The shard pulsed like a second heart in Kael's hand.

It didn't just glow — it breathed. Every rise and fall matched the rhythm of his pulse, as if syncing itself to his very soul.

Jorah walked beside him in uneasy silence. The golden sky above the plain shifted, fading back into dull gray as they crossed the threshold out of the Rift. The normal world felt... thinner now. Every sound echoed too loudly. Every color seemed slightly off.

Kael flexed his fingers, staring at the shard. "It shouldn't have worked."

"Yeah," Jorah muttered. "That's becoming a pattern with you."

Kael shot him a smirk, but it didn't reach his eyes.

Something was wrong. The world rippled faintly whenever he blinked, like reality itself was uncertain whether he truly belonged here.

He wasn't sure either.

---

By nightfall, they'd reached the ruins of an old temple — stone pillars half-swallowed by ivy, a roof long gone. Jorah set up camp near what might once have been an altar, while Kael sat nearby, tracing his fingers across the symbols carved into the stone.

They were words in a language he didn't know.

Except he did know them — or had known them once.

The carvings whispered when he touched them. Faint voices murmuring in a dozen tones — all familiar, all wrong.

"Kael Vorrion," one of them said softly. "Or what's left of him."

Kael froze. "...What did you say?"

Jorah looked up from the fire. "What?"

"The carvings," Kael said, his voice low. "They spoke."

"Uh-huh," Jorah said, unimpressed. "You sure you didn't hit your head in there?"

Kael didn't answer. He leaned closer, pressing his palm to the stone again. This time, the whispers were louder. Clearer.

"You gave your name away, and yet you still walk."

"You broke the rule."

"You are an echo, not a man."

Kael jerked his hand back, heart hammering.

The whispers cut off immediately, leaving only silence.

---

That night, Kael dreamed — or thought he did.

He was standing in a hall of mirrors that stretched infinitely in every direction. Each reflection was him, but not quite. Some younger, some older. One with black eyes, another with none.

They whispered in unison: "Who are you now?"

Kael gritted his teeth. "I'm—"

But when he tried to say it, the word caught in his throat. The sound wouldn't form. His name — his own name — was gone from his tongue.

The reflections laughed. "Forgotten already."

Kael swung the Chrono Blade, shattering a hundred mirrors at once — but each broken shard showed his face grinning back, mocking him.

He woke drenched in sweat, the echo of laughter still ringing in his ears.

---

"Bad dream?" Jorah asked groggily from across the fire.

Kael didn't respond. He reached for the shard instead. It was warm — warmer than before — and pulsing faster. Almost feverish.

Jorah sat up. "You okay, man? You're pale."

Kael rubbed his temples. "The shard's talking."

Jorah blinked. "Talking?"

Kael nodded slowly. "In my head. I can hear it."

Jorah frowned. "And what's it saying?"

Kael hesitated, then looked up. "It's saying... it misses me."

Jorah stared at him. "That's—okay, that's not creepy at all."

Kael smiled faintly, though his voice was hollow. "It's not the shard that's wrong. It's me."

---

They traveled east for two more days, following the witch's map toward the Celestial Spire. Along the way, Kael's condition worsened. He would forget words mid-sentence, lose track of where they'd been, even call Jorah by the wrong name — sometimes by names that made no sense.

"Lorian— no, wait... Jorah. Sorry," Kael muttered for the third time that morning.

Jorah gave him a worried glance. "You're scaring me, man."

"Join the club," Kael said with a strained grin.

But behind his humor, he felt the fracture growing.

Something inside him — the part that tethered him to this timeline — was slipping.

---

On the third night, Kael stood watch while Jorah slept. The wind whispered through the dead trees. Every gust carried faint echoes — Kael Vorrion... Vorrion... Vorrion... — fading into nothing.

He drew the Chrono Blade, letting moonlight run along its edge. For the briefest moment, his reflection looked wrong again. Not older — just... empty.

"Who am I now?" he asked softly.

A voice answered — not from the blade, not from the shard, but from the air itself.

"You are the wound that time refused to heal."

Kael spun around, blade raised. A figure stepped from the shadows — a woman draped in silver and starlight. Her eyes gleamed like twin moons.

"The Keeper," Kael breathed.

She inclined her head. "You are unraveling, Kael. The Rift took more than your name."

Kael clenched his fists. "I had to take the shard. Without it, the flow would've collapsed."

"And now it collapses within you," she said. "Each time you rewrite the rules, you erase a piece of yourself. What will be left when nothing remembers your name?"

Kael's jaw tightened. "Then I'll make the world remember something else."

The Keeper tilted her head, studying him. "Defiance. Always your gift... and your curse."

Before he could reply, she was gone — the wind scattering her form like dust.

---

Kael sheathed his sword and sank to the ground, exhaustion catching up to him. His vision flickered. In the darkness, he heard voices again — not whispers this time, but memories.

Laughter.

A promise under starlight.

A name — his mother's — that he could almost remember but not quite.

He gritted his teeth and forced the memories back. "Not now."

But the shard in his pack pulsed harder, as if mocking him.

---

By dawn, they reached the edge of a vast canyon. In the distance, the Celestial Spire rose — impossibly tall, piercing the clouds like a needle through fabric. Even from here, Kael could feel its pull, the same way the Rift had called to him.

Jorah stared in awe. "That's it. The Spire. You think the witch's lead is solid?"

Kael didn't answer at first. He was staring down at his own hands — faint trails of light coiling under his skin, pulsing in time with the shard's rhythm.

"Kael?" Jorah pressed.

Kael looked up, his eyes glowing faintly blue. "We're out of time."

Jorah frowned. "Meaning?"

Kael turned toward the horizon. "The Spire's calling. And something's calling me back."

He could hear it now — faint echoes in the wind. Dozens of voices, all his own.

"Kael Vorrion... Kael Vorrion... Kael Vorrion..."

But one voice, clearer than all the rest, whispered something new — something that made his blood run cold.

"You were never Kael."

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