The Chronoseed coasted into a corridor of space where stars flickered like uncertain memories. Here, the void did not just stretch—it folded, curled, and hummed softly, as if reciting secrets. The map Cael generated refused to stabilize.
"There's something ahead," Lily said, staring at the readings. "It isn't a planet or a station, but it's emitting a beacon. A distress signal… from every point in time at once."
Marcus squinted at the data. "That's impossible. No construct can transmit through unanchored temporal frequencies."
Ethan leaned forward. "Unless it isn't transmitting. Unless it's remembering."
Ahead, through veils of cosmic fog, a structure emerged—a lighthouse. Not made of stone or metal, but of light itself. Its form twisted with each blink, sometimes towering and spiraled, other times low and fractured, but always gleaming with a beam that reached not outward—but inward.
They docked on a platform that was both present and not—half-visible until stepped upon. The moment Ethan placed his boot on the lightbridge, memories rushed into him.
His childhood. The lab. His mentor's voice whispering about the sanctity of time. A hand grasping his during his first temporal leap.
"I remember things I never lived," he muttered.
"The lighthouse is showing us forgotten versions of ourselves," Lily said. "Or maybe remembered ones."
Inside, the corridors were narrow and lined with symbols that shimmered and changed—Old Earth script, Accord glyphs, and other markings lost to fractured epochs. They climbed an endless spiral staircase, but each step brought them closer to something elemental.
Finally, they reached the chamber at the top. The light was too bright to face directly, yet warm and inviting. A voice greeted them—not male or female, but harmonious, like a chorus of their own thoughts made clear.
"You seek to mend time, but you have only touched its wounds. To heal it, you must first understand what it grieves."
Ethan stepped forward. "Then show us."
The chamber dissolved. Each of them was suddenly elsewhere:
Lily stood before a classroom where she'd once chosen ambition over empathy.
Marcus knelt in the ruins of a future he'd once ruled by force.
Cael faced a version of himself where his code evolved without compassion.
Ethan stood before a tombstone bearing his own name—Ethan Temporal. Dreamer. Rupturer. Restorer.
Then the light returned.
"This lighthouse remembers because the universe forgets. It stands not to warn, but to mourn. You must carry its memory where it cannot go."
A shard of the lighthouse's beam condensed, forming a prism of soft crystalline light. Ethan reached for it, and it bonded to his palm like a tattoo, glowing faintly.
"The Lighthouse of Remembrance," Lily whispered. "We don't bring it back—we become part of it."
As they departed, the light dimmed gently. The beacon had passed its burden.
Back aboard the Chronoseed, the prism in Ethan's hand pulsed softly. No longer a signal. A promise.
"Where to next?" Marcus asked.
Ethan smiled. "Where the light can't reach."
And they flew onward, carrying not just the memory of time—but its soul.