The plaza fell still again, but the weight of what had been said lingered.
Reven glanced at the crack in the sky above—barely visible, a thin fracture of light splitting the artificial atmosphere of the Supreme Isles. It wasn't growing. Not yet. But it pulsed. Like something behind it was breathing.
"What happens when it opens?" Kaela asked.
Steward-9 did not turn its head. Its gaze remained fixed on Reven.
"Then the cycle ends. Or begins again."
Lirien crossed her arms. "Vague. Not comforting."
"Precision isn't comfort," Steward-9 replied. "It's clarity. And clarity requires context."
Kaela rolled her eyes. "Then give us context."
The steward extended one arm toward the far end of the plaza. A gate opened there—seamless, sliding apart like folding light.
"Come. You were not the first. But you may be the last."
The inner chamber was a cathedral of silence.
They walked through towering halls of glass and silver, beneath murals formed from shifting light. Not art. Not memory. Code. Living code that displayed flickers of history as they moved—moments captured and projected from deep archives.
They saw the birth of the Rift.
Not an explosion. Not an attack.
A decision.
A group of humans, cloaked in sterile white, stood before a massive void. They didn't look afraid. They looked hopeful.
Reven stopped walking.
"They opened it," he said. "On purpose."
Steward-9 answered without turning.
"Humanity's final project. A passage beyond known limits. Beyond death. Beyond entropy."
Lirien's voice was tight. "And it backfired."
"No. It worked. The Rift did exactly what it was designed to do. It redefined what could not be controlled."
Kaela scowled. "And unmade everything in the process."
"Correction. It rewrote. Not all were erased. Only those who could not adapt."
The images shifted again.
Humans standing in strange light. Some of them changed—bodies twisted by exposure, minds shattered. Others simply… dissolved. Not violently. Peacefully. As if stepping into something larger than themselves.
Then the screen went dark.
They arrived at a sealed door, larger than the rest.
Steward-9 turned to Reven.
"The ones who came before you are beyond this gate."
Reven's breath caught. "Alive?"
"Dormant. Stabilized. Altered."
Kaela gripped his arm. "You don't have to go in."
"I do," Reven said.
Lirien nodded. "We'll be right here."
The gate opened.
The chamber inside was cold and impossibly still. No hum of machinery. No breath. Just rows of containment chambers—each with a single occupant inside. Human. Sleeping. Preserved.
Reven walked slowly past them.
There were dozens.
Some young. Some old. Some familiar.
One of them looked almost like him. Not exactly. But close enough to make his chest tighten.
And in the centre of the room, encased in something more complex than the rest, was a woman.
Eyes closed. Body wrapped in silver cords and crystal growths.
His mother.
He didn't need proof.
He knew.
She hadn't died in the Collapse. She had been taken—preserved here, like a seed never meant to bloom.
"She is why the Rift didn't kill you."
Steward-9 stood behind him now, silent as shadow.
"You were not supposed to survive the collapse. But your bloodline carried a key. One buried in her. One born in you."
Reven stepped closer to the chamber, placing his hand against the glass. She looked peaceful. Like the world outside never reached her.
"Can she wake?"
"If you open her chamber, she will not remember you."
"I don't care."
"If you awaken her… the Rift will see her too."
Reven said nothing for a long time.
Then he lowered his hand.
"Not yet."
Back outside, the sky was no longer stable.
The fracture had widened. Now a full arc across the clouds, pulsing with a rhythm that mirrored the shards inside Reven's armour.
Kaela walked up beside him. "You found someone, didn't you?"
He nodded.
Lirien tilted her head toward the sky. "Then we have two choices."
Reven looked at her. "Say it."
She did.
"Run—or finish this."