2025-10-14 03:13:00
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter Ninety-Six: The Weight of Returning
The face in the water didn’t speak.It only watched them, its features flickering like something caught between shapes. The eyes were the clearest part wide, frightened, and full of something Selene knew too well:Memory that had nowhere to live.The river’s surface trembled. The reflection broke, then formed again, sharper this time. The outline of a person shoulders, hands, and something like breath rising but not rising, as if the water itself was holding them back.Lyra stepped closer, slow and careful. Her voice was soft, but it didn’t waver.“They’re not trying to harm us.”Kaelen didn’t move, but his attention shifted slightly toward her. “Fear does not always strike with intent. Sometimes it follows instinct.”Selene looked at the figure again. The light in the clearing was gentle, but the shape in the water looked like someone holding onto a ledge with shaking fingers.Kian stood behind them, silent. His expression had changed. Not pain. Recognition. He took one small step fo
Chapter Ninety-Five: The River Remembers
The sun was higher now, or something like a sun. The light was warmer, steadier, no longer in that fragile state of just forming. The world was taking shape around them slowly, as though it was learning how to hold itself together.Kian sat quietly beside the river, his hands resting on his knees. His breathing had steadied. His presence didn’t shake the ground or bend the air the way Selene’s and Kaelen’s did. He simply existed. And somehow, that made the world feel more real.Lyra knelt in the grass a short distance away, her fingertips brushing across the blades. They responded to her touch, brightening into soft color greens, golds, faint blues. She didn’t force anything. She was only noticing it, acknowledging the small life that wanted to begin.Selene watched her for a moment.Lyra had always been quiet, but now her quiet held weight. As if this world was speaking through her in ways Selene could not yet hear.Kaelen remained standing. His gaze stayed on the treeline, still lis
Chapter Ninety-Four: The First Soul
The light changed slowly as they waited. It softened, deepened, as though the sky was drawing in a slow breath. Selene didn’t move from her place near the water. Her hand remained close to the surface, not touching now, just resting there. The river moved steadily, carrying something unseen toward them.Lyra watched the treeline.Kaelen stayed completely still.The presence drew closer.It wasn’t dramatic. No sound broke the quiet. No flash of light or sudden wind. Just a figure emerging between the trees hesitant, slow, unsure of how their body worked in this place.He was a man.Young, but worn. Dark hair. Shoulders that looked like they once held too much. His clothes flickered like memory rather than fabric fragments of what he had worn at the end, unfinished by the world that formed him.His eyes moved from Kaelen to Lyra, then finally to Selene.He looked confused. Tired.Like he had been running for a very long time, and only now realised he had stopped.He didn’t speak.Selene
Chapter Ninety-Three: The River’s Edge
The path led them toward the sound of running water. At first, it was faint, just a murmur beneath the rustling leaves. But as they walked, it grew clearer. The trees thinned. The ground softened beneath their steps. The air grew cooler.They emerged beside a wide river.The water was clear, moving gently but steadily, like it had always known how to exist. The light reflected in soft fragments across its surface. Small stones lined the banks. The world was shaping itself with quiet intention.Selene stopped near the edge. She crouched and let her hand hover just above the water. The surface shimmered, responding even before she touched it.Lyra stood to her right, watching her with calm patience.Kaelen remained a few steps behind, his gaze on the opposite bank.“This wasn’t here before,” Selene said.“It was beginning,” Lyra answered. “You gave it direction by choosing to move forward.”Selene dipped her fingers into the water.It was cool.Not cold.Not empty.Cool like something a
Chapter Ninety-Two: The Presence in the Trees
They didn’t move at first.The air around them felt still in a way that didn’t belong to silence. It was the stillness of something watching. Something remembers them. The world itself felt like it was holding its breath.Selene kept her eyes forward. Her heartbeat was slow, steady, but heavy. She could feel the presence, not with her senses, but with something deeper. The way one feels a storm before clouds gather.Kaelen stood ahead of them. He didn’t reach for a weapon. He didn’t shift his stance. He simply watched the tree line. His entire body was still, but not frozen. Ready. Listening.Lyra stepped a little closer to Selene, though she did not seem afraid. Her expression was calm, steady, her gaze soft but focused. She could feel it too.The trees were forming fully now. Bark held colour. Leaves caught light. The shadows between branches deepened. The world was learning how to be real. But within that forming life, there was something else. Something that wasn’t born from light
Chapter Ninety-One: The Edge of the Valley
The morning light did not feel gentle anymore.It had warmth, yes, but there was something beneath it now. A quiet pressure. A reminder that the world was still forming itself, still remembering the things that broke it before. The river beside them moved slowly, clear as glass, reflecting the pale sky and the soft outlines of the growing land beyond.Selene stood near the water. She watched the surface shift around her fingertips when she touched it. The water did not behave like ordinary water yet. It responded to her. It rippled in steady rings, like it was listening.Kaelen kept a little distance behind her. He watched the horizon the way someone watches a memory come back in pieces. His posture was calm, but there was a tension in the set of his shoulders that had not eased since the light changed.Lyra sat nearby on a block of smooth stone that had shaped itself from the ground during the night. Her eyes were open, but she looked somewhere far beyond the valley. Something in her
