Chapter 5: The Timewitch and the Thread
Lunaryn Peaks weren't just mountains. They were relics of time itself. Jagged spires clawed toward a bleeding sky, their silver-veined rock etched with runes no tongue dared recite. Clouds gathered like silken cloaks around their peaks, folding the mountaintops into mystery and shadow. Time, it seemed, did not flow naturally here. It warped. Breathed. Hesitated.
Kael's breath came in short, misty gasps as they clambered up the steep incline, their body still aching from the near-drowning and the kiss that had shocked something ancient awake inside Thorne Vael.
He walked beside them in silence.
The coral had not grown back.
Every time Kael glanced at his exposed skin, clean and unburdened for the first time in decades, their heart pounded. His armor gleamed in the strange light, crusted in sea salt and battle scars, yet somehow softer now. He kept looking at Kael like he couldn't believe they were real. Like they'd healed something vital inside him just by being.
Kael didn't know what to do with that.
So they kept climbing.
When they finally crested the summit, they entered a space so still, so out of step with reality, that Kael stopped walking altogether.
A black stone plateau stretched outward in a perfect circle, etched with a glowing sundial at its center. But the sundial didn't track the sun.
It tracked moments. Memories. Time that had not yet happened.
Wind rushed through the air but carried no chill. Instead, it held voices. Laughter. Screams. Whispers of things Kael hadn't experienced, but felt echoing through their blood.
A shimmer rippled across the dial.
And she stepped out.
One moment the space was empty. The next, it was filled with her.
Aeris Solari.
Timewitch. Oracle. Weaver of soul-threads.
She wasn't walking. She existed, unfurling like a memory being recalled. Her body glimmered in silk that moved like smoke and starlight, every fold alive with color and motion. Her skin glowed like dawn touching gold. Her hair coiled and floated around her in spirals of woven galaxies, ever shifting. And her eyes those eyes were twin hourglasses, turning at different speeds.
Kael took a step back, breath caught.
"She's..."
"She sees," Thorne said quietly.
Aeris smiled, lips curving in mischief and melancholy all at once.
"Ah, the Veinborn returns."
Kael flinched at the word. "Stop calling me that. I don't even know what it means."
Aeris drifted forward. Her bare feet never touched the ground. The threads of time bent slightly around her, distorting the air.
"Names are the oldest magic, child," she said. "Yours is sewn in blood and undone prophecy. Would you prefer your thread to remain tangled forever?"
Kael swallowed hard. "You know me."
"I know all things woven from fate's hands. But your thread... oh, your thread is splintered."
She extended a hand. Kael hesitated. Thorne stepped forward, protective.
"Be careful. She reads more than just paths. She feels them."
"I'm not afraid," Kael whispered.
They placed their hand in hers.
The world reeled.
Colors burst across Kael's vision not colors from sight, but from memory. Scents from childhood that hadn't happened. Voices they knew but didn't recognize. They were laid bare, their soul unspooled like silk.
Aeris gasped.
"You're split... no, severed. Your soul isn't incomplete it's been halved. Half locked away. Half made mortal. Half still dreaming."
Kael's knees gave, but Thorne caught them.
"Tell me," Kael whispered. "Tell me what I am."
Aeris looked down at the lines of light curling across Kael's arms. Threads of gold and violet shimmered just beneath their skin.
"You were born of both Realms," she said. "The human world. And the Vein."
"The Vein?"
She nodded. "The realm of pure magic. The river of raw power from which gods are born and monsters crawl. You are its child and yet someone cut that part of you out. Hid it. Bound you with a mortal name."
"Why?"
Aeris's face darkened.
"Because you ended a war that should never have been stopped."
Kael blinked. "I... what?"
She turned away from them, walking across the sundial, the runes at her feet illuminating with each step.
"The gods feared you. So did the kings. You were neither savior nor destroyer you were choice. You could bend time, shatter fates, undo the fabric of prophecy. They decided you were too dangerous. So they locked you inside yourself."
Kael's breath hitched.
"And now?"
Aeris turned back, eyes solemn.
"Now your thread is unraveling. The seal is cracking. And your power is waking."
She approached again, her eyes burning brighter.
"But I can see the thread clearly now. You exist in multiple timelines. Your presence distorts them. You weren't just meant to change the world. You already did."
Kael stepped back. "I'm no god. I didn't ask for this."
Aeris tilted her head.
"No one who truly deserves power ever does."
Then her fingers lifted Kael's chin.
"Let me show you who you were."
Kael opened their mouth to protest.
But Aeris kissed them.
Soft at first.
Then time broke.
The sky shattered like glass. The sundial exploded into a whirlwind of color. Kael's body remained standing, but their consciousness was ripped backward. Threads of light wrapped around them, yanking them through timelines, across choices, through deaths and lives they hadn't lived or had they?
They landed.
On a battlefield.
Ash filled the sky like snowfall. Trees burned black in the distance. The air reeked of magic, blood, and grief.
Kael stood among fallen soldiers some human, some not. They looked down and saw that their body was different.
Taller. Stronger. Wrapped in ethereal armor glowing with sigils of light and darkness both.
Across from them stood Aeris, not the oracle, but a warrior, draped in crimson robes and obsidian plates, holding a shattered timeblade in one hand.
She looked at Kael with tears streaming down her face.
"You came back," she whispered. "Gods... you came back."
Kael turned and saw themselves. Another self. One forged in fire, glowing with divine light, eyes burning with rage and mercy alike.
The Veinborn.
Above them, something laughed. A sound like rusted bells and dying stars.
From the sky descended a figure draped in bone-white wings and crowned with black suns.
A voice echoed across time.
"You thought killing me once would be enough, little Veinborn? Come then. Try again."