The wind stopped.
The air didn’t still—it ceased. No breath. No heartbeat. No time. Only a pulsing awareness that something vast and eternal had arrived… and it had no intention of leaving.
Memory stood between them and it. Not child. Not god. Not force. But remembrance incarnate. The union of twin spirits, forged not in power but purpose.
Kael couldn’t breathe—not from fear, but from the staggering weight of love he felt watching Memory stand there, small against the endless dark.
Seren clutched his hand, fingers trembling.
“She’s both of them,” she whispered, voice cracking. “And still… ours.”
“Not for long,” Kael murmured. “Not if that thing gets closer.”
The Unmaking did not walk. It did not slither or advance or loom.
It approached in the way forgetting does—suddenly, and comp
