The stairwell twisted endlessly downward, carved into obsidian and lined with pulsing glyphs. Time felt strange here. Kairos couldn't tell if minutes or hours had passed. The deeper they went, the heavier his thoughts became.
He wasn't just remembering past lives now—he was reliving them.
A scream echoed behind his eyes.
A battlefield. Arrows in the sky. His hands bloodied, clutching the broken hilt of a friend's blade.
"Kairos," Veyra's voice cut through the fog, steadying him. "You're slipping. Stay anchored."
He nodded, gripping the Flameheart embedded in his chest. Its warmth grounded him, kept the storm of memories at bay.
At the end of the stairwell, they reached a vast underground dome. Floating stones circled the chamber, inscribed with symbols from dead languages. At the center hovered a man cross-legged in the air, eyes closed, suspended in a bubble of dreamlight.
Riven.
He looked barely twenty. Silver hair drifted in a breeze that wasn't there. His skin shimmered like starlight, as if he wasn't fully real.
"That's him," Arius said. "But we have a problem."
Riven's eyes snapped open—and everything shattered.
The dome warped. The floor fell away. Suddenly, they weren't underground. They stood on a bridge of light over an endless ocean, beneath a sky filled with falling stars. Behind them, the stairwell was gone.
"Welcome to the Inbetween," Riven said, floating down before them. His voice echoed oddly, like several people speaking at once. "You came for answers. But to reach me, you must first survive… yourselves."
Arius drew his blade. "Not another test."
"No," Riven said calmly. "A reflection."
Mirrors rose from the ocean. Dozens. In each one, a version of Kairos appeared.
But not illusions.
Regrets.
One mirror showed Kairos abandoning a child to save an army.
Another showed him letting Veyra die in a past life to protect a prophecy.
One showed him alone—choosing power over love.
"They're fragments of your soul," Riven explained. "You cannot carry them forward until you accept them."
Kairos staggered. The weight of it all pressed on his chest.
"I'm tired of fighting myself."
Riven looked at him, solemn. "Then stop fighting. Listen."
Kairos approached the mirrors, one by one.
He spoke to his younger self, the boy who ran from battle.
He wept with the version who lost Elira.
He stared into the eyes of the tyrant—The Flame King—and asked why.
The answers weren't pretty. But they were true.
And truth, it turned out, was power.
The mirrors dissolved. The ocean calmed. The stars aligned above them.
And Riven finally stepped forward, eyes gleaming.
"You're ready."
Kairos breathed deeply, the storm within him beginning to calm.
"You'll help us?" he asked.
Riven nodded. "The Nexus lies beyond time's veil. I can lead you there. But the path… requires sacrifice."
"What kind of sacrifice?" Arius asked.
Riven looked to Kairos. "One of your past lives must die. Forever. You can't carry them all through the gate."
Silence.
Kairos's mind reeled. Each life was a part of him. A piece of his soul.
But he knew the cost of power. And he knew what was coming.
"Then we choose," he said, steel in his voice. "But not here. First… we fight back."
Riven extended his hand—and the realm shifted again. The dome returned. The dreamlight faded.
But not before Riven whispered: "The Circle has already moved. They're awakening something older than us all. If we don't reach the Nexus first… this war ends in ashes."
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