The tower door closed softly behind Kael, like a breath inhaled.
“Sarah?” Kael called, the name echoing strangely in the chamber—larger than the spire's stone walls should allow. Like a dream, the scene unfolded, coming into focus as the stone walls themselves disappeared.
He blinked, and the forest was back. A memory? Or a quantum doorway Nexus had opened… He saw a girl, kneeling against the wet stone, back flat against the wall, hiding. “Is that you?”
No answer.
He moved in a slow arc, hearing only the distant rumble of a creek, and saw nothing but ferns and fallen pine needles angling up against a steep slope.
“Sarah!” he called again, louder now. And then, “Oona? I found her, she’s here.”
No reply came. Only the whisper of mist and distant birdsong.
But this girl was smaller than Sarah, huddled at the base of a massive stone slab jutting from the hillside, arms wrapped around her knees and eyes too wide for her face. Not a defiant, maturing girl—just a child.
The forest was thick with fir trees reaching up to a sky that seemed so far away, squeezing out the light. Rain fell gently through the branches, beading on his skin.
As Kael walked toward her, the world warped as if time itself were rewinding. The distance between each step stretched unnaturally, and his limbs felt lighter, thinner—younger.
By the time he reached her, they were nearly the same height, just as they had been some three dozen years ago.
“Stay with me,” she whispered, reaching for him. “Don’t go.”
“I have to,” he said automatically, the words strange in his mouth. “I dropped it. Mother’s bracelet. That was all we had left.”
The memory of it felt real: silver links, glowing green jewels, a small charm that caught the light and when touched, sprang to life with their laughter.
“Oona said, ‘Stay,’” she started, her voice breaking.
Kael glanced around wildly. “Where is Oona?” he asked, heart racing. Something wasn’t right. Confusion swirled through him like mist through the trees. Where was the tower? Where was Sorian? The androids were everywhere; they saw everything.
And he had a message for Sarah, what was it? ‘Resist? Fight?’
“We have to fight,” he said to Sarah, his voice higher than he remembered, his limbs thinner, younger. He couldn’t be more than twelve years old now, the age he had been when… his sister was taken.
Above them, drones buzzed in the trees. He ducked, pulling her close, nestling into the overhang. Then he inched out, the threat gone.
“I’ll be right back,” he said, waving goodbye—words he remembered saying before. Was this déjà vu?
“Wait,” she said, interrupting his fractured thoughts. She reached around her neck and removed a pendant, her necklace. The one he had given her. The one he had worn for years, carrying her memory, and the memory of…
Wait. Didn’t he already have it? He’d picked it up in the cave, by Garrick’s body. Time was out of whack. He reached into his pocket, but it wasn’t there.
Frightened, he ran through wet needles and slanting rain, legs pumping. He skidded to a stop near the stream where he fell and where he thought it would be.
There it was, the bracelet he lost, half-buried in the mud.
As he reached down for it, a heavy metal boot came down hard, crushing the delicate links into the mud.
He looked up. Red-glinting eyes in a silver face reflected his terror back at him.
He inched back in horror, scrambling in the mud. Then instinct took over and he ran, heart pounding through his chest, retracing his steps quickly to—
She was gone, marks dragging through the mud where she had been.
“Sarah?” he said. No, his sister… Why couldn’t he remember his own sister’s name?
A hand landed on his shoulder, heavy and sudden.
He screamed, but another hand came over his mouth. “Shhh...”
Oona stood behind him, tall as the trees, amber eyes glinting. “Quiet,” she said, her voice both familiar and strange. “We have to leave. We’ve been discovered.”
“No!” he cried, shoving her back. “We have to wait… We have to find her, Sarah, my sister—”
“It’s too late,” Oona said, and scooped him up with mechanical strength.
He thrashed, screaming her name. Sarah!
“Kael,” he was shaken out of his dream. “Kael!” The voice was urgent, familiar. “He’s taking her inside the chamber,” Oona said.
Kael blinked, finally seeing her, as if awakening from a dream. He scanned the stone walls, the blue-tinged light, the air thick with ozone and ancient dust.
Disoriented, he realized he was back in the tower, in the present, in a circular room with strange symbols etched into the floor beneath him.
Oona gripped his shoulders, her face tight with concern. “He’s taking her into the chamber,” she said.
He staggered, catching himself. “My sister—”
“No, Sarah,” Oona said. She searched his eyes, worried.
Kael slowly pivoted. Ryn stood near the wall, pale with disbelief.
“I saw her,” Ryn said, her body tight with tension. “She walked by, pointing a finger at you, Kael. You.”
“My sister?” Kael said, trying to piece together how he had gone from the forest to the tower in such a short time.
“No,” Ryn said, shaking her head, swallowing hard. Her eyes burned with anger. “Martha.”
“We don’t have time,” Oona said, cutting through his confusion.
But even as she spoke, the walls around them wavered and distorted. Gravity shifted, making Kael’s stomach lurch.
“She’s unlocking the Covenant,” Oona said. “We’re too late.”
Too late. Kael heard the words, but he was only half-listening.
His hand flew to his pocket—the pendant felt hot through the fabric. She had given it to him in the memory… or the forest… or the cave. Wherever it was, it was real. It was there.
“No,” he said, time folding as he turned to Oona. “Not this time.”
His gaze shifted to Ward. To Ryn.
“We’re not too late.”
Together, the four walked toward the oscillating light in the inner chamber.