The silence followed them up the corridor.Each step echoed softly against the hollow stone, the rhythm slow and uncertain. The walls no longer glowed, but faint veins of light still flickered beneath the surface like veins beneath pale skin. The chamber behind them had sealed itself, swallowing the last trace of the crystal’s glow.Selene didn’t look back.Her body still felt strange. The pulse beneath her skin hadn’t faded, and every breath seemed to hum with something that wasn’t entirely her own. It was as though the light had entered her, settling deep enough to be felt but not yet understood.Kaelen walked a few steps behind her, his hand never far from his weapon. He didn’t speak, but she could feel the tension in him the way his presence pressed against the quiet, grounding her even when she wanted to drift away.The corridor began to slope upward.Bits of broken glass crunched beneath their boots. The air grew thinner and colder. Selene reached out once to steady herself agai

The light fell away.It didn’t fade like a dying flame. It broke apart slowly, shattering into dust that drifted through the air and dissolved into the cracks beneath her feet.Selene stood in the middle of it all, her breathing soft but uneven, her hands trembling slightly as the glow left her skin. The air felt colder without it. The silence stretched so far that she could hear her own pulse in her ears.The world that had surrounded them — the broken pillars, the endless stone, the trembling horizon had stilled. What was once shifting light and memory now felt heavy and still, like the end of a storm that had stolen everything in its path.Kaelen lay a few feet away, motionless.Selene turned toward him. Her steps were slow, steady, almost reverent, as though even the ground beneath her was uncertain whether it was real again.When she reached him, she knelt beside his body and pressed her fingers to his throat.There was a pulse. Weak, but there.She exhaled a sound that wasn’t qu

The light around them pulsed like a slow breath.Selene stood beneath the towering column, her hand still hovering near the names carved into the floor. The surface was warm, and the energy it gave off felt alive not like magic, but like presence. Every whisper of air, every faint flicker in the glass towers above, seemed to respond to her touch.Kaelen watched her in silence. He didn’t say a word, but his eyes followed the way the light moved across her skin, how it lingered around her fingers like recognition.Then, softly, she spoke.“They’re waking up.”Kaelen turned. The city was no longer still.The faint, shapeless figures they’d seen before were starting to form clearer outlines people made of light and memory, walking slowly through the streets. Some looked lost. Others moved with quiet purpose, like they’d been here before.A young child ran across the glowing stone, his laughter echoing faintly before fading into a trail of gold dust. An older man stood beneath a nearby tow

The city had gone quiet again, but not in peace.It was the kind of silence that follows a wound still, heavy, waiting for the next heartbeat to decide whether to heal or bleed.Selene stood before the mirror, its light nearly gone. The once vibrant pulse that had filled the City of Memory now trembled faintly beneath the glass. The reflection that had shown her Kaelen’s truth was gone, but the echo of it still lingered in the air like smoke.Kaelen stayed a few paces behind her, his blade still sheathed, his eyes fixed on the cracks forming along the courtyard’s edge. The light running through the streets below flickered, then disappeared entirely, leaving only faint trails of heat that faded into darkness.“Selene,” he said quietly.She didn’t turn.“You feel it too, don’t you?”Selene nodded slowly. “The foundation’s shifting.”The ground beneath them gave a soft, rolling tremor. Not enough to throw them off balance, but enough to remind them that the city wasn’t stable anymore.Ka

The light swallowed them whole.There was no sound, no wind, no sense of falling. Only the feeling of being pulled through something that was neither air nor space, a silence so complete it pressed against their chests.Kaelen tried to breathe, but there was nothing to draw in. His eyes were open, but the light was everywhere not bright, not blinding, just endless.Then, slowly, shapes began to form around them.The light thinned, becoming mist. The mist turned into air. And in the distance, outlines of towers appeared, faint at first, then solid.They were standing in a city.But not the one above.This one was quiet. Still. Its streets were made of smooth stone, reflecting pale gold light that came from nowhere. Buildings stretched upward, their walls carved with shifting patterns that moved like water.Selene turned slowly, her eyes wide. “This place…”Kaelen finished for her. “It’s beautiful.”She nodded, though her face was pale. “It shouldn’t exist anymore.”He looked around. “T