The Reverie did not rest.
Even after the confrontation on the bridge of glass, the world twisted forward—quiet, but never still. The skies shimmered with possibility. Trees grew backward. Shadows laughed at their owners. And through it all, Sera, Lucian, and Daen walked roads no mortal was meant to walk.
For three days—at least what felt like three—they wandered through memory-formed wilderness, following fragments of song that only Sera could hear. Each note vibrated through her markings like a compass guiding her toward a deeper, older truth. One she didn't yet understand.
Lucian kept close, his sword reforged through sheer will in the forge of his own mind. Daen had taken to silence, speaking less as the landscape grew more surreal.
They passed through forests of translucent trees, whose leaves held visions of lost lives. Sera brushed one accidentally and saw herself, much older, standing on a tower above a burning sea. She tore her hand away before the vision could finish.
"This place is madness," Daen muttered as they stopped by a river that flowed uphill.
"No," Lucian replied. "Madness implies chaos. This is... ordered wrong. Like everything was built backwards."
"Maybe it was," Sera said. "Or maybe we're walking through a memory that was never meant to be remembered."
Daen glanced at her. "And you're just fine with that?"
"No," she said honestly. "But I think we're past the point of choosing comfort."
That night, they made camp beneath a sky that bled blue fire. The stars were too close, blinking like they were watching. Lucian took first watch. Daen lay in restless sleep. Sera sat by the fire, absently tracing a rune into the dirt. The same rune that had appeared when the thread was severed back at the glass bridge.
A circle within a triangle. The Gate's mark.
"You're getting stronger," said a voice beside her.
She didn't startle. She knew that voice.
Veilcarin.
But when she turned, he wasn't there—only his shadow, shaped in flame, speaking across the divide of space and time.
"How are you—?"
"We're connected. My body remains, but this fragment is... borrowed."
"You said the Gate couldn't be closed."
"I said it couldn't be sealed with strength alone. But you did more than that. You unmade an echo."
"Just one," she murmured. "There are others."
"More than you know," he said grimly. "And one that does not echo, but creates them."
Sera's eyes narrowed. "The First."
"Yes."
"I saw glimpses. A figure in the black beyond the Gate. Always watching."
"That is no echo, Sera. That is the source. The First Dreamer. The one who tried to become god—and instead became gate."
Sera's breath caught. "They didn't just open the Reverie. They became part of it."
"Worse. They fed it."
The fire shadow flickered, his voice growing distant. "The First lies at the center. Guarded by the last city that remembers. You must go there. Before the final echo wakes."
Sera reached for him, but her hand passed through fire.
Veilcarin was gone.
When morning came—if such a thing could be trusted in the Reverie—she told the others.
Lucian nodded grimly. "Then we find the last city."
"Any idea where that is?" Daen asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
Sera stood and pointed north, where the sky spiraled into a vortex of golden smoke. "I think it remembers us. It's waiting."
They journeyed for hours, passing through realms of forgotten faith and living memory. They crossed a desert made of shattered time, where every footstep echoed with an event from another life.
Once, a child ran past them, laughing—then crumbled into ash.
Lucian cursed under his breath. "This place is eating us."
"No," Sera said. "It's showing us what's been eaten already."
Eventually, they crested a ridge and saw it.
The City of Forgotten Names.
Sprawled beneath an arc of storm-suspended sky, it looked built from light and bone. Towers woven from glass and memories rose above ancient bridges that looped into themselves. Roads spiraled outward like a spider's web.
And at the center: the Citadel.
A throne without a king.
"It looks empty," Daen said.
Sera shook her head. "It's not."
They walked through its gates without resistance. No guards. No walls. The city did not need protection. It was the protection—the last remnant of a time when the Reverie had rules.
But the closer they drew to the center, the more the air buzzed.
Sera felt it first. A low hum in her spine. Then Daen staggered. Lucian gripped his temple.
"Something's... coming," Lucian ground out.
"No," Sera whispered. "It's waking."
At the steps of the Citadel, the air split open.
Not like a wound.
Like a mouth.
From it poured shadows wearing faces. Thousands of them. Echoes of people they knew—loved—killed. Each whispering in their own voice.
Sera stood her ground. Her markings ignited in silver flame.
"No more games."
The shadows hissed in unison, "You cannot silence us. You are us."
Lucian raised his sword. "We're more than that."
Daen threw a dagger—it dissolved, but it bought them a heartbeat.
Sera stepped forward and did what no one else dared.
She opened her arms.
The shadows lunged—and stopped.
In her mind, she shouted: I am not afraid of you. I remember you. I accept you.
That one thought split the illusion.
The echoes fell back, shrieking.
The mouth closed.
And behind it, something stood.
A figure robed in starlight and chains.
Not monstrous. Not beautiful.
Just... familiar.
The First Dreamer.
They did not speak with words.
Instead, Sera's mind filled with images: a world before the Reverie, when dreams were just dreams. A hunger for eternity. A ritual gone wrong. A person who tried to see forever—and became trapped in it.
The First did not hate. They mourned.
They were tired.
Sera walked to them. Lucian tried to stop her, but she kept going.
"I know what you are," she said.
The First looked at her with ancient eyes.
"I know why you built the Gate. I know what it cost. And I know... how to end it."
The First tilted their head.
"I won't kill you," she said. "I'll free you."
And she placed her hand on their chest.
The markings on her body flared—once, then vanished.
The Citadel cracked.
The world screamed.
And the Reverie began to collapse.
Lucian grabbed her, Daen pulled them back—
—And the light consumed them all.
✦
When Sera woke, she was on solid ground.
Real ground.
A sky overhead.
No dreams. No visions.
Just wind.
Lucian lay beside her, breathing.
Daen groaned, sitting up. "Please tell me we're not dead."
Sera smiled weakly. "We're home."
The Gate was gone.
And with it, the echoes.
Only memory remained.
But that, she thought, was enough.
Enough to rebuild.
Enough to begin again.