is," Ithiriel said quietly. "We're standing on it."
Elara blinked. "You mean it's submerged?"
"No." Ithiriel pointed upward. "It's in the sky."
They all turned.
There—hovering impossibly above them, just beyond the veil of light—floated a city made of coral and crystal, suspended in midair like a reversed reflection of the sea below.
Its towers shimmered translucent blue. Bridges looped in impossible spirals. And at its center, an obsidian dial glowed faintly—the Moondial.
"How the hell do we get up there?" Cassian asked.
"Flight?" Elara suggested.
"Last time we tried that, we almost died."
"Details."
But the ship answered for them.
Without command, the Astriferra began to rise.
Not sail. Not float. Ascend.
The water did not ripple. The wind did not roar.
The sea simply let go.
As they neared the Moondial, Elara could feel the pendant ache.
It responded to the energy here, tugging her like a compass needle drawn to a secret.
They docked on a platform of crystal and stepped onto air-solid pathways. Every step echoed like a memory, and shadows twisted into images—visions of Fulcrums past, wielding light and fire and ruin.
At the center stood the dial.
Massive, half-sunken, pulsing with moonlight.
Etched into its surface were rings—twelve in all, representing the Houses, the Fulcrums, the Threads. Elara touched it—and it turned beneath her fingers.
The sky shuddered.
Cassian stumbled. "What did you do?"
"I didn't—wait. Look!"
The dial rearranged itself, forming a symbol none of them had seen before: a spiral encased in flame, half-shadowed by a crescent moon.
"That's not any House I know," Ithiriel whispered.
Elara stepped forward.
And the dial responded.
A pillar of light erupted from its center—and she fell.
Not downward.
Inward.
She stood in a version of Lunareal—not ruined, not broken, but future-born.
She saw herself—crowned in flame, standing atop the ruins of the Pacthall. At her side: Cassian, eyes darker than night. Behind them: thousands, chanting a name that didn't yet exist.
And before them—bowing—were the last Fulcrums.
The vision broke.
And Elara gasped as she returned to the present.
"I saw something," she panted. "A possible future. One where I… where we…"
"Win?" Cassian asked.
"No. Rule."
Ithiriel stepped forward, pale. "That's why the Moondial was hidden. It doesn't just reflect time. It threads it."
"And it chose to show me that," Elara whispered.
But even as they stood in awe, the air split.
A shriek tore through the sky—a sound like glass weeping.
And from the edge of the Moondial tower, he appeared.
The man with the nightshade crown.
No longer a whisper. No longer a vision.
But flesh and frost.
"Elara Thorne," he said, voice like a broken lullaby. "You've made it far."
"Who are you?" she demanded.
He smiled.
And the Moondial dimmed.
"I am the one they buried in the Thread Between Worlds," he said. "The Fulcrum they swore never existed. The one who broke the Flame before you even inherited it."
Cassian stepped forward, sword half-drawn. "You're a lie."
"I'm a truth they were too afraid to finish."
And with a flick of his hand—
The Moondial shattered.