Chapter 16: Shards of Memory, City of Stars

The morning sky over the ravaged temple had split into quiet gold.

Aika sat beneath a bent column, her mother's soul shard held against her heart. The fragment pulsed with a slow, rhythmic glow — not dead, not alive, but… waiting. She could feel it pressing on her thoughts, like a voice whispering through fog, urging her to remember something she never lived.

Rael stood nearby, fingers twitching as they traced invisible lines in the air. The fight with the Chronobeast had awakened more than just the Dragon Soul — it had torn open a gate in his mind. The memories of Vaerion bled into him slowly, like ink into water.

"I remember a throne made of bones," he muttered, not looking at anyone. "And I sat on it, knowing it would be my grave."

Ren leaned against the doorway, Emberkey Blade resting beside him. His expression was unreadable.

He had received a message in the flame — a symbol from the Flameborn Dynasty, a summons back to the Ember Citadel.

"You should go," Rael said without turning.

Ren frowned. "You read my thoughts now?"

"No," Rael replied softly. "Just your flame."

That evening, the trio departed through a hidden wyrm-tunnel beneath the temple — a passage once used by Flamebound scholars. The destination: Kael'Varn, the City of Stars. It floated above the Clouded Ring, an ancient meteor crater turned into a sanctuary of time-scholars and stargazers.

They had one purpose: to find the Starlit Archive, where legends said the Codex of Impossible Timelines was sealed.

It was there that Aika believed her mother had encoded her final truth.

Meanwhile…

Far above them, in a realm unchained by gravity, the city of Kael'Varn hovered like a dream forgotten by the gods.

Constructed on concentric discs of silverstone, the city gleamed under constellations that never changed position. Time was bent here — not stopped, but softened. The citizens wore time-scarves and mirrored masks, shielding their identities from echoes of their future selves.

As the trio arrived via a tetherlift that rose from the crater floor like a glowing thread, a cloaked figure awaited them at the threshold.

"I wondered if you'd make it before the seal collapsed," the man said.

His face was hidden, but his voice was ageless.

Rael narrowed his eyes. "You're not from this timeline."

The man laughed gently. "No. I'm from the one you erased, Vaerion."

Rael stiffened.

The man removed his hood. His features were eerily similar to Rael's — older, sterner, marked by loss.

"I am Rivian — the Rael who failed to stop the Fracture. I came here to warn you: your Dragon Soul is waking too fast. And it's burning through this version of you."

In the Archive chambers…

Aika clutched the soul shard. They stood before the Archivist, a mechanical scribe with a phoenix-shaped head and dozens of quill limbs. The room was silent except for the soft scratching of ink that wrote itself into the air.

"I seek a lost thread," Aika whispered.

The Archivist stared into her eyes.

"Then open the shard," it said, "and offer it to the Lightwell."

The Lightwell was a basin of liquid time. Aika held her breath, stepped forward, and lowered the shard.

As it touched the surface — the past unraveled.

She saw her mother again. Not in a battle. Not running. But kneeling before a glowing tree wrapped in silver chains.

"If Aika ever comes here… tell her I didn't run. I chose to seal the truth so she could choose her own fate," the vision said.

Then her mother looked directly at the shard — and Aika swore she heard her, not just saw her.

"Don't trust Vaerion. Not even if he wears your friend's face."

The vision ended.

Aika fell backward, shaking.

Elsewhere in Kael'Varn…

Ren walked alone through the Ember Pathway, a corridor of floating runes lit by firelight from the Citadel.

He had been contacted again — not by a messenger, but by his sister, the Flameborn general Rysha. She had sent an echo across fire, calling him home.

"You're the last viable heir, Ren," she'd said. "The dynasty is breaking. We need you."

He gripped the Emberkey Blade tighter.

But in his heart, he wondered: Did I leave the dynasty behind… or did it never leave me?

Back at the inn…

Rael stood before a cracked mirror. His eyes had changed again — glowing not gold, but split between gold and voidsilver.

Vaerion's soul was merging with his.

And then — it spoke.

"You're not strong enough. But you will be. I broke the world once. You'll have to do it again to fix it."

Rael fell to his knees.

His reflection smiled — but not his own.