Chapter Five: The Memory Isn't Yours (Part Two)
The wind was gone.
The moment Solara's hand gripped the Crystal Monarch, the field around them collapsed. Color drained from the world. Light fractured mid-air like broken rhythm, notes cut from a song that never finished.
She stepped forward—not as an illusion, not as a dream, but as who she truly was.
"I don't have long," she said.
The Monarch pulsed in her grip. Its blade wasn't metal. It was memory—woven resonance and light curved into an edge that cut through silence itself.
Zephryn staggered, chest clenching. "Why… why didn't I remember?"
"You weren't meant to." Her voice cracked. "I couldn't let them find you. Not the real you."
The sky above tore open.
Not with fire. Not with thunder.
With a soundless scream—a Veil rending itself apart. Glyphs spiraled out from the wound, pulling resonance in like a black star. The Choir's seal was unraveling.
Zephryn looked at her. At the Monarch. At the dark behind her.
And he knew what she was about to do.
"No. Please. Don't do this again."
Her eyes softened. "It's already done."
"Veil fracture confirmed," the Choir whispered.
"We're losing stability—Threadglass breaking at root."
"Seal the construct—NOW."
"It's too late. The Monarch is active.
The flame remembers."
Solara turned the blade.
And with a cry that didn't echo, she sliced the air wide open.
Behind her—the Void bloomed.
Dark. Infinite. Beautiful.
A space with no time, no memory, no Choir.
She looked back at him one last time.
"You don't belong in silence, Zephryn."
She placed her palm over his heart.
The Monarch hummed once—deep and final.
The Veil trembled.
"I love you."
Then—
She pushed him into the Void.
The fall didn't feel like falling.
It felt like being erased backwards. Like being pulled through everything he forgot—until all that remained was her voice.
And then—nothing.
Above, the Choir chamber lit in alarm.
"He's gone."
"Probe collapse complete."
"The Threadglass shattered—no memory salvage."
"The sacrifice… it was real."
Only the Smiling Cantor remained still.
His grin was tighter now. Sharper.
"So be it," he said. "Let the boy burn. We'll see what truth survives the fire."
Silence.
And then—
A gasp.
A body shoots up from a tangle of blankets in the dark.
Zephryn sits bolt upright, chest heaving, hands trembling over a scar that hums beneath his skin.
Eyes wide.
Breath broken.
He remembers.