The following morning.
The Academy's eastern ward line.
Mist clung to the ground like memory. Pale and heavy.
Kairos walked ahead, cloak drawn tight, boots crunching over red-crusted stone. Selene moved behind him, silent as her namesake moon. Her breath came in careful measures, eyes alert, fingers curled near her side blade—not for show, but for readiness.
The ward line was barely holding. Veins of corrupted sigils blinked in and out, struggling against the pulse of the Rift half a mile away. Kairos knelt beside a cracked glyph-stone, running his thumb over the carved symbol.
"Do you remember this street?" Selene asked softly.
He nodded. "My sister used to chase fireflies here. We thought they were enchanted."
A pause. Then: "They were."
He looked at her.
"I was here too," she said, almost shyly. "The day the bells screamed. Just a few streets west."
"So we survived the same fire."
"No. We became it."
They pressed on.
Each corner they turned was a breath from the past. Burned toys. Melted sigils. A bench warped into unnatural angles. The closer they got to the old Kairos household, the heavier the aether felt—like the air mourned what it once held.
They found it half-buried, its frame collapsed under years of elemental erosion and dark seepage. Kairos moved with reverence, clearing rubble with slow, measured care.
He found the pendant first. Lira's. A tiny glass circle with a speck of starlight encased inside. A gift from their father, forged in the lunar sanctum long before the fall. When he touched it, it pulsed with warmth—faint, fleeting, but there.
Then came a brittle journal. His mother's hand still etched in fading ink. Recipes. Protection spells. Notes about headaches she never told the temple about. The ink had bled through some pages. The rest, he cradled like scripture.
Then—
The aether pulsed. A breath. A tremor. Something stirred beneath the house.
Selene drew her blade, its edge humming with stored purity. "Something's waking."
Kairos turned, crimson shard at his chest throbbing faintly.
"Let it."
From the shadows beneath the shattered floorboards, it emerged. Not a beast. Not a human. Something between. Flesh half-formed, covered in scripture that crawled like worms. Its eyes were empty—a void of memory—but it knew him.
It reached out. Not to attack. To remember.
"Mother?" Kairos whispered, horror slicing his breath short.
The creature wept. But the tears were ash.
Selene moved to strike, but Kairos raised his hand. "Wait."
He stepped closer, ignoring the glyphs pulsing in warning on his badge. He looked into what once was—maybe still was—his mother. He pressed the pendant to her chest.
For a moment, she stopped shaking. Her hand, twisted and scorched, reached for his.
Then the curse claimed her.
With a wail that splintered the street, the creature collapsed inward, turning to red dust that scattered into the aether.
Silence followed.
Kairos stood there, blood seeping from his palm where the shard had burned him.
Selene approached slowly. "She was still fighting it."
"She remembered," he said, voice breaking. "Even now."
They didn't speak as they left. Behind them, the ruins quieted. But the wind carried her last whisper.
Kairos… live.
---
Two hours later.
Academy's South Tower – Observation Hall.
The Council didn't speak as Kairos made his report. Selene stood beside him, her face unreadable. The room smelled of ink and cold judgment. The High Warden's voice cut through it like winter steel.
"You engaged with a Class C mutation outside protocol. That pendant—was it stabilized?"
Kairos handed it over. "She gave it to me. It… neutralized the corruption."
"Or reacted with your corruption," another muttered.
Selene stepped forward. "Enough. He made a call. And it saved the district."
The High Warden narrowed his eyes. "You're growing reckless, Initiate Kairos."
Kairos met his gaze. "No. I'm remembering."