Midnight wrapped the Kaelith estate in shadows, but Elior couldn't sleep.
Not after the council meeting. Not after the way Lord Marran looked at him—like a butcher eyeing meat.
Sirenya had insisted on standing guard outside his door, but Elior needed space. Answers. Air.
So, cloaked in a deep blue robe and guided by instinct more than memory, he slipped past the silent halls and descended into the estate's Skygarden—a vast botanical dome suspended high above the capital's lights.
Glowing vines danced across obsidian arches. Flowers the size of shields shimmered with bioluminescent hues. The scent was intoxicating—part wild forest, part ozone.
And yet… something felt wrong.
A chill brushed the back of his neck.
"You should not be here."
The voice was low, sharp. Female.
Elior spun, his hand reaching for the ceremonial blade at his belt—more decoration than weapon, but comforting nonetheless.
A girl stepped from behind a tree-sized blossom.
She wore a dark traveler's cloak, hood pulled low. A glimmer of steel peeked from her thigh holster. Her eyes caught the starlight—violet, too bright to be human.
"Who are you?" Elior demanded.
"Someone who remembers what you forgot," she replied, stepping closer. "Or maybe… what they made you forget."
Elior frowned. "What are you talking about?"
"You died. But that wasn't the first time," she said. "It was just… the first time you woke up."
Before he could ask more, she pulled a small device from her sleeve—a crystalline shard, humming with unstable energy.
"Take it," she said, pressing it into his hand. "It's called a Fragment. It'll trigger a memory—one they locked away. But be warned…"
The shard pulsed, and the vines around them twitched—as if alive.
"…sometimes the truth bites back."
Suddenly, the garden screamed.
The plants writhed, vines snapping from pillars and walls. A flower split open, revealing rows of teeth. One lashed out at the girl, but she rolled beneath it with practiced grace.
Elior slashed with his blade, cutting a vine mid-swing—but another coiled around his ankle, yanking him off his feet.
"Run!" the girl shouted.
Instead, Elior slammed the Fragment against his chest.
Light burst from the shard, blinding and warm—
—and then everything changed.
He wasn't in the garden anymore.
He stood in a glass room, Earth's skyline behind him.
And across from him, seated at a desk, was the masked man who killed him.
Only now… the mask was gone.
And the face beneath it?
Was his own.