The chamber felt smaller now.
Not because the space had changed—
but because Cael was standing in front of himself.
Older.
Fractured.
An echo carved into flesh.
Lyra hadn't moved from her defensive stance. Her pulseblade was steady, but the hand holding it trembled in a way she probably thought no one could notice.
Future Cael—The Crystal-Veiled One—watched her with an unreadable expression.
"You shouldn't draw that weapon against me," the older Cael said quietly. "It strains him."
Lyra didn't lower it.
If anything, she raised it higher.
"Cael isn't going anywhere with you."
Future Cael sighed.
"I wasn't talking to you."
His eyes—those same blue-grey eyes—shifted to the younger version.
"Stand down, Lyra," Younger Cael said gently.
She snapped her gaze to him, horrified.
"You can't be serious."
"He's… me."
"No," Lyra said, voice tightening, "he was you. That doesn't mean he still is."
Future Cael actually looked impressed.
"You always saw through everything except him."
Lyra glared. "Don't act like you know me."
Future Cael tilted his head.
"I was the one who loved her first."
The blade in Lyra's hand nearly dropped.
The words hit Cael like a punch.
"What?" Cael whispered.
Future Cael didn't hesitate.
"Before the collapse. Before you begged me to cut you out of your own life. Before you asked me to record over every memory that made you human."
Lyra took a step back—like the air had been knocked out of her lungs.
Cael felt something twist viciously in his chest.
"That's not possible," he said. "If that were true—if I had forgotten someone I loved—then I would've felt something when I met her again."
Lyra's breath caught.
Future Cael's expression softened—painfully.
"You did."
The words snapped through the chamber.
"You felt it every time she touched your hand. Every time she called your name. Every time your pulsebands synced a little too perfectly."
Lyra's eyes widened, and for a moment she forgot to breathe.
Future Cael continued:
"You just didn't understand what the feeling was."
Cael felt his pulseband flare like it was trying to speak.
Lyra whispered, "Cael… is that why the breach reacted to you two—"
Future Cael cut her off sharply.
"No. The breach does not care about emotions. It cares about anchors. You and he were the only ones compatible enough to keep him stable."
Lyra's jaw clenched.
"But you said you loved—"
Future Cael raised a hand.
"That was before."
Something changed behind his eyes—a dimming, a fracture.
"When the breach tore the convergence apart, when I split from him… the part of me capable of loving anything stayed with him."
Cael stepped forward.
"What exactly are you?"
Future Cael met his gaze without blinking.
"I am everything you threw away to stay alive."
Cael froze.
Future Cael lowered the crystal veil that had once shielded his face and let it dissolve into drifting shards around him.
"I am the memory.
I am the Echo that refused to die.
I am the version of you that made the sacrifice—
so the rest of you could forget."
Lyra whispered, "You… split into two."
"Convergence cannot be undone," Future Cael said. "It can only be divided. One half was mortal. One half was resonance."
He tapped his chest.
"I am the latter."
Cael's stomach twisted.
"You want me to go with you. To… merge again?"
Future Cael nodded once.
"The breach is collapsing. And the only thing that can stabilize it is a complete convergence. The original you."
Lyra immediately stepped between them.
"No. Absolutely not."
"Lyra—"
"No!" Her voice cracked. "You can't just sacrifice yourself because some… some resonance ghost says that's what you used to want!"
Future Cael regarded her with a tilt of his head.
"It's not sacrifice. It's restoration."
"It's erasure," Lyra snapped. "You're asking him to die."
Future Cael didn't flinch.
"I am asking him to become whole."
Cael stared at the older version—at this broken, shimmering fragment that wore his face but carried centuries of exhaustion.
"What happens to… me?" Cael asked quietly.
"To your consciousness?"
Future Cael's expression was calm.
"You dissolve. You return to what you were always meant to be. A single existence. A complete resonance."
Lyra's pulseblade grew brighter—dangerously bright.
"So he dies."
Future Cael shook his head.
"No. He becomes me."
"That's the same thing," Lyra whispered.
And for the first time… Future Cael hesitated.
A flicker of doubt, almost invisible, crossed his features.
"Lyra," he said softly. "You were my strongest anchor. But anchors can also weigh us down."
Lyra's eyes glistened with furious tears.
"And you think I'll let you break him the way the breach broke you?"
Future Cael didn't raise his voice.
"You can't stop what's coming. The breach wants him. Not me."
Cael felt it too—
the pull tightening in his pulseband, in his bones.
Future Cael extended his hand again.
"We don't have time. Choose."
Cael stared at that outstretched hand.
Lyra grabbed his arm with both hands.
"Cael. Look at me. You are real. He is a memory wearing your face. Don't do this."
He looked at her—
into her eyes—
and something inside him stabilized.
Lyra Vance was not just a tether.
She was the reason he wanted to be himself.
"I'm staying," he said.
Future Cael's eyes sharpened—not with anger, but with inevitability.
"I expected you to choose wrongly."
A pulse of resonance swelled behind him—
The chamber shook—
Cracks ripping through the air like shattered glass.
Future Cael stepped back, cloak swirling.
"Then I will take you by force."
Lyra's grip tightened.
Cael's pulseband blazed—
Two resonances colliding—
And the chamber erupted into blinding light.
---