“Nothing haunts harder than the version of yourself you needed to survive.”The ground beneath Adrian and Emily cracked like thin glass under a storm. The old world this memory-wound was alive again, burning with the fury Emily had once unleashed.Firestorms chased each other in the sky. Broken mountains floated like shattered teeth. And standing before them: Her.The version of Emily who had chosen destruction to save him. Golden flames crowned her like a war halo, streaked with streaks of crimson unrestrained, feral, magnificent.Her eyes were molten gold with no pupils, no softness. Only purpose. Emily swallowed hard. “That’s… me.”“No,” the flame-Emily snapped, voice like a burning wind.“I am what you were too afraid to become.”Adrian stepped in front of the Emily he held. Lightning crawled over his arms. “Back off.”The flame-Emily tilted her head, studying him like prey. “Protecting her again,” she mused. “You never learn.”Emily placed a trembling hand on Adrian’s shoulder. “

“Memory is a mercy. Forgetting is a weapon.”Emily stared at the shimmering tear in reality. It pulsed like a heartbeat hers, yet not hers. It called her by a name she didn’t know anymore. Adrian tightened his arm around her. “Emily… don’t go near that thing.”“I’m not,” she whispered.But she didn’t move away, either. Flames coiled under her skin, reacting to the presence beyond the tear a heat that felt familiar, like something from a dream she once had that wasn’t really a dream.Adrian watched her carefully. “What did that thing mean? That you burned a world?”“I don’t know,” she said.But her voice trembled like she feared the answer. It happened suddenly. A surge of heat rolled off her chest not from fear, but from something waking.The world blurred, She clutched her head. “Emily?” Adrian grabbed her shoulders. “Emily, stay with me”“I’m..I’m remembering something”“Then stop,” he urged, panicked. “You don’t have to”“No. It’s not a choice. It’s coming on its own.”The heat spi

“Memory is not a thing you lose. It is a thing that hides until you’re strong enough to carry it.”The massive being of stone and pale fire took a single step forward and the molten-cracked ground trembled beneath its weight.Adrian’s arm instinctively rose in front of Emily. But the creature did something neither of them expected. It knelt. Its plated knees struck the glassy ground with a booming thud. Its head bowed.And in a voice that sounded like an earthquake learning to whisper, it said: “Forgive me, Astra.”Emily froze. The world froze. Adrian’s breath caught because the creature wasn’t threatening. It was… grieving.Emily stepped out from behind Adrian before she realized she’d moved. “Why are you bowing?” she whispered. The creature lifted its gaze those golden magma-filled eyes softening. “Because I failed you.”Heat pulsed in Emily’s chest that same buried warmth that had awakened inside her ever since the collapse of the realms. As the creature spoke, images flickered be

“A weapon is not born. It is remembered.”Emily felt the world tilt. The thing standing before her the shape pulled from the Rift wasn’t a monster. It wasn’t a shadow. It wasn’t even an enemy. It was a decision given form.Lean. Tall. Human-shaped but wrong. Its edges flickered like a broken screen. Its skin shimmered between shadow and static. Its eyes… empty. Holes in reality.But when they locked onto Emily they knew her. Adrian felt her entire body tense. “Emily?”Her breath hitched. “It’s… familiar.”She swallowed hard. “It remembers me.”The Rift’s deep chorus rolled across the air: “WE HAVE SHAPED A VESSEL FROM WHAT YOU TOOK.”“A MEMORY OF YOUR OPPOSITE.”“THE STAR-KILLER.”The creature of molten stone beside them recoiled. “No… No, this should be impossible.”Adrian turned sharply. “What is it? Tell me.”The creature’s magma-flames dimmed. “It is the only being that ever matched Astra.”“A weapon crafted to extinguish starfire itself.”“A being she unmade millions of cycles ag

“Some places do not echo. They listen.”The land changed as Emily walked. With every step she took carrying Adrian, the living world seemed to pull away grass thinning into ash-gray stone, wind losing its warmth, colors draining until only muted tones remained.The sky above the distant mountains was unnaturally still, clouds frozen as if painted there by a hand that had forgotten how to move.Adrian’s weight was light in her arms. Too light. His lightning no longer sparked. It slept coiled deep, barely breathing. “Stay with me,” Emily whispered, more command than prayer. “We’re almost there.”The molten guardian walked ahead of her, each step deliberate. “This mountain does not welcome visitors,” it warned. “It tolerates necessity.”Emily didn’t slow. “Then it’ll have to tolerate me.”The path began to rise sharply, stone steps forming beneath her feet where none should exist. Ancient. Worn. As if countless others had climbed them long ago hoping, failing, vanishing.At the summit, t