Skyler woke to pain.
Not sharp. Not immediate. But old—like a memory trying to dig its way out from under his skin.
His veins itched, pulsing with heat that had no source. Every heartbeat felt like an echo—not of blood, but of fire. He stumbled to the mirror in the upper chamber, ripped off his jacket, and stared.
His arms were marked.
Not with wounds. Not with scars. But with glyphs—faint, glowing, twisting just beneath the skin like ink made from starlight and forgotten truths. They pulsed in time with his breath.
And when he held up his hand…
A flicker of flame danced across his palm.
"He's entering phase one," Orias said from the doorway, voice low with reverence and fear.
"The Blood is remembering itself."
Skyler turned, wide-eyed. "What's happening to me?"
Orias approached, calm but serious. "Echoes. Fragments of your past selves. The Archive locked them in your blood. Now that the first pages are turning… your body is trying to remember what your mind cannot."
Skyler staggered back. "It hurts."
Orias nodded solemnly.
"The truth always does."
They led him to the inner sanctum—the Vein Chamber, a place Skyler had never seen before. The walls were covered in glowing red threads—living bloodlines captured in energy form, tracing the patterns of the Novaah flame through time. Every strand pulsed with fragmented memories: battles, collapses, love, betrayal, death… and always, always fire.
"Each line," his mother said, "is a version of you. A life lived in another possibility. Some failed. Some died screaming. Some nearly burned the cosmos to ash."
"You are the collection of them all."
Skyler stared at the largest vein. It split seven ways—each strand ending in a unique sigil. The Seventh glowed faintly, still incomplete.
"What are these?" he asked.
Orias whispered:
"The Seven Flames of the Witness. Seven fragments of your total self."
"Only when you reclaim them all… will you become what you were meant to be."
Suddenly—snap.
A vein in the wall pulsed violently.
Saya winced. "One of them just woke up."
Orias turned to Skyler. "It's happening faster than we feared. The seals are failing."
Skyler staggered, clutching his chest.
He saw:
A battlefield of screaming gods
Himself shattering a moon with a word
A girl begging him not to forget her name
A black flame wrapping itself around his heart
The vision ended. But a glyph—one he'd never seen before—appeared on the back of his hand.
Saya stepped closer. Her eyes glowing. "That's not one of the original seals."
Skyler looked down at it, horrified.
"It's mine."