The city was dying.
Velisane cracked like an eggshell under invisible pressure. The moment Elara clutched the pendant, something deep beneath the city stirred—then screamed.
Mirrors began to splinter across every surface, spiderwebbing with glowing veins of red. The sundial exploded behind them. Buildings swayed, groaned, and began collapsing inward as if sucked toward some invisible core.
Cassian grabbed Elara's hand. "We have to go. Now."
"But the memory vault—"
"Will bury us alive."
They ran.
The stairwell buckled beneath them. Chunks of mirror crashed down around their heads. Elara's flames flared instinctively, shielding them as they stumbled upward through the suffocating dark.
Above ground, the plaza had transformed into a war zone.
The air was thick with black mist. Statues cracked and shattered. The shadows Vyrel left behind were no longer passive—they were hunting.
Cassian slashed at one, his blade glowing blue with runes. It screamed and dissolved.
"Toward the skycraft!" he shouted.
Elara turned—and froze.
The path was gone.
The entire street had folded in on itself like warped parchment, forming a canyon of shifting glass. Reflections blinked back at her, none of them hers. Some showed her running. Others—bleeding. Dying. Smiling with her mouth but not her eyes.
"What the hell—"
"Elara!" Cassian yanked her back just as a shard slashed the air where she'd stood.
"They're trying to trap you in the reflections," he panted. "Stay anchored. Don't look too long."
"Easy for you to say," she muttered.
They pressed forward, ducking into alleys of broken towers and shivering light.
And then—another voice, not human:
"The Pact is broken. The Fulcrum walks again."
It came from the city itself. From the mirrors. From the air.
Cassian paled. "That's not possible."
"What is it?"
"A Sentinel. One of the watchers left behind by the Starborn Houses. They were sealed."
Another mirror cracked like thunder—and a figure stepped through.
Nine feet tall.
Featureless face.
Body made of obsidian and fire.
It moved without motion, one moment across the plaza, the next right behind them.
Elara turned, flame roaring in her fists.
It raised an arm—and time slowed.
Wind halted. Shards froze midair. Cassian blurred beside her, trapped in motion.
Only Elara moved.
And the Sentinel spoke—not with words, but thoughts:
"The Flame remembers. But you do not."
"You were born of sky and ash. You must choose."
"Choose what?" she whispered.
"To end what began. Or let it burn again."
Her pendant glowed.
The Flame surged—not just through her, but out of her.
Time snapped back.
The Sentinel reeled—and shattered into a thousand pieces.
Cassian gasped as motion returned. "What the—what was that?"
"I don't know," Elara breathed. "But I think I just broke a star ghost."
They didn't wait to see if it reformed.
By the time they reached the skycraft dock, only a third of Velisane remained.
The rest had sunk into itself, a whirlpool of breaking light and memory.
Elara looked back as the ship rose into the air.
The city was beautiful even in its ruin. Like a snow globe mid-fall, sparkling in death.
Cassian joined her at the railing.
She didn't speak.
He did.
"You held your ground."
"I almost died."
"But you didn't."
She closed her eyes. "The visions… the Sentinel… they knew me. Before I knew myself. That's terrifying."
He nodded. "And exactly why you're the Fulcrum. You didn't run. You stood your ground, and you saved us both."
She didn't answer.
Cassian touched her shoulder gently. "You're not alone in this, Elara."
"Don't promise things you might not live to keep."
He smiled sadly. "Then let's keep living."
They returned to Lunareal with grim news—and the pendant.
Ithiriel examined it for hours in silence, then finally declared:
"This was never meant to survive the Sundering. It contains an imprint. Not just of power, but of a Fulcrum's choices."
"Whose?" Elara asked.
Ithiriel looked at her. "Yours. But from another thread."
"Another what?"
"Another version of you. From a timeline where the Pact fractured earlier. Her choices bled into this object. Now they guide you."
"So I'm haunted by myself?"
"Guided," Ithiriel corrected. "And perhaps… warned."
Later that night, Elara stood alone in the Hall of Echoes, staring at the pendant on the pedestal where she'd first trained.
It pulsed softly.
Warm.
Almost like it was breathing.
She whispered, "What would you do, Elara-from-another-thread? Did you burn the world? Or save it?"
No answer came.
Only the hum of flame beneath her skin.