The storm hit without warning.No thunder. No lightning. Just a sharp drop in temperature, and then—like the world inhaled and forgot how to breathe—stillness.In the sky above Sanctuary, the clouds turned unnaturally black.A fracture tore open mid-air.And Lin fell through it.She landed in the center of the Flame Garden, surrounded by guardian statues and silenced flame pillars. The sky pulsed purple above her, just once, then closed as if nothing had happened.Guards rushed in moments later.Swords were drawn.Spells shimmered.But no one struck.Because Lin was standing.Breathing.And her eyes… were pitch black.No whites.No irises.Just a perfect void in each socket, deep enough to drown a mind.And she was smiling.Not cruelly.Not sweetly.Just—unnaturally calm.“Don’t move!” one of the guards shouted, trembling. “We don’t know if she’s—”Lin turned to face him.And the air warped around her.Not from flame.From absence.The man collapsed instantly, eyes wide in shock, not

The vision came without warning.One moment, Samuel stood in the War Chamber, arguing over Lin’s quarantine.The next—everything stopped.No flicker. No sound.Just absence.As if the world had blinked.And when Samuel opened his eyes again, the room was filled with Sarahs.Dozens of her.Each standing still—statue-like, scattered across the blackened marble floor.Some wore the armor of the early Rebellion. Others bore flame tattoos that hadn’t existed in this timeline. One version bled from the mouth. Another had no eyes at all, a smooth face of white skin stretched over nothing.And then—closest to him—a Sarah with gray streaks in her hair and an expression carved in grief.Samuel staggered backward.This wasn’t a dream.He could feel the temperature.The weight of air.The pain in his cracked chest.It was now.“What is this?” he breathed.One of the Sarahs—the gray-haired one—turned to him slowly. “Time’s failing.”Her voice was still hers.Samuel swallowed hard. “Are you real?”

The compound beneath the Eastern Bastion was never meant to exist.Carved in secret below the Sanctuary’s oldest foundation, the vault held one thing: a piece of the Void Shard recovered after the southern flame shrine had collapsed. Just one. Contained in obsidian, sealed behind twelve flame-glyphs, and watched by only four people.Only four people knew the vault even existed.Sarah had handpicked each of them.So when the vault alarm shrieked at 2:17 a.m.—She didn’t hesitate.She ran.Boots pounding over stone. Armor half-clasped. The air around her already trembling with raw power. The moment she reached the stairwell, Elian met her there, breathless.“I didn’t touch it!” he blurted. “I heard it, too. I swear—”“Who else is down there?”Elian’s face darkened. “Team Delta-3. Brynn, Cade, Jorn—”“And Talor,” Sarah finished grimly.Her blood turned cold.Talor had been with her since before the Gatekeeper’s fall.Quiet. Efficient. Always two steps behind her in battle, and two steps

Samuel jolted awake with a gasp, the air thick with dew and an unfamiliar scent of lavender and metal. He sat upright, eyes scanning the valley spread before him. It was stunning—green hills rippling like silk under a sky painted in impossible shades of violet and burnt orange. In the center of it all, Mirror Lake shimmered, its surface unnaturally still, reflecting not the sky above, but something else entirely.He blinked. No birds. No wind. No sound. And yet, the hairs on his arms rose as if responding to something unseen.“Samuel?” a soft voice called.He turned sharply. A figure approached—tall, graceful, familiar. It was Kael, but not quite. His eyes were paler, almost silver. His smile held none of the wry humor Samuel had come to know, and his posture was oddly formal, like a soldier meeting a superior.“You’re awake early. We didn’t think the Restoration would stabilize you until evening.”“Kael…” Samuel frowned. “What are you talking about?”Kael tilted his head, confused. “

it pulsed with a sickened hue—tarnished gold and leaking violet threads like veins beneath bruised skin. From the spires of the Southern Verge to the skies above the Broken Chasm, it wavered. Uneasy. Like it knew it was being watched from the other side.Joey stood at the edge of the Riftglass Bastion, his fingers curled tightly around the rail. Beneath him stretched an abyss—a trench where the Net met the limits of known space. He had once stared into it and felt fire.Now, he felt ice.And something ticking.A sound beneath reality. A slow, deliberate rhythm. Not mechanical—but cosmic. Like the heartbeat of something dreaming in deep water.“You hear it too, don’t you?” said a voice behind him.Joey didn’t turn. “How long have you been watching?”Lin stepped beside him, still pale from the collapse she’d suffered hours ago. Her hair no longer moved with the wind—it shimmered slightly, disconnected from time. Her eyes had changed too. Now they reflected shards, as if mirrors had grow