(Aeron's POV)
He felt it long before he saw it.
A ripple—like a storm swelling beneath still waters.
For days, Aeron had watched Liara drift through the world like a thread unraveling. He hadn't spoken of it. Hadn't pressed. But he saw the way her aura flickered now, sharp at the edges, like a blade awakening beneath silk.
Something had touched her.
And whatever it was, it was starting to touch everything else too.
He followed the pull late into the night—into the lowest levels of the Vault.
A place not even Cassian had dared map.
Torches resisted the dark here, their flames dimmer, shadows clinging longer. Aeron descended in silence, letting instinct guide his boots along the cracked stone. The air grew colder, thinner.
Then he saw it.
A wall that should have been solid—but pulsed faintly with her magic.
Liara's.
He placed his hand against it.
The wall breathed.
And then—split.
Stone cracked down the center with a sound like bones breaking. Dust roared outward. Aeron shielded his eyes, stepping through as ancient mechanisms groaned into motion.
The chamber beyond was circular, lined in mirrored obsidian. And in the center—
A pedestal.
Carved with a crescent moon and a mark he did not recognize.
Not from this age.
Not from any known lineage.
But when he reached toward it, something burned his palm.
A vision slammed into him.
Not memory.
Warning.
A pair of silver eyes in the dark. A voice like thunder behind silk.
"The seal fractures because it remembers."
"And so do you."
Aeron stumbled back, gasping.
The Vault had fractured.
And something buried inside—something Liara had awakened—was stirring to life.
He didn't know the name.
But he knew the danger.
And he knew she wasn't dreaming anymore.