The Citadel's air was different today.
Colder. Heavier.
As if the very walls knew what was coming.
Volen stood in the Hall of Threads, surrounded by dozens of Threadweavers—each one dressed in the sacred robes of the Chrono-Order. Their eyes glowed faintly, lit by Aether-tethers that connected them to the Core Loom.
He raised his arm.
"Commence Operation: Threadburn."
At once, the Loom pulsed.
Lines of glowing energy—timelines, lifelines, soulstrings—flashed across the sky like a storm of constellations. One by one, they started to fray.
Each one was a person.
A life.
A memory.
Each one was connected to Kade Virell.
"Burn all identities tied to the Veilborn," Volen commanded. "Friends, family, potential anchors—erase their threads. Leave nothing he can return to."
One Threadweaver hesitated. "What if he reaches the Vergegate first?"
Volen turned, his gaze as sharp as the steel wind outside. "Then the boy dies."
---
Back in the tunnel beneath District 7…
Kade stumbled forward, disoriented by the Verge-chamber's pull. It was as if space forgot how to behave here—walls stretched and folded, gravity shifted randomly, and time looped in slow spirals.
Ryn guided them. She walked calmly, untouched by the madness.
"You weren't born like this," she said, voice soft. "But when the Citadel took your mother… and buried your father in erased timelines… something inside you snapped."
Kade's chest burned. Images flickered in his head: a woman with silver eyes smiling, a man whispering, "Remember who you are..."—then silence.
Caela caught him. "You okay?"
"I… I remember things that never happened," he murmured.
Aurelle studied the walls. "That's how memory erasure works. When you get too close to the truth, the void tries to flood you."
Lira held up her comms crystal. "We've got a bigger problem. The Citadel's burning threads. All of them."
Kade snapped his gaze up. "What?"
"They're not just targeting you now," Lira growled. "They're cutting everyone who's ever mattered to you out of time."
Aurelle looked grim. "That includes us."
Ryn turned. Her glow was dimming, but her eyes burned brighter. "Then it's time you saw where it all began."
She stepped into a rift of starlight.
The chamber responded—walls unfolded, forming a bridge of ancient symbols over an endless abyss.
Kade hesitated only a second before following.
---
Atop the Citadel's outer watchtowers…
Volen stood alone, staring into a mirror of crystal. It showed only fragments—blurs of memory and war.
An old man approached from behind, leaning heavily on a cane carved from Chronostone.
"You still fear him," the man rasped.
"I don't fear the boy," Volen replied coldly. "I fear what he'll remember."
The old man chuckled. "Then you've already lost."
---
Elsewhere: The Library Beneath the World
Deep beneath the crust of the world, hidden from all eyes, a blind librarian stirred. She sat among tomes bound in bone and inked with screams—books that should not exist, about people who no longer did.
She opened a sealed volume titled: "Kade Virell, the One Who Never Died."
Its first page was blank.
But as she turned it, ink bled through.
He remembers.
She smiled.
And whispered into the dark.
"Let the Veil shatter."
---
Back in the chamber…
Ryn stopped at the edge of a broken pedestal. In front of her was a sealed door made of obsidian glass, marked with the Verge sigil.
"This is the Vergegate," she said. "Once opened, the world will change."
Kade stepped forward. "What's on the other side?"
She looked at him, tears falling silently. "The truth."
Aurelle placed her hand on the gate. "It's sealed with blood memory. Only someone erased by time can open it."
Kade looked down at his hand—his scar. The one shaped like a spiral.
Ryn nodded.
He raised his palm.
The moment it touched the gate, light exploded outward.
And then—
everything broke.
---
End of Chapter 31