Chapter 19 – The Rift's Chosen
The song of the Rift thundered through Liora's bones.
It wasn't sound.
Not really.
It was vibration—pure, primal, older than stars—flooding every nerve until she could no longer tell where her heartbeat ended and the world began.
Her mark burned with violet fire, the glow leaking through her skin like molten starlight.
Each pulse carried a single, undeniable truth:
You are ours.
Liora staggered but refused to fall.
Her hand tightened around the hilt of her plasma blade, knuckles pale against the surge of power writhing through her veins.
If she surrendered now, she wasn't sure she'd come back.
Kai's voice cut through the chaos, sharp and grounding.
"Liora!"
He stepped in front of her, weapon drawn, his storm-gray eyes locking on the hooded stranger across the Rift's shimmering wound.
"You take one more step toward her," he said, low and lethal, "and I'll put a hole in your chest."
The hooded figure didn't flinch.
Instead, a slow smile curved beneath the shadow of their cowl.
"Still clinging to human threats," the stranger murmured, voice like silk brushing against steel.
"Admirable. Futile."
Their gaze slid to Liora, sharp as a blade.
"You hear it, don't you? The call beneath the call. The memory of a world before the first dawn."
The Rift pulsed in answer, a heartbeat that shook the ground.
Kai shifted into a defensive stance, but Liora lifted a trembling hand to stop him.
The stranger's words sliced through her defenses, unsettling because they felt… true.
"Who are you?" she demanded, forcing her voice steady.
The stranger lowered their hood.
Liora's breath caught.
The face revealed was hers.
Not exactly—
Older.
Sharper.
Eyes like fractured amethyst, glowing with the same violet fire that now burned beneath her skin.
It was like staring into a mirror from a future she wasn't supposed to survive.
"I am what you become," the Doppelgänger said softly.
"The echo of the choice you haven't made."
---
The world tilted.
Kai swore under his breath, dragging his gaze between the two of them.
"This is some kind of trick."
"It's no trick," the Doppelgänger replied.
"When the Rift offered rebirth, it offered more than a second chance. It offered evolution. I accepted. You will, too."
Liora's throat tightened.
Images flashed in her mind—
a city drowning in violet light,
her own hand reaching for power as the sky split open,
the endless scream of a dying world.
"No," she whispered.
"I came back to stop this. To stop you."
Her future self tilted her head, a faint flicker of something almost… pitying in her gaze.
"And yet you stand here," she said, "marked and chosen, the Rift already singing in your blood.
You think you came back to prevent the end, but the truth is simpler.
You are not the savior of this world, Liora.
You are its threshold."
The Rift howled.
The floor trembled, cracks spiderwebbing outward from the violet wound.
---
Kai stepped forward, positioning himself between them, his blade sparking in the dim light.
"I don't care what you are," he snapped.
"She isn't you."
The Doppelgänger's smile deepened, cold and knowing.
"Ah. The soldier who thinks love can anchor the inevitable."
Kai stiffened, but before he could retort, Liora grabbed his arm.
Her mark flared at the contact, sending a jolt of violet energy through both of them.
Kai hissed, but didn't pull away.
The Doppelgänger's eyes narrowed.
"You feel it, don't you?" she said softly, gaze flicking between them.
"The tether. Two heartbeats resonating in the same frequency.
That's how the Rift binds its chosen.
Through connection."
The words sank into Liora like a blade dipped in honey.
Was that what the mark was doing?
Binding her?
To Kai?
To the Rift?
To the end of everything?
---
The ground shook harder.
Chunks of concrete split and fell into the glowing fissure.
The Rift's song climbed, a wild crescendo that rattled her teeth.
Her future self extended a hand.
"Come," she said.
"Accept what you are.
Or watch this world tear itself apart while you cling to a life that no longer belongs to you."
Liora's pulse hammered.
The mark burned so brightly it painted the air in violet arcs.
Part of her wanted to step forward, to surrender to the power thrumming in her veins.
It promised freedom.
Strength.
An end to fear.
But Kai's hand tightened around hers, warm and fiercely human.
"Don't," he said, his voice raw.
"You're still you. This isn't you."
The Doppelgänger's eyes softened with something like amusement.
"You can't save her," she told Kai.
"No one can save a storm from being a storm."
---
The Rift screamed.
A surge of violet energy erupted from the fissure, a tidal wave of light that swallowed the platform.
Kai dragged Liora back, shielding her with his body as shards of concrete exploded around them.
The Doppelgänger didn't move.
The storm passed through her like wind through smoke.
"You have three nights," she said, her voice carrying over the roar.
"When the Convergence peaks, you will choose.
Power or extinction.
There is no middle path."
Her eyes locked on Liora's, a perfect mirror of violet fire.
"Remember," she whispered.
"The Rift doesn't give.
It takes.
And it always takes what you love first."
With a final pulse of violet light, she stepped backward into the Rift and vanished, swallowed whole by the wound in reality.
The fissure snapped shut with a deafening crack.
Silence fell.
---
Liora sagged against Kai, trembling, the echo of the Rift still humming in her bones.
The air smelled of ozone and burnt steel.
Kai cupped her face in his hands, his touch firm, grounding.
"Liora," he said, voice urgent.
"Talk to me. Are you—"
"I saw her," Liora whispered, cutting him off.
"Not just her. Me."
Kai's grip tightened.
"And?"
"She said I'm the threshold," Liora breathed.
"That the Rift will take what I love first."
The words tasted like ash.
Kai's thumb brushed the edge of her jaw, his storm-gray eyes locked on hers.
"Then we don't let it," he said fiercely.
"Whatever this thing is, we fight it. Together."
The mark pulsed at his words—soft, almost tender.
Not a warning this time.
A promise.
But deep inside, beneath the heartbeat she still called her own,
the Rift's song lingered.
Low.
Sweet.
Inevitable.
Three nights, it whispered.
Choose.