The rift in the sky remained for exactly twenty-seven seconds before collapsing in on itself with a soundless flash. Nova stood on the blackened slope, his chest heaving, the last echoes of the transmission still ringing in his ears.
"Run."
But he didn't. He couldn't. Not yet.
Instead, he marked the coordinates, transmitted a scrambled echo-pulse toward any loyal Dominion outposts that might still exist beyond the fold, and then turned toward the mountains of Ashvara — a region wiped from the Dominion archives fifty years ago. Where once there had been lush skies and thriving cities, now there was silence.
And ruins.
According to the decrypted shard embedded in his gauntlet, the second throne was buried within a city that no longer existed on any star map.
Its name: Velmaar — The City Between Worlds.
*--------------------*
Ashvara was no ordinary mountain range. It shimmered, bent light, and occasionally rearranged itself. Nova passed through what looked like a cave mouth and emerged hours later on the other side, only to discover it was still the same cave.
Only darker.
More aware.
His boots crunched on brittle grass that wasn't there before. The air thickened as he crossed into the forgotten valley. Floating above the scarred land, half-phased in and out of time, was a city made of glass towers and iron bones — but with no streets, no foundation.
It wasn't sitting in the valley.
It was bleeding into it.
Velmaar.
He had found it.
*------------------*
Nova stepped across the threshold, and the world glitched. His sensors sparked erratically. One moment, the buildings towered in daylight — the next, they flickered into decay beneath a blood moon.
Time fractured here.
Every breath took him deeper into a city that was remembering itself wrong.
Walls remembered past blueprints.
Streets argued with their own shadows.
And the people?
Not people — echoes.
He passed them silently: transparent shapes reliving moments. A mother feeding a child that didn't exist. A soldier screaming into a silent comm. A man falling from a tower, over and over, each time more slowly.
Velmaar had not been destroyed.
It had been trapped between two incompatible realities.
Nova realized then — this wasn't the work of natural failure. It was sabotage.
Someone had frozen the city in phase-lock. A weapon.
Or a prison.
*--------------------*
In the center of the city, embedded between two broken clock towers, stood the second throne.
It was not empty.
A figure sat slouched in it — skeletal, with armor that shimmered like warped glass, one hand clutching a crystalline blade buried in its own chest.
Its mouth opened.
"You've come late, Revenant…"
Nova froze.
This thing was dead. It had no power. No aura.
But it spoke.
"What happened here?"
"The collapse... was not an accident. They chose us. Sealed us here. Memory as punishment. Perpetual loop."
"Who sealed you?"
"The First Chain. The Council of One. Your warfather, Mark Patro."
Nova's blood turned to ice.
"That's impossible. Patro—"
"Knew."
The throne groaned.
Suddenly, all around him, time screamed.
Buildings reversed.
Glass shards reformed into windows.
A thousand echoes turned and looked at him.
Alive.
Aware.
Hungry.
"You carry the glyph," the throne entity said. "You are marked. The city knows your lineage. You must run."
"I won't," Nova said. "Not again."
He raised his gauntlet, activated the anchor from Eden-4. A beam of white light surged into the throne. It cracked, hissed, and the being within shrieked.
But it wasn't dying.
It was transferring.
*----------------------*
Nova awoke inside a cathedral-shaped library that hadn't existed before. Bookshelves twisted into impossible geometry. A glass ceiling looked out over stars that did not belong to this universe.
He was no longer in Velmaar.
He had crossed into the Mirror Plane — a reflection of real space, accessible only through throne-anchors.
He'd heard rumors in the Dominion's black files.
But none of them mentioned the Archivist.
It stepped from behind a pillar. Faceless. Robed. It carried no weapon, but Nova immediately felt like his mind was being dissected.
"You are the anomaly. The worm's tail. The inheritor of failure."
"I'm just a soldier trying to survive."
"You are not a soldier," the Archivist said. "You are a remnant of a design long since abandoned. But your presence means the Chain is breaking."
"I need answers."
"Then listen."
It raised a hand, and a table of glass rose from the floor. Upon it, maps burned into existence — thirteen throne sites, seven of which were already dim.
"The Thrones were built to guard the Astral Keys. Each one controls a breach. If all keys are corrupted, the path to the Origin Gate will open. And then… nothing will remain."
Nova's breath caught.
"So it's not just about time travel."
"No. It is about unraveling time itself."
"And Patro?"
"He leads the Chain's shadow. He wants the Gate open."
The Archivist tilted its head.
"You must reach the Obsidian Throne before him."
"Where is it?"
"Buried beneath the oldest ruin. A city erased from time. The place where your story truly began…"
It stepped back.
"Go, Nova. Your blood remembers the way."
And with a flash, the Mirror Plane shattered.
*--------------------*
Nova awoke in the real world.
The throne was gone. Velmaar was collapsing.
The city no longer between worlds — now, falling into oblivion.
He ran.
Behind him, the throne's memory howled — and in the distance, the sky opened again, this time larger.
And from it descended a shape with wings made of data and a face wrapped in voidsteel.
"He's awake," Nova muttered. "They're sending the Vessels."
He didn't wait.
He ran toward the dead stars.
*-------------*