A wave of information surged through him—raw, unfiltered, unrelenting. Histories he never lived. Powers he never trained for. Code strings. Runes. Systems within systems. Locked protocols he didn't even recognize… until now.
Memories from lives unlived. Pain from battles never fought. Names of people he'd never met, but suddenly mourned as if they'd died in his arms.
And through it all, one thought carved its way through the chaos like a blade through mist:
He was never supposed to wake.
Valerian stumbled, breath catching, the world tilting sideways. His knee struck the cold floor of the Vault, hard enough to crack stone—but he didn't feel the pain.
Selene was at his side in an instant, her expression pale but focused. She dropped beside him, her gauntleted hand gripping his shoulder. "Valerian—?"
"I'm fine," he said hoarsely, though his voice sounded wrong, like it echoed across timelines. Like it belonged to more than one version of him.
