The burned spiral pulsed faintly, casting an eerie shimmer across the landscape. Ethan crouched beside it, fingers hovering just above the scorched earth. The symbol was ancient, yet unfamiliar—a signature not from the Assembly, nor Orun.
"The Cartographers called it the Unseen," Lily said quietly, scanning the empty clearing. "But if it followed us through the pivot, it's something deeper. Something older than Orun's rebellion."
Ethan nodded. "Something that survives resets. A parasite of time."
From the spiral, thin trails of black ash curled outward in every direction—like veins feeding into the world. Ethan followed one, his shard glowing faintly in response.
As they walked, the forest around them twisted. The vibrant hybrid life they'd seen before—half-wild, half-future—was now fading. Colors dulled. Sounds quieted. Branches bowed under invisible weight.
They arrived at a ruin. A tower, half-sunken into the earth, constructed from no known material. The structure seemed to resist classification, changing its geometry when not directly observed.
"This wasn't here yesterday," Lily whispered.
"No," Ethan said. "But it's been waiting."
At the base of the tower was a doorway. It wasn't locked. It didn't need to be. It exuded a sense of dread—of stories long buried clawing their way back.
Ethan stepped inside.
The interior was impossibly vast. Corridors looped in spirals, lined with mirrors that didn't reflect. Whispers echoed around them, not in any known language, but felt deep within the bones.
Suddenly, one mirror flickered.
Ethan's face appeared.
But not his current self. A younger Ethan, from the lab, before the first jump.
"Do you still believe you're the author of your fate?" the reflection asked.
Ethan didn't answer.
The voice continued. "You chose to fix what was broken. But not everything wants to be healed."
The hallway behind them shifted. The door was gone. The mirrors grew darker.
Lily gripped her blade. "This whole place is alive. Feeding off us."
They moved deeper, following the pulse of the shard. It tugged Ethan toward a spiral staircase made of flickering light. Each step led them downward—yet the weight in the air said they were rising.
At the top—no, the bottom—they entered a chamber with a single pedestal. On it lay a cloak.
Dark. Tattered. Timeless.
"It belonged to the Wanderer," Lily said softly.
Ethan reached for it.
When his fingers brushed the fabric, he was yanked through memory.
Not his own.
He saw a lone figure walking through collapsing worlds. Witnessing the fall of civilizations. Ignoring cries for help. Recording. Observing. Never intervening. The cloak's wearer was not cruel—merely detached. A chronicler. A remnant.
And it saw Ethan.
Its face was obscured. But its eyes—no, its intent—pierced him.
"Your pivot did not erase me," the Wanderer said.
Ethan snapped back into the present, gasping. The cloak remained on the pedestal.
Lily steadied him. "What did you see?"
"He's real. And he's close."
They left the chamber, and the tower reshaped itself behind them—folding inward like a page turned.
Outside, the sky had darkened. A trail of stars formed a line on the horizon, like breadcrumbs scattered across eternity.
Lily pointed. "That's the trail."
Ethan nodded. "We follow it. Until we find him."
He pulled the cloak over his shoulders.
Not as a symbol of surrender.
But as a challenge.
To the one who had watched too long.