The air inside the Prism Nexus was thinner now, each breath Kael took carrying weight—not just physical, but temporal. The fractures in the woven light web pulsed with increasing instability. The corrupted version of Kael—the convergence, the unwanted echo of discarded fates—had been defeated, yet its lingering presence had left a trace in the paths.
Kael stepped closer to the core.
"This place is unraveling," Aelira said, eyes scanning the luminous strands now fraying at the edges. "The Prism isn't just reacting to what we did. It's reacting to what he was."
Lin stood beside Kael, her hand hovering near his. She didn't need to say anything. Her trust was whole, unwavering. Together, they had walked through fire, illusions, mirrors of the past and possible.
Kael reached out to the beating core of the Prism. The golden light warmed his fingertips, but beneath it—like a heartbeat behind a heartbeat—something darker throbbed. Not malevolent, but ancient. Buried.
Then, time snapped.
The Nexus split.
They fell through it, spiraling backward. Not through space, but through time. Not one path, but all paths.
Kael landed hard on cracked earth. Not the Prism. Not even the current world.
The sky above was gray and raw, as if freshly formed. Storms whispered along the horizon like newborn gods. Towers of stone rose like teeth from a broken landscape, and the stars overhead blinked in constellations Kael didn't recognize.
Lin and Aelira landed beside him, groaning. Time flickered around their forms, their clothes subtly shifting between past and future versions. Kael's sigil dimmed and then pulsed anew, adapting.
"Where are we?" Lin whispered, looking around.
Aelira answered, voice reverent. "Not when. Before."
Kael understood.
This was the Origin.
The Root Beyond Time.
A place where all things were seeded—before Pact, before Prism, before gods. A space outside chronology, where intent birthed reality.
From the center of the jagged plain, a tree rose. Not like any from their world. It was made of starlight and bone, bark etched with runes that shifted when viewed directly. It stood impossibly tall, yet cast no shadow.
Kael stepped toward it.
The wind whispered his name in languages never spoken aloud. Memories he had never lived rose in his chest. The cry of a child he never had. The love of a parent he never met. The betrayal of a brother he never knew.
"The Root knows all threads," Lin said, awestruck. "It... it sees what could have been. What should have been."
The tree reacted to Kael's presence. A pulse of blue fire rippled through its branches. From within, a figure stepped forward. Not Kael. Not the Convergence.
It was the First Pactbearer.
Tall, robed in the winds of time, and bearing a mask similar to the one worn by the shadowed throne entity. But this one was not cloaked in malice.
"You have come far, Kael," the voice intoned. Genderless, eternal. "But to seal the Prism and restore balance, you must complete what we began."
Kael looked to Lin and Aelira. "What did you begin?"
The First Pactbearer gestured, and the ground beneath them dissolved into a vision:
A world before division, where mortals and magic danced freely. The Prism was whole, the Root was vibrant, and the Veil between realms pulsed in harmony. But ambition—as always—intervened. A sect of ancient beings tried to tame the Prism, split its power, and use it to lock fate itself. The war shattered time. The Pact was forged to mend the split. But its cost was exile and memory loss.
Kael's eyes widened. He had been one of them. Not as Kael, but as a spark within the Root—a thread destined to return.
"I am you," the First Pactbearer said. "Unbound. Remembered. Fulfilled."
Kael shuddered. He saw it now—not just his life, but his existence across cycles. The Prism hadn't chosen him at random. He was its anchor, reborn through each fracture, seeking resolution.
"To mend the Prism," the First said, "you must bind yourself to the Root. It will cost your current self—your place in this time. But it will unify the threads."
Kael turned to Lin.
Tears glimmered in her eyes. "If you go..."
"You won't lose me," Kael said. "I will be all of me. Everywhere. And that includes here."
Lin took his hand. "Then let me bind my thread to yours."
Aelira stepped forward. "And mine."
The First Pactbearer nodded.
They approached the Root.
Each placed a hand on its bark. The energy was immediate. Memories poured through them. Love. Loss. Battle. Peace. Laughter. Grief. The totality of existence compressed into a singular flame.
They screamed. They sang. They wept.
Then, silence.
The Root pulsed once.
Then bloomed.
All paths aligned. The Prism shone whole once more, and time stitched itself together, no longer fractured, but flowing.
Kael opened his eyes.
They stood back in their world—still damaged, but healing. The skies were calmer. The echoes gone.
Kael looked to Lin and Aelira. They remembered too.
Not everything, but enough.
The Root still pulsed within them.
Balance had been restored.
But a new age was beginning.