The Vision Tightens
The whisper echoed through Cael's skull—
"It's been a long time… brother."
Brother.
The word detonated inside him, splitting into a hundred memories that weren't complete, weren't whole—
weren't his.
Or maybe were.
The white blaze around him hardened into shape, pulling him into a suspended memory-space.
A chamber of fractured mirrors.
Each mirror a piece of him he wasn't supposed to have back.
In the center stood a figure.
Tall.
Calm.
Radiant with white resonance that bent reality at the edges.
A man barely older than Cael, with the same slanted eyes, same bone structure—
but sharper.
Colder.
Every feature refined into something almost divine.
And on his forehead—
a floating crown of geometric sigils shimmered like orbiting shards.
Cael's chest constricted.
He knew that crown.
He had seen it rip his Echo out of him.
The man smiled faintly, not cruelly—
almost fondly.
"I wondered how long you'd stay buried. But you're finally waking up."
Cael forced air into his lungs.
"Who… are you?"
The figure tilted his head.
"You already know."
"I don't," Cael snapped. "So tell me."
The man sighed—not annoyed, but disappointed.
"You really don't remember."
He stepped forward, each footstep bending the mirror-floor like ripples in a pond.
"Very well."
He placed a hand on his chest with a soldier's formality—
"I am Orion Drayen."
The name rang like a bell.
Cael staggered.
Drayen.
The surname hit him with the force of a forgotten home.
The figure—Orion—held Cael's gaze.
"Your elder brother."
---
Memory Strike
Cael's pulseband flared as if it were trying to tear itself off his wrist.
Images slammed into him—
A small room.
Two boys.
One older, one younger.
One patient, one restless.
A promise:
"Stay close to me, Cael. I'll always keep you safe."
Then—
Light.
A tear in the sky.
A hand dragging Cael away.
A scream—
Orion's scream.
Then nothing.
Everything sealed.
Erased.
Cael grabbed his head.
"Stop—stop—STOP—!"
The vision shattered.
Only Orion remained, untouched.
---
Orion's Truth
"Why did I forget you?" Cael whispered hoarsely.
Orion folded his arms behind his back.
"Because Mother made you forget."
Cael froze.
"…Mother?"
Orion nodded once.
"She foresaw what you would become. What your Echo would become. What the convergence around you would cause."
He walked past Cael, tracing his fingers along the mirror-walls.
"She erased every memory tying us together. And then she hid me."
Cael felt the floor tilt.
"My mother wouldn't—"
"She would," Orion cut in softly.
"She had to. Because if anyone knew who you really were… this world would have collapsed long before the sky-scar ever formed."
Cael swallowed hard.
"What am I?"
Orion turned to him, eyes glowing a painful golden-white.
"You're the stabilizer."
Resonance froze around them.
"The one existence that prevents total collapse."
Cael's heart pounded.
"I don't understand—"
"You don't need to understand," Orion said, stepping closer.
"You just need to come with me."
The mirrors flickered.
Cael's pulseband vibrated violently.
"Come with you… where?"
Orion raised his hand.
A breach formed behind him—
but not like the Outer Vein Breaches.
This one was stable.
Controlled.
Balanced perfectly on Orion's will.
"To finish what was started."
His voice softened.
"To restore you."
Cael frowned.
"Restore me how?"
Orion extended his hand.
"By giving back what Mother stole from you."
---
The Choice
Cael's breath hitched.
The breach pulsed.
He felt the pull—
warm, familiar, like a memory of comfort.
A voice not Orion's whispered across the vision:
"Cael… keep your promise…"
Lyra.
The memory of her reaching for him.
Her voice in the collapsing chamber.
Her defiance against whatever pattern he was "supposed" to follow.
Cael's jaw tightened.
"Why do you want my Echo?"
Orion lowered his hand, expression unreadable.
"Because we are incomplete without each other."
He let the crown hover lower, its light softening.
"Because you were meant to stand beside me—
not fractured, not tethered to someone like her."
Cael's pulseband surged dangerously.
"Her?"
"Lyra," Orion said simply.
No hatred—
just dismissal.
"The girl interfering with your convergence.
The one keeping you from remembering.
The one binding you to the wrong future."
Cael stepped back.
"You think she's the wrong future for me?"
Orion smiled gently.
"I think she is the wrong future for the world."
Silence cracked between them.
---
Fracture in the Vision
A sharp noise echoed—
like a sword hitting glass.
Cracks spiderwebbed across the vision.
Orion tensed. "What—?"
The crack widened—
—and Lyra's voice tore through:
"CAEL—FIND ME—NOW!"
The vision exploded.
Orion roared—
Not in anger.
In alarm.
"SHE'S BREAKING THE CHANNEL—CAEL, LISTEN TO ME!"
Cael staggered as the space collapsed into a storm of shards.
Orion lunged forward, trying to grab him before the collapse separated them.
"IF YOU LEAVE NOW, YOU'LL LOSE EVERYTHING WE JUST UNLOCKED—"
Cael reached back with instinct.
Not for Orion.
For Lyra.
The echo-storm ripped them apart—
Orion's voice crashing after him:
"CAEL—YOU ARE NOT READY FOR THE NAME YOU CARRY!"
Then—
"DRAYENS DO NOT RUN!"
The vision burst—
And Cael fell back into the cold of the physical world.
---
Return to Reality
He gasped as his body snapped upright—
On the floor of a ruined chamber, dust swirling around him.
His pulseband burned like a brand.
Lyra knelt beside him, gripping his shoulders with both hands.
"Cael—Cael—HEY—stay with me!"
He stared up at her, chest heaving.
"Lyra…"
Her eyes were fierce, terrified, real.
"…you came back," he breathed.
Lyra pulled him into a hard, grounding embrace.
"Of course I came back. Always."
But Cael barely heard it.
Because behind her—
in the breach's fading afterglow—
a silhouette lingered.
Tall.
Crowned.
Watching.
And for the first time since waking in Zephyr—
Cael remembered enough to feel fear.
His voice trembled.
"Lyra…
He found me."
Lyra's grip tightened.
"Who?"
Cael swallowed.
"Orion."
Lyra's eyes widened.
"That name… you said it before. Cael, who is he?"
Cael forced the words out—
"They said he's my brother."
Lyra's breath stopped.
And far behind them, the breach closed like an eye.
---
End of Chapter 125