Chapter 36

Kye sat on the cold stone floor, his breathing shallow, his eyes vacant. The glow from the memory cube had long faded, leaving the chamber wrapped in a low, heavy silence. Renna stayed close, her hand steady on his shoulder, while Veika lingered near the pedestal, pacing nervously but keeping quiet for once.

The boy stood in the corner of the chamber, unmoving, his face blank, but there was a faint tightness to his eyes—as if even he didn't fully understand what had just happened.

Kye broke the silence.

"They didn't erase him… They buried him *inside* me."

His voice was hoarse. Distant. Like it belonged to someone still climbing out of a dream.

Renna's expression was unreadable.

"I thought the man in white erased him," she said slowly.

"He didn't." Kye shook his head. "He sealed him. Took what made me unstable, the version that didn't obey, the one that questioned things too early… and buried him in a sword. Then they wrapped what was left of me in lies and called it peace."

"And that thing walking around now…" Veika started.

Kye nodded. "He's not a shadow. He's me. Unfiltered. Remembering everything I was made to forget."

The weight of those words settled heavily between them. It wasn't the same as discovering a twin or a clone. This wasn't someone pretending to be him.

It *was* him.

Renna stood up. She moved to the pedestal and stared at the now-dark cube.

"How much of you did they change?" she asked quietly.

Kye looked at his hands. They were the same hands that had fought, survived, held weapons and built trust. But now they felt unfamiliar. Or maybe… incomplete.

"I don't know," he said. "But I felt it when I touched the cube. It wasn't just memories. It was instinct. Reactions. Words I used to say. Ways I used to think. The people I trusted. The people I was scared of. All of it. It's still there. And now that I've remembered some of it—" He paused. "—I know he's going to remember the rest."

Veika groaned and threw up her hands.

"Okay, I'm officially not sleeping tonight. Great. Your evil… you-but-not-you is out there, remembering trauma like a scrapbook, and meanwhile, we're still in a hole under the earth with glowing walls and no clue where he went."

The boy looked at her.

"He didn't go far."

Kye turned toward him. "What do you mean?"

"He's drawn to what was taken from him," the boy said. "Now that you've opened the memory cube, he'll feel the shift. He'll want to finish what he started."

"And what was that?" Renna asked.

The boy's voice was steady.

"Taking back the throne."

The words hit like stone.

Veika blinked. "Wait… *what* throne?"

Renna's eyes narrowed.

"The one they erased from the records?"

Kye looked between them, slowly piecing together the shape of something bigger.

He remembered flashes now. Not just of fire and screaming—but of halls. Of people kneeling. Of a crown not worn, but held. Not with pride.

With *guilt.*

"They made him forget everything," Kye said. "But they made *me* forget something worse."

He turned toward the boy.

"Who was I before they broke me?"

The boy was silent for a long moment.

Then, with a calm, heavy tone, he said:

"You were the last heir of the Obsidian Line. The first bloodline of Vireon. You were born to lead the memory-bound and unseal the lost cities. But the council saw what the sword was doing to you. How it amplified your instincts. They feared what you would become."

Renna's breath caught.

"They erased a king…"

"They erased a weapon," the boy corrected. "You weren't just royalty. You were a walking truth-bomb. Every time you unsheathed that blade, their lies crumbled. Their hidden wars. Their control over memory. Their history."

Kye slowly lowered himself onto one of the stone steps. His voice was low, but calm.

"That's why they split me. Why they made *him*."

The boy nodded.

"And now that he's free, he'll finish what he never got to."

Veika folded her arms. "You're telling me your other half is a pissed-off ex-prince with access to forbidden history and no impulse control?"

"Yes," the boy said.

"Awesome."

Renna turned to Kye. "So what's our next step?"

Kye was quiet.

He looked up toward the staircase, back the way they came. But that wasn't the path forward anymore. The man who had emerged from the sword—his other half—wasn't going to retrace steps.

He'd carve a new road entirely.

"We don't chase him," Kye said finally.

Veika blinked. "What?"

"We don't chase him. He's a part of me. If we keep running after him, we'll always be behind. I need to think like he does. *Move* like he would."

Renna studied him for a moment. Then nodded.

"He'll be looking for what you weren't allowed to find. The sealed vaults. The hidden names. The relics the sword remembers."

Kye stood.

"Then we find them first."

---

The chamber behind them dimmed as they made their way down a separate path—one only the boy knew. A route not carved by time or maps, but etched into the walls like memory itself had burned the route in for them.

They didn't speak much.

There was nothing more to say.

Every truth revealed only made the air heavier.

But Kye felt something different now.

A clarity. A fire.

Not the blind kind that drove his other self.

Something slower. Focused.

He wasn't whole yet.

But for the first time… he knew which part of him had been missing.

And he wasn't going to lose to it.

---

As they moved through a narrow corridor, a whisper echoed from ahead. Not loud. Not angry.

Just familiar.

It was *his* voice again.

But this time… it was speaking to someone else.

To *someone alive.*

Kye stopped. The others followed suit.

They listened.

The words drifted back through the corridor.

"They think they buried me," said the voice. "But you—you never stopped believing. You were the only one who remembered the truth."

Another voice responded.

Soft. Female.

Shaking.

"You're… really him?"

There was a pause.

Then:

"I am the version that never kneeled."