Motion demanded payment.

It always had.

The sky did not explode. The ground did not split. Instead, the world… lurched. Like a body realizing too late that it had stepped off solid ground.

Time resumed—but unevenly.

Aruven screamed.

People froze mid-step while others aged decades in a blink. Stone walls pulsed like living things, their mortar flowing before hardening again. A child laughed and cried at the same time, stuck between moments.

The Remembered panicked.

"This isn't stability!" the silver-haired woman shouted over the rising distortion. "You've made it worse!"

Kael dropped to one knee as the Chrono Blade screamed in protest. His vision doubled, then tripled—overlapping versions of the same street, the same people, the same mistakes.

Eira was beside him instantly.

"Stay with me," she said, gripping his face. "Don't let it scatter you."

"I'm here," he gasped. "I'm—here."

But something was peeling away.

Lira saw it first.

"Kael," she said slowly, dread creeping into her voice. "Your thread—it's thinning."

Jorah swore. "Meaning?"

"Meaning," Lira said, voice tight, "he can't keep moving the world without becoming part of the cost."

The Source did not roar.

It whispered.

Not in sound, but pressure—an inevitability pressing inward.

Motion requires loss.

Choose the shape of it.

Kael felt the truth of it sink into his bones.

"No," he muttered. "I won't trade lives. I won't—"

Then trade memory.

The whisper curled around him like a blade wrapped in silk.

Images flooded him.

Moments slipping—names, places, faces.

Not erased.

Unclaimed.

Eira felt him stiffen.

"What did it offer you?" she demanded.

He met her eyes—and hesitated.

That was enough.

"No," she said fiercely. "You don't get to decide that alone."

Jorah stepped closer. "If this is one of those 'heroic sacrifice' speeches, save it."

Kael laughed weakly. "I wasn't planning on a speech."

The city shuddered again. Somewhere nearby, a building collapsed into itself, then reassembled wrong.

The Remembered were screaming now.

Lira grabbed Kael's arm. "If you accept memory loss voluntarily, you can control what you lose."

Eira went very still.

"…What kind of memory?"

Kael didn't answer.

The Source pressed harder.

Choose.

He looked at Jorah—at the man who had learned to anchor himself again, who now stood firm in ways Kael envied.

At Lira—who had chosen connection over fear.

Then—

At Eira.

Time slowed around them. Just enough.

"I won't forget the world," Kael said softly.

Eira's eyes widened.

"I won't forget the fight. Or the cost."

Her voice broke. "Kael—"

"I can't forget how to choose," he continued. "Or I'll become what it wants."

He reached up, touching her cheek like it might be the last real thing he'd ever feel.

"But I can't carry everything."

Understanding hit her like a blade.

"No," she whispered. "Please."

The Source waited.

Kael closed his eyes.

"I choose to forget," he said steadily, "the version of the future where we were safe."

The air snapped.

Not shattered.

Snapped.

Aruven collapsed into a single timeline with a sound like a breath being released.

The distortions vanished.

People stumbled, confused, normal.

Kael fell forward—

—and Eira caught him.

He was breathing.

Alive.

But his eyes…

They were clear.

Too clear.

He looked at her, brow furrowing slightly.

"…Are you hurt?"

Her heart broke silently.

Jorah felt it immediately. "No. No, no—"

Lira swallowed hard, tears spilling freely. "He doesn't remember."

Eira forced herself to breathe.

Forced herself to smile.

"I'm Eira," she said gently. "I'm with you."

Kael nodded slowly. "Okay."

The Source recoiled—not defeated, but wounded.

Its voice faded, uncertain for the first time.

This cost… was not predicted.

Above them, the sky stabilized.

But the road ahead—

—had changed forever.

Eira held Kael tighter, whispering words he no longer understood but somehow leaned into.

The price had been paid.

And it was only the beginning.

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