Chapter 39
The agents moved like wind.
Not a sound. Not a wasted step.
Just pure, practiced efficiency—creatures not of blood and will, but of intent. Their forms blurred with every motion, white and gray robes twisting like smoke, faces covered by mirrored masks that reflected nothing but cold stillness.
Kye didn't hesitate.
His sword came free with a rasp of steel, its edge cold and imperfect. Not some legendary weapon—but it was *his*, and that was enough.
The first of the Silence lunged.
Renna was faster.
She twisted low and cut upward, her dagger flashing in an arc meant to slice through cloth and flesh.
It passed straight through the figure.
No resistance.
Like slicing fog.
The agent flickered—and reappeared behind her.
"Kye—!" she shouted.
He turned.
Blocked.
Steel met palm.
The agent *caught* the sword with a bare hand.
But instead of stopping, Kye twisted, planted a boot against the agent's chest, and *pushed off*. The sword tore free—not because it cut through, but because he used his weight, not force.
He landed in a crouch.
"Physical attacks aren't enough!" Veika shouted, already tossing a glowing orb toward the wall. It exploded in blue light—a pulse shock, meant to disrupt sensory interference.
The agents flickered again.
Some vanished.
Two remained.
Kye could barely keep up. They didn't move like warriors. They moved like *interruptions*—as if every step was meant to erase the moments between cause and effect.
The boy stepped forward now, hand raised. His palm glowed with a symbol—an old glyph, etched into skin like branding.
He whispered something.
Not in speech.
In *memory*.
The glyph flared.
And one of the agents *froze.*
Its body stuttered. Glitched. Like a broken film frame.
Kye saw the opening.
He charged.
This time, when his blade met the agent's form, he *remembered* something.
The sword wasn't meant to kill.
It was meant to *carve truths.*
He shifted his grip, pulled the blade across—not to slash, but to *mark*.
The edge kissed the mirrored mask.
And for the first time—
It cracked.
The agent recoiled.
A sound spilled out.
A scream—not from pain.
From memory.
A woman's voice. Fractured. Repeating the same phrase:
> "You were never supposed to be forgotten…"
Then the agent vanished.
Not in a blink.
In a *shiver.*
As if it had been undone by the echo of a name.
Kye stepped back, chest heaving.
"What was that?"
The boy lowered his hand.
"They're not soldiers. They're containers. Filled with the echoes of the erased."
Renna stood beside him now, panting, one arm bleeding where a near-miss had grazed her.
"And you just cracked one open like a library overdue notice."
Kye looked around.
Three more agents flickered into view.
This time, they were slower.
More *hesitant*.
"Can they be reasoned with?" he asked.
The boy shook his head. "They're not here to debate. They're here to *rewrite*."
The chamber groaned as another pulse shook the stone.
More agents were coming.
Too many.
Veika grabbed his arm. "We have to leave!"
"Where?" Kye asked.
The boy pointed toward the glyph table.
"There's an emergency exit. Through the forgotten vault."
Renna frowned. "Won't that take us deeper?"
"Yes."
"But we're trying to escape!"
"No," Kye said, stepping forward. "We're trying to *survive.* Deeper is safer than wiped."
They ran.
The glyph table responded to Kye's presence. His name still glowed at its center.
As he passed it, the table shifted.
Stone groaned.
A new path opened—a spiral stair descending into the heart of the forgotten.
The agents didn't follow immediately.
But Kye didn't wait to see why.
They ran downward, the walls closing in, each step lit by flickering torches embedded in the stone. They weren't electric. They burned from some old, smoky oil. The scent was familiar.
Like his childhood.
Like the halls he wasn't supposed to remember.
The boy whispered behind him.
"They won't chase us beyond the veil."
"Why?" Renna asked, keeping pace.
"Because what's down there… even they're afraid of."
---
At the bottom of the staircase, they emerged into a vast underground vault.
Not ruins.
Not a tomb.
A *preserve.*
Rows and rows of glass cylinders lined the chamber. Some broken. Some humming faintly.
Inside each—fragments of memory.
Literal slices of thought.
Not just from people.
From cities.
Ideas.
Futures.
"This is the Archive Below," the boy said. "The place where the truths too dangerous to remember were stored before they learned how to destroy them."
Kye stepped toward the nearest cylinder.
Inside, a flash of flame. A battle. A woman in red standing atop a tower, laughing as the world crumbled.
He pulled back.
"These are visions."
"Possibilities," the boy said. "Paths of history that were clipped. Rewritten. Or never allowed to happen."
Veika stepped to a different one.
Frowned.
"This one… looks like a wedding."
The boy nodded. "Even personal truths were stolen. Moments that didn't align with the Council's version of events. This place is their trash bin."
Kye turned in a slow circle.
It wasn't a preserve.
It was a *crime scene.*
The agents above hadn't followed.
But that didn't mean they were safe.
"Can we find anything useful here?" Renna asked.
The boy nodded. "Yes. But only if you know what to look for."
Kye's gaze was drawn to the far end of the vault.
A pedestal.
Unlit.
Unmarked.
But calling to him.
He moved toward it.
The others followed slowly, cautiously.
At the center, the pedestal revealed its shape.
A mirror.
Shattered.
And in the glass—
Kye didn't see his reflection.
He saw *both* versions of himself.
Overlayed.
Then shifting.
Then separating.
The mirror whispered.
> "One of you remembers the world.
> One of you was meant to *replace* it."
Kye reached toward the glass.
And just before his fingers touched it—
A hand grabbed his wrist.
Cold.
Familiar.
The other Kye stood beside him.
Smiling.
"Found you," he whispered.
Then everything went white.