The chamber quaked as the dark tendrils coiled around the ancient stone walls, twisting, writhing, devouring. The golden veins on the gate flickered, fighting against the encroaching darkness, but the energy that had once been steady now wavered.
Ochieng stood firm, his eyes glowing with the remnants of his awakened power. His breath was controlled, his heartbeat steady—but he could feel it.
The shift. The change. The return of something that had been buried in time.
The Keeper stumbled back, one hand pressing against their cracked mask. Their voice was tense, filled with an emotion Ochieng couldn't quite place.
"We need to leave. Now."
But Ochieng did not move. His gaze was fixed on the shadows seeping through the chamber, spreading like a poison through the very air. There was something in them, something old and familiar.
A whisper.
Soft. Almost seductive in its call.
"Ochieng..."
His jaw tightened. He recognized that voice.
"You have no right to speak," he murmured, stepping forward. The golden light in his hands flickered, pulsed, responding to his will.
But the whisper laughed, curling around him like invisible fingers.
"And yet, here I am."
A sudden gust of wind howled through the chamber, carrying the scent of something long forgotten. The woman in silver narrowed her eyes, raising a hand toward the shifting shadows.
"Don't listen," she warned. "It feeds on your past. It will twist your memories, make you doubt—"
The shadows lunged.
Ochieng reacted instantly, his golden energy flaring as he struck forward. Light met darkness in a violent collision, sending waves of energy rippling through the chamber. The walls groaned under the force.
But the shadows did not break.
Instead, they shifted, forming a shape—
A figure.
Ochieng's breath caught.
It was a woman.
Not the one in silver. Not someone from the present.
No.
This was someone he had loved. Someone he had lost.
Her eyes met his, deep and endless, filled with something he could not name.
"You were supposed to find me," she whispered.
Ochieng's hands shook.
The woman in silver cursed under her breath, moving toward him.
"Ochieng, that is not real. Do you hear me? It is not her."
But he couldn't move.
He couldn't breathe.
Because the woman standing before him was—
"Achieng," he whispered.