The lab’s silence was heavier now. Not because it was quiet—but because something had changed.

The shard Auren brought back wasn’t just another fragment.

It was an invitation.

Auren sat cross-legged on the cold floor, the shard resting in her palms. It pulsed in a rhythm she didn’t recognize… yet felt in her bones.

Riven paced nearby. “A thirteenth door. It doesn’t make sense. Every known Rift path, every simulation—we’ve mapped twelve. Twelve is the limit. Like a clock. Like months in a year. A cage of time.”

She looked up at him, eyes glowing faintly with Rift-light. “Then this door breaks the cage.”

Before he could respond, the shard flared. A pattern ignited in the floor beneath her, ancient glyphs circling like a lock being undone.

And then—a crack in the air itself.

Not a portal. Not a Rift.

Tall, smooth as obsidian. Featureless.

And yet… both of them recognized it.

Riven’s voice dropped. “I’ve seen it in dreams. But it was always closed.”

Auren stood. “Maybe it was waiting for us.”

---

No creak. No sound.

Just light spilling out—soft, silver, full of echoes.

They stepped through.

---

No world.

Just a corridor stretching forever, walls of swirling memories and timelines flowing like rivers on either side. The floor was translucent, held up by nothing.

Images played in the walls:

Auren as a child, chasing moon moths under a different sky.

Riven bleeding in a collapsed building, clutching a dying comrade.

A future where they kissed in the rain.

A war where they fought on opposite sides.

“Are these... futures?” Auren asked, breathless.

“Futures. Pasts. Versions of us that never were. Or might be,” Riven said.

Then—the corridor forked.

One path led upward, shining. Calm. Hopeful.

The other twisted downward—chaotic, stormlit, ringing with war cries and collapsing stars.

“What now?” Auren asked.

Riven didn’t answer immediately. He looked into both paths. His jaw clenched.

“The shards are leading us into something bigger than just fixing time,” he said at last. “They’re giving us a choice.”

“Peace?” Auren asked, pointing upward.

“Or truth,” he replied, looking at the darker path.

They stood at the fork.

And chose the shadows.

---

On a throne made of fractured timelines, the shadowed figure from before stirred.

“The thirteenth has opened,” he said, voice like breaking glass.

The silver-eyed scientist shivered. “They will find the Heart.”

“Then let them come,” he hissed. “I want to watch them break.”

---