The Codex Heart did not beat.
It pulsed.
A rhythmless throb of reality folding and unfolding, stitched by the remnants of decisions never made. It existed in the Spinal Vault, hidden beneath a thousand false layers—where timelines bled into one another and identity became unanchored.
Here, the Codex remembered everything.
And slowly, it was beginning to forget.
Kaelith arrived first.
Her body shimmered as she passed through the last veil — a shroud of stilled time where echoes spoke backwards and cause followed effect. The air reeked of burnt ink and unspoken judgment.
She stepped into the Vault.
Before her stood the Codex Heart—not a book, not a relic, but a vast living mechanism of mirrors, wires, and fluid memory. It hung from the ceiling like a suspended god, its tendrils feeding into every layer of reality.
And at its base, engraved in Celestial tongue:
All Threads Return to Origin.
Kaelith reached toward it—her hand trembling, not from fear, but recognition. This place was not alien. It had once sung to her. She had been here before. A child, maybe. Or something made to be a child.
But before her fingers could graze the surface—
Something shifted.
Not in space.
In time.
The Vault blinked.
And Kaelith vanished—torn sideways into a flickering pocket-memory where Tirameon's voice echoed, whispering riddles from the first rebellion.
Seconds later, Ashardio entered.
Breath ragged. Blade drawn. Not in fear—he feared nothing now—but to sever whatever held the Heart together. The Oracle's prophecy had burned into his mind.
You are unwritten. But this place remembers.
He stared up at the Codex Heart.
And he felt her.
Kaelith.
She had been here. The room still carried her echo, braided into the air, imprinted on the floor where her bootsteps had burned through fabric-reality.
He stepped forward. Reached toward the same mirrored surface—
And saw himself, reflected.
But not as he was.
Not as he had been.
As he might become.
The mirror cracked.
And within it, he glimpsed Kaelith.
Not now.
Not here.
But close.
Too close.
He turned sharply—his instincts pulling him left. Toward a flickering corridor of memories unraveling. A moment longer, and he would've crossed her path. A moment longer, and their truths might have merged.
But the Codex whispered—
Not yet.
Somewhere in the walls, the Third Thread stirred, sensing the convergence. Smiling.
It knew.
The closer Ashardio and Kaelith came, the more unstable the Codex would become. It was not built to withstand truths meeting in the flesh.
So it rewrote the moment.
And separated them again.
Ashardio exhaled. "She was here."
He didn't say it like a guess.
He said it like a certainty written in blood.
"Next time," he muttered. "I won't be late."
He turned, unaware that behind the Codex's central vein, Kaelith was being hurled back toward her own exit point—memories unspooling like veins, her hand reaching out toward nothing.
Almost…
Almost…
But not yet.