"Some say the end of the world will come with fire.Others say it already did—and left a girl behind to remember it."— Fragment of the Lost Prophet, Year Unknown
Elen awoke to the sound of wind humming a lullaby.
She sat up slowly.
They were camped beneath an ancient ruin—the ribs of some long-dead titan forming a shelter against the storming skies. The Traveler sat by a fire, sharpening his blade, eyes distant. Cael… was gone.
"Where is he?" Elen asked.
The Traveler didn't answer at first.
"Gone. Dreamwalking."
She blinked. "Dream…?"
"He's searching for the others. The remaining fragments of himself."
"And he's doing it through the Dreamweave."
Elen touched her forehead. Her memories—it wasn't just fragments anymore. They were forming patterns. A song. A prophecy. A map made of moments she hadn't lived yet.
"I saw something while I slept," she whispered. "A mirror with a mouth. It said I'd end the world."
The Traveler stood.
"That wasn't a dream."
He looked at her seriously.
"That was a warning."
—The Temple Beneath the Sand—
They traveled south, where the stars bled green and the sand hissed like snakes.
There, half-buried beneath dunes of crimson dust, rose the Temple of Threads—once a weaving hall for fate-priests, now a broken nest for secrets.
Cael returned at dusk, his body flickering between forms.
He had seen too much.
"I found another piece," he said.
"But it was corrupted."
He opened his palm.
A sliver of twisted glass pulsed with red light.
"He called himself Veyl, the Herald of Undoing."
They entered the temple.
Inside were murals carved with cosmic language—depictions of a girl surrounded by fire, always smiling, always weeping.
"That's you," Cael said.
Elen stepped forward.
"Why am I in the past?"
Cael shook his head.
"You're not."
"This is the future. A memory of what's to come."
Suddenly, the walls trembled.
From the deepest chamber rose a sound like thunder being torn in half.
And then… a figure crawled out.
Tall. Insectile. Wearing a mask of mirrors.
"The Seer Without Eyes," Cael whispered.
The Traveler drew his sword. "We're not ready for this—"
But Elen stepped forward.
"I dreamed this moment," she said.
The Seer hissed.
"Then you know how it ends."
"Yes," Elen whispered.
"I wake up."
She placed her hand on the Seer's mask.
And the creature shattered.
Like a dream being erased.
Flashback: The End That Was
Elen, as a child, holding a torch as the skies fell. Screaming names she never learned. Leading gods into the abyss, one by one.
She remembered it now.
She was the one who ended the War.
The one who told the Traveler where to go.
The one who sacrificed Cael.
Back in the temple, she collapsed.
The Traveler caught her.
"What did you see?"
"Everything," she said, voice shaking. "I'm the reason we're all broken."
Cael stepped forward.
"No," he said gently. "You're the reason we're still trying."
He knelt beside her.
"You dreamed the end. But that doesn't mean you are it."
He opened his hand.
Revealing a glowing compass.
"I found this in the Dreamweave. It points to the last piece."
"The Heart of the Hollow King."
Far above them, the black star blinked again.
In the sky, a second star answered.
Red.
Hungry.
And waking.