Ashardio stood in a place no map could name.
Not because it was hidden.
But because it had been erased.
A realm once known as Virellium — the birthplace of the first Timeline Shepherds, the ones who kept history honest and time sacred. Now it was nothing more than a scar of mist and broken sounds, a world exhaled from the lungs of a dying god.
But beneath its ash-covered sky, something pulsed.
A memory.
Not in the air.
Not in the land.
But inside him.
Ashardio knelt before a lake that did not reflect. Instead, it played back moments — wrong ones, stolen ones, altered ones. He saw himself as a child, but not in any life he remembered.
He was laughing.
Running toward a figure cloaked in gold.
A man?
No… a Celestial. One with burnt wings and eyes that mourned as much as they watched.
The figure knelt.
Took Ashardio's hand.
And whispered—
"If they take this from you, fight to get it back."
Ashardio gasped.
And the memory burned away, as if afraid of being fully known.
He staggered backward, clutching his chest.
Something was missing.
Not a memory… but the space where the memory had been buried. A hollow in his mind, perfectly cut, sealed with golden chains.
He spoke aloud, without knowing why:
"Who was I before they made me into their answer?"
The lake shivered.
And then something rose from its depths.
Not a monster.
Not a reflection.
But a version of Ashardio — older, paler, gaunt from the weight of too many truths. His left eye was hollow. His right hand missing. And his voice…
…was Ashardio's own.
"You already know."
The original stepped back.
"Why am I seeing this?"
The memory-ghost smiled bitterly.
"Because the Architect failed to break one lock. The one tied to your mother's blood. She hid a sliver of your truth in the bones of time. And now that Vael'Arion breathes again… the lock is rusting."
Ashardio's pulse became thunder.
"What was I?"
The ghost said nothing.
Instead, it stepped forward — and touched his forehead.
The world shattered.
And he saw—
Himself, in a lab drenched in starlight. Symbols stitched into his spine while the gods debated over which aspect of reality he would be made to represent.
His mother, arguing, pleading, clawing at the edge of the Architect's altar, demanding they let him choose his fate.
Kaelith, watching from a golden platform, eyes unreadable, as Ashardio's scream echoed — and the first false prophecy was inked in her shadow.
And then…
The Celestials voting.
A unanimous decision:
"We bind the Thirteenth. Not as a god. Not as a man. But as a variable."
Ashardio was never born.
He was manufactured.
Not to lead.
Not to destroy.
But to be the balancing contradiction in a system too precise to allow real freedom.
And still… he had remembered.
Still… he had begun to choose.
Ashardio collapsed to his knees.
Tears spilled from eyes that hadn't wept in lifetimes.
Not because he was weak.
But because somewhere deep within, something had broken free.
A piece of identity that did not obey.
A thread that no longer followed the pattern.
And as the echoes faded, a whisper from the lake called to him—
"Then who will you become… now that you know what you were built to be?"
Far away, the Architect woke from a trance, drenched in cold light.
She turned to the shadow beside her and spoke only one word:
"He's remembering too quickly."
The shadow didn't move.
But the room dimmed.
As if even light was afraid of what Ashardio might become.