The fire crackled as dusk sank its claws into the forested hills around their temporary camp.
Mira sat wrapped in her cloak, watching sparks rise toward a sky painted in bruised violet and silver. Kelan snored softly nearby, stretched out with his arms crossed behind his head.
She should've been tired (physically, yes, her limbs ached) but her mind spun like a wheel caught on old, buried thoughts.
Dreams. Fire. A name whispered on the edge of memory. Kelan. For her, his name had a strange gravity now.
She rubbed her eyes and stood, boots crunching on the leaf-strewn path as she headed down to the river again. The others were asleep or on watch, but Rafael stood at the edge of the camp's perimeter, unmoving.
Silent.
Watching the stars.
Not far behind him, Lira and Juno sat together on a smooth boulder, talking in hushed tones, their figures half-lit by the flickering firelight.
"You're always awake," Mira said quietly, stepping beside Rafael.
His response came a moment later. "Some things don't sleep easily."
She tilted her head. "You talk like someone who's being cursed too many times."
He didn't meet her gaze. "Maybe I have."
They stood together under the stars, the river whispering below them like an old secret. Behind them, Lira glanced over briefly but said nothing, sensing the weight of the moment. Juno, eyes sharp, whispered something to Lira, something about patterns, again, and things remembered between the cracks of reality.
Then Mira turned away, but Rafael spoke again—voice lower this time, heavier.
"You were there, you know. In Sunrest."
She froze.
Rafael continued. "A version of you. And Kelan. You saved each other. Held off the breach for three days. You died when the leyline collapsed. He died protecting the retreat."
Her mouth was dry. "How do you know that exactly?"
"Because I was there too. That time, I came late. But I keep being there. Again and again."
He finally looked at her, and something ancient burned behind his eyes.
"I've reset time hundreds of times, Mira. And most of the time, you two are drawn to each other. Both of you never remember. But some part of you always got a glimpse of it."
She staggered back a step, the weight of his words crashing down.
"You're insane," she whispered. "Or lying." But even as she said it, part of her shivered. Not in fear, but in recognition.
"I hope so," he smiled tragically.
Down by the water, Kelan stirred in his sleep and muttered Mira's name.
Juno, watching from her seat, frowned deeply. Lira whispered, "Did he say timeline again?"
Juno only nodded, her jaw clenched.
***
The next morning, they moved deeper into the Whispering Hollow. The name wasn't just poetic. Winds here carried strange murmurs, like half-formed sentences spoken in the wrong tongue. Vines grew in patterns that twisted the eye. And the shadows, the shadows watched.
They passed the broken remnants of an ancient outpost, where black moss coated the stones like scars. Mira glanced around and caught Kelan staring at the cracked stone archway. His face was unreadable.
"You okay?" she asked.
He blinked. "Feels familiar. Like I've been here before."
"Maybe in a dream," she said.
He gave a short, humorless laugh. "Maybe."
Rafael stepped up behind them, eyes scanning the terrain. "This place is layered. Thin in some places. Easy for echoes to bleed through."
Mira turned toward him. "Echoes of what?"
"Old loops. Other timelines. Lost choices. Memory. Everything torturing you in silent," he answered.
The words unsettled her, but she said nothing more.
Juno stepped beside Rafael. "That's why it feels wrong here. The Hollow's thinning. And something's bleeding through."
Lira looked between the two of them, confused. "Timelines again? What are you talking about actually?"
Juno's expression softened slightly. "Not yet, Lira. You'll understand in time. Well, the same goes for me, actually."
By midday, they reached the edge of the Pale Root Grove, a sunken glade where the trees were bone-pale and leafless. Pulsing veins of violet mana ran up their trunks like disease. At its center, a leyline breach shimmered faintly, warping the air around it.
Rafael stepped forward, jaw tight. "It's unstable. This wasn't here before. Not in this version."
Kelan moved beside him. "So we seal it?"
"We try. But it won't go quietly," Rafael replied.
Mira traced the runes along her bracer, each one glowing faintly. Her hands shook, but not from fear. From memory.
Juno pulled a shard of prismatic glass from her satchel and began chanting softly. Lira stood behind her, uncertain but ready.
Then the Riftspawn came.
They emerged from the trees like smoke given form—twisted, many-eyed things that crawled with hunger and hissed in a dozen forgotten languages.
Mira stepped forward, runes blazing now with unexpected intensity.
Kelan stood at her side, blade drawn, eyes calm. "We've done this before," he said. "Right?"
She looked at him. "We probably died last time, tho."
"Then let's do it better."
They moved in tandem. Mira cast sigils that tore the air apart with light. Kelan struck through gaps she created. Rafael moved like a shadow through the chaos, his sword humming with temporal energy.
Juno's glass shard burst with refracted light, trapping one of the Riftspawn in a prism of sound and light. Lira sent a wave of purifying fire through another creature, her face a mask of awe and horror.
When the breach began to collapse in on itself, Mira staggered. Her vision blurred. She saw Sunrest burning. Kelan bleeding. Her hands crumbling into ash.
Then,…
A hand gripped hers. Kelan.
"Stay here," he said. "Stay now."
She nodded. The breach gave one final pulse and snapped shut with a thunderclap.
Silence fell over the grove. The Riftspawn were gone. The trees were still.
Mira fell to her knees and laughed, a strange, shaky sound.
Kelan knelt beside her. "Did we win?"
Juno checked the air for lingering echoes. "No trace. We did it."
Rafael sheathed his blade and looked skyward. "For this moment, yes."
Mira looked at them all; Kelan, Juno, Lira, Rafael, and felt something new.
"Then let's make this moment matter."
And as the sun broke through the clouds, shining down on the Pale Root Grove, she felt (just for a moment) that maybe this time, they had a chance.
***