In the belly of the rift

Lian woke to silence.

Not the soft kind. Not the kind that cradles sleep.

This silence hummed—like a blade pressed to his throat.

He sat up, chest heaving, and immediately reached for the space beside him.

Gone.

No scent. No warmth. No Aure.

The grove was ash.

The trees had vanished.

Above him, the stars no longer held their form. They'd bent into a spiral—a rift wide enough to swallow entire realms. At its center, a flicker.

Them.

Aure was suspended within it, limbs limp, eyes closed, the sigil across his spine burning bright blue, pulsing in time with something far older than the world.

Lian stood. "No—no, no, no."

He stumbled toward the edge of the spiral, every step fighting gravity, memory, fate. Each breath cost him a secret. Each movement, a piece of the bond.

"You are not allowed to take him," he growled.

The spiral responded not in anger. In recognition.

"You don't understand," he whispered, not in words, but through the very bones of the earth. "You gave them the vow. You made the bond."

Lian clenched his fists. "Then I'll unmake it."

And then the voice shifted.

"No. You will fulfill it."

A shadow unfurled behind him. It wasn't a person. Not exactly. A reflection of him but warped. Marked by every choice he didn't make. Every path he didn't take.

A voice identical to his own whispered:

"Would you give your soul to bring him back?"

Lian didn't flinch. "Take it."

"No conditions?"

"Only one," he said, stepping forward, eyes burning.

"Let me be the one who remembers for both of us. Even if he forgot me again."

The reflection smiled sharp, sad.

"Then jump."

The rift cracked open wider.

Lian ran.

And leapt.

The stars swallowed him whole.