The blade in Kael's hands shimmered with duality—half of light that pulsed with every beat of his heart, half of shadow that whispered the names of those he had lost. Time rippled violently around him. Every breath felt like a negotiation with fate itself.
He stepped toward Veyra.
But instead of striking, Kael plunged the blade into the ground between them.
The world held its breath.
Cracks spidered across the marble floor of the sanctum. A column of energy burst upward, a spectral pillar that pierced the citadel's roof and screamed into the multiverse. Veyra staggered, blinking as if awakening from a dream.
"You… didn't choose either," she said.
Kael's voice was calm. "I chose tomorrow."
The sanctum shifted. The alternate versions of themselves began to flicker out, one by one, fading into streams of data and stardust. Only the present remained. Only the choice.
But something stirred beneath.
A rift opened in the foundation of the sanctum—a jagged wound that bled violet energy. From its depths came a sound too ancient to name. The silence was broken by a single, echoing pulse.
Then, he emerged.
A figure cloaked in fractured voidlight, with no face—only a mask of shifting symbols. His presence bent the sanctum. Realities curled at his feet like frightened animals. The temperature dropped. Even Veyra recoiled.
"No," she whispered. "It's him. The one who feeds on forgotten futures."
The figure stepped forward, each motion distorting the fabric of now and next.
"I am Null," the voice intoned, not spoken but embedded in their minds. "You have disrupted the convergence. You rejected fate. And now, I reclaim what was lost."
He raised a hand.
Kael, Aeris, and Dray were thrown into separate timelines, each isolated, each cast into a distorted version of their past. Alone.
Kael awoke in a world where his mother lived, but he was a fugitive.
Aeris opened her eyes in a war-torn Eden, where she was hunted by her own kind.
Dray found himself imprisoned in a tower built from regrets, his magic sealed by guilt.
Null's voice echoed across time.
"You cannot win divided. You cannot choose tomorrow without facing what yesterday made of you."
Back in the sanctum, Veyra remained, kneeling, watching the blade still embedded in the floor. Her eyes shimmered with tears and fury.
"For all my mistakes," she whispered, "I will not let you win."
And she rose.
Alone against the coming storm.