There was no sky anymore.
Only flame, and the sound of memory collapsing.
The bridge had become a coliseum of ancient design—runed obsidian and burning winds, shaped by Lemarion's will. Each segment of the arena pulsed with forbidden power. Walls of amber glyphs spun around them, casting shadows of long-dead heroes and wars best forgotten.
Cael stood at its center.
Barefoot, cloaked in only the heat of his own resolve.
The fire that Lemarion unleashed—intended to devour him—now coursed through his blood like a long-lost friend.
And with it came visions.
Not of the future.
But of before.
A cradle of stars.
A silver river flowing upward through time.
A god-like being—eyes stitched shut, mouth sealed by threads—lying beneath a great tree whose roots bled golden sap.
The Dreamtomb.
And Cael... not beside it, but within.
Elen's voice pierced through the vision. "You're glowing! Your skin—it's turning to light!"
But Cael wasn't afraid.
He'd spent his whole life feeling like a wanderer even when standing still. Now, for the first time, every part of him pointed in the same direction.
Lemarion moved again. Slowly, like a god descending from judgment.
"You have opened the first spindle of remembrance," he said, drawing a weapon from his cloak.
A sword—if one could still call it that—emerged. Composed entirely of coiled fire and glass thread, the blade hissed as it left its sheath, leaving scars in the air itself.
"You will either die here and end your paradox," Lemarion continued, "or you will survive and become an Anomaly Woven."
Cael tilted his head. "What happens if I unweave you first?"
A ripple passed through the Archflare's aura. Not quite laughter—but not quite anger either.
"Then I will remember you."
With no further words, Lemarion vanished.
Only Elen saw the attack.
Lemarion's body split into seven burning silhouettes, each striking from a different direction. Fire lances. Light chains. Blades that sang like flutes of bone.
Cael didn't move.
He couldn't.
His body froze—not in fear, but because he was no longer bound by instinct.
Time slowed.
The fire struck—
And bent around him.
Not because he dodged it—but because the fire itself chose not to burn him.
Cael exhaled.
Not air—but song.
A low note, like a memory you almost forgot. A name on the tip of your tongue. It spilled from his lips in a language no human throat should know.
The Dreamtomb's tongue.
Lemarion reeled back as the fire refused him.
"You remember the Dreamtongue?" the Archflare hissed.
"No," Cael said, stepping forward. "It remembers me."
And then he struck—not with a blade, but with will.
A pulse erupted from Cael's chest—light, ancient and deep, radiating out like the toll of a sun-sized bell. The air fractured. Glyphs cracked. The coliseum reeled.
Lemarion's seven forms snapped back into one, struggling to stay stable.
"I see it now," Lemarion whispered, voice choked with awe and horror.
"You are not just a traveler."
Cael's eyes glowed gold, skin etched with celestial runes.
"You are the first thread."