Even in silence, the old books whispered.
Kairos moved through the shadowed stacks, his crimson hair catching stray flecks of sunlight through the narrow glass slits above. Dust danced around him—thick as memory, thin as time. His breath echoed between the stone-carved shelves of the Sealed Wing, a place not even Initiates were freely granted access to. But after his Trial? Doors had begun to open.
Selene leaned against the threshold, arms folded, her silver eyes scanning the tomes stacked around them.
"You're looking for what exactly?" she asked.
Kairos paused, fingers trailing over a spine embossed with runes older than sin. "A name. A truth. Maybe even a lie convincing enough to cling to."
She didn't press him. Instead, she stepped in, brushing past shelves titled Epochs of Ruin, Catalog of Rift-Entities, and Pre-Collapse Magicks.
Kairos stopped before a volume larger than most infants. Eschaton Chronicles. Leather scorched, chains melted into the binding.
He placed his hand upon it.
The book opened itself.
Pages turned on their own, blurring past history, wars, arcane discoveries—until they stopped.
Sinfall: The Crimson Event
The drawing showed the moment.
A streak of red lightning tearing the skies. A city split open like a fruit. Shadows spilling outward like a living disease.
But it was the figure standing in the center that made Kairos' breath catch.
A man. Cloaked in fire and grief. Crimson hair blazing like a crown of wrath.
He looked exactly like Kairos.
Selene read over his shoulder, her voice hushed. "They called him The Harbinger. The one who opened the Gate... or closed it, depending on who wrote the scroll."
Kairos said nothing, but inside him, something stirred. A name unspoken. A question long feared.
Was the sin his inheritance?
Or was it his beginning?
---
Later that night.
Training Fields – Outer Range.
Kairos fought in silence, his blade a red arc of fury against summoned dummies and projection constructs. Sweat slicked his body, chest heaving as he moved through forms taught to him, and ones that simply came to him.
Selene watched from the edge, hands laced behind her back.
"You fight like you're trying to bleed out something that's inside you," she said.
He stopped.
"Maybe I am."
She stepped closer. "You think that man in the Chronicle is you?"
He turned, eyes burning. "I don't know what I am anymore."
She stepped even closer.
"Well, I do."
And then she kissed him.
Not a breathless, lust-driven kiss—but one that spoke of defiance. Of two flames refusing to be consumed.
When she pulled away, she whispered, "We're not alone in this. You and I—we burn too bright to die quietly."
He smiled then, faint but real. "You sure you're not the Harbinger?"
"I might be," she said. "But if I am, I'll rewrite the damn prophecy."
They stood there in the dark, two sparks against the void, unaware of the eyes that watched from the perimeter—eyes not of man, but of shadow. Marking. Judging.
Waiting for Kairos to fall.
Or rise.