The signal led them to an overhang shaped like a rusted crown, high above a basin carved into the land like a forgotten wound. The sky shifted in shades—violet, then crimson, then a bruised blue—like the realm itself was uncertain of what time it belonged to.
They camped in silence.
Kael sat near the edge, watching the horizon pulse. Each wave of the echo signal was like a heartbeat reverberating through the ground. Not chaotic. Not random.
It was timed. Wired.
"Do you feel it?" Syra's voice broke the stillness.
Kael nodded slowly. "Yeah. Like we're part of someone else's equation."
Syra knelt beside him, her fingers absently weaving strands of fate thread between them—thin lines of light that shimmered and hummed. "I tried tracing the currents. Every strand ends the same way."
"How?"
"With us… breaking apart."
Kael didn't speak. The silence between them was heavy.
---
Jax sat by the remnants of a fire, sharpening his blade without looking at it. His eyes were locked on Bren, who was poking at a drone husk with detached fascination.
"You always act like this doesn't get to you," Jax said.
Bren blinked. "Like what?"
"The war. The death. The creepy bone forests. The fact that we're basically fighting time ghosts now."
Bren shrugged. "If I stop joking, I'll start screaming."
"Same," Jax said quietly, sliding the blade back into its sheath.
They sat like that for a while.
Then Jax added, "You think Kael's gonna crack?"
Bren didn't hesitate. "No. He already did. And he stitched himself back together with resolve and trauma."
"Damn," Jax muttered. "That's… accurate."
---
That night, the Oracle spoke through Syra's dreams.
Or maybe it wasn't the Oracle.
Maybe it was the Rift itself.
The voice was layered—like a thousand thoughts trying to speak at once. It said:
"Wired into you is the fate of echoes. Four threads will fray, and only one will bind the fracture."
Syra woke gasping, hands clenched in the air like she had been holding something that wasn't there anymore. Her fate threads sparked around her, tangled and dim.
---
By morning, Kael gathered them.
"There's only one way forward," he said. "We split up. The gates ahead are reacting to us individually. It's like they're… tuned to us."
"No," Jax said immediately. "We're stronger together."
"We're also predictable together," Syra countered, still pale from her dream. "And predictable things can be hunted."
Bren glanced at the horizon, where the sky shimmered like a wound. "What if we're being herded?"
Kael's voice was grim. "Then we stop walking like cattle. Each of us takes a gate. We don't run—we walk into it knowing what we are and what we're fighting for."
They were quiet.
Then, one by one, they nodded.
Jax stepped forward first. "Well, fate can kiss my ass. Let's get this over with."
Bren grinned. "If I die, make sure my gear gets donated to someone who understands sarcasm."
Syra said nothing. She just touched each of them with her threads, binding a small thread of protection to their hearts.
Kael looked at them—his family in all but blood.
"I don't know what's waiting beyond these gates," he said. "But I know this: we weren't chosen. We were forged. Every scar, every loss—it wasn't fate. It was us refusing to break."
The wind stirred.
And from across the fractured land, four gates pulsed.
Kael turned toward the one glowing gold and violet—his.
"See you on the other side," he whispered.
And stepped through.
---