They descended through ruins that felt older than language. Glyphs flickered faintly on every surface, unreadable—because they weren't meant to be read. They were scars, not script.
"I've been here before," Mireth said, pausing. "When I was a girl. The Choir sent me to search for relics. I remember being afraid, but not of anything I could see."
Cael lit a glyph for light, but the glow barely pushed against the darkness.
"It's… wrong here," he whispered.
Then, a voice.
No echo. No source.
Just words, sliding directly into his thoughts.
"What is knowledge… if no one lives to read it?"
Cael turned. Nothing.
"What is a name… if the world forgets you?"
Then he saw himself.
Not a mirror image this time—an Earth version. His old hoodie, jeans, unkempt hair. Gaunt and tired from sleepless study nights.
The Earth-Cael looked at him sadly.
"You were never meant to be remembered," he said. "Just to learn. That was enough."
Cael stepped back. "You're not real."
"I'm what's left of you. The part that knew books were safer than people."
He blinked. Earth-Cael was gone.
But in its place floated a cage of shifting crystal and wire—inside it, a faintly glowing core.
"It's a Cognition Core," Mireth said. "A Fracture Seed… that thinks."
He reached toward it, and the cage opened willingly.
The instant he touched it, memories scattered.
He stumbled back. "Mireth, what was your brother's name?"
She frowned. "I… don't have a brother."
Cael said nothing.
One memory. Gone. Replaced by glyph-knowledge he didn't ask for.
A cost he didn't agree to pay.
He slipped the core into his satchel. The glyphs on his arm crawled slightly.
The path ahead bent downward—toward the true Fracture.