The pendant burned against her chest.
Not literally—but a slow, spreading warmth that made her skin prickle and her thoughts scatter. It had pulsed all day, steadily growing stronger with each passing hour. As if drawing her toward something. Or someone.
She wandered without meaning to—past the gardens, through the archives, and eventually, to the cliffs beyond the eastern tower. A place few students ever went.
The wind curled around her like a whisper.
She wasn't alone.
He was there—just as before. Standing at the cliff's edge, back to her. Cloak drifting in the breeze like a shadow stretched too far.
Only this time, she didn't freeze.
"Turn around," she said.
He didn't.
Her voice steadied. "You're not just a dream anymore. I need answers."
At last, he turned.
The same luminous hair, catching the dying sunlight like strands of fire and frost. The same celestial depth in his eyes—stormlight and gravity. But his face… it was younger than she expected. Softer. Not cold—but veiled. Like a song trapped behind glass.
He looked at her like he'd known her for a thousand years.
Liara's throat tightened.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
He stepped forward. Slowly. Carefully.
When he spoke, his voice was low, unhurried. "You've known me, even when you didn't."
She shook her head. "That's not an answer."
He studied her, as if waiting for something. Then, with a gentleness that unnerved her, he said:
"Kael."
The name hit like a drop of ink in water.
Familiar.
Wrong.
Right.
Her breath caught. "That name… I've heard it before. In my dreams."
"I know," he replied. "It wasn't time then. It is now."
A rush of memory stirred in her—images that weren't hers. Stars collapsing. Voices calling her name across battlefields she'd never walked. A moment in a burning world where he'd held her hand and told her to run.
She backed away. "What are you?"
Kael didn't follow. "Not your enemy."
"Then what are you doing here?"
He hesitated—just for a moment.
"Waiting," he said. "Watching. Protecting what I can until the storm breaks."
"What storm?"
"You'll know soon." He looked past her, to the darkening sky. "But when it comes, don't trust the ones who tell you you're chosen. They only love the cage they built around you."
The pendant pulsed once more.
Liara looked down, then back up—
He was gone.
Not vanished in a swirl of magic. Just… gone. As if the world had blinked and he'd slipped between its seams.
Only the name remained.
Kael.
And now that she had it, she knew everything had changed.