The bell towers of Luminos stood broken, their jagged silhouettes clawing at a smokechoked sky. Kael knelt on the cobblestones, Lyra's blood drying on his hands. Aria's sword lay abandoned nearby, its runes dull and silent. The Voidspawn were gone, but their staticlike screeches still echoed in his skull.
"Get up," Aria's voice hissed in his mind. "Grief is a luxury the hunted cannot afford."
He didn't move. Lyra's silver hair fanned around her face like a halo, her eyes closed as if she'd simply fallen asleep midlaugh. The smell of burnt crystal lingered in the air, mixing with the metallic tang of blood. This isn't real. Wake up. Wake up.
A shadow fell over him, accompanied by the faint hum of strings. A woman stood in the rubble, her robes stitched with constellations and eyes mismatched—one amber, one violet. She cradled a lute whose glowing threads pulsed like veins.
"First rule of Synergy," she said, her voice melodic but edged with weariness. "Never mourn alone."
Kael stared blankly. Behind her, figures in similar robes moved through the ruins, sealing cracks in the air with shimmering threads. One knelt beside a corpse, plucking a lute string until the body dissolved into light.
"Lira," the woman said, answering his unspoken question. "Weaver of the Synergists. And you've made quite the entrance, Prime Core."
He flinched at the title. "What did you call me?"
Lira crouched beside Lyra, strumming a single note. The air hummed, and Lyra's body fragmented into glowing motes that spiraled into a tiny glass vial. "Your sister's essence is safe now. Stored in a stable dimension until you decide her fate."
"Her fate?" Kael's voice cracked. "She's dead."
"Death is a matter of perspective here." Lira tucked the vial into her robe. "She exists elsewhere—in fragments, echoes, alternates. Whether you reunite with her… that's a PactMaker's burden."
Aria materialized beside him, translucent and seething. "Enough riddles. Why are you here, Weaver?"
"To recruit him," Lira said, standing. "Before Veyron does."
Elysion was nothing like Kael imagined. The Synergists' sanctuary floated outside time, an obsidian island where gardens bloomed backward—petals closing at dawn, roots digging upward at dusk. In the Hall of Mirrors, his reflection splintered into countless versions of himself: a scholar, a soldier, a holloweyed tyrant.
"Your Prime Core connects you to every possible iteration of your soul," Lira explained, tuning her lute. "Most Synergists spend years resonating with one alternate. You bonded with Aria in seconds. Reckless, but impressive."
Aria scoffed, her form solidifying. "He begged for power. I answered."
"And now you're bound to his soul." Lira plucked a dissonant chord, and the mirrors shuddered. "If he dies, you fade. Mutual destruction. Charming partnership."
Kael ignored them, staring at the mirror where his reflection wore scholar's robes. That's who I was. Who I should've stayed.
"Focus," Lira snapped. "Resonate with that version."
"Why?"
"To prove you're more than a weapon."
Reluctantly, Kael pressed his palm to the glass. The scholar's reflection mimicked him, flooding his mind with memories: inkstained fingers, Lyra teasing him for prioritizing theoretical magic over sleep, the weight of a book he'd never finished.
Harmony Tier: Synergy Activated.
Equations and arcane theories surged into him. His vision blurred as two consciousnesses overlapped—his griefstricken self and the calm, methodical scholar.
"Too slow," Aria growled. "Useless!"
The mirror cracked. Kael recoiled, blood trickling from his nose.
"Overlap, don't override," Lira chided. "Your Scholar self isn't a tool—he's a partner. Try again."
At dusk, Lira led him to the training grounds, where Synergists sparred with phantasmal alternates. The air buzzed with clashing blades and halfformed spells.
"Most start with Harmonizing," Lira said, "but you'll need Convergence to survive Veyron."
"Who is he?"
"A former Synergist. He believes dominating alternates is the only way to unite the multiverse." Her voice darkened. "He's stolen hundreds of Prime Cores, leaving dimensions to rot. And he'll want yours."
A roar split the air. Across the grounds, a broadshouldered man in black armor obliterated a training dummy. Six spectral alternates orbited him, their faces twisted in silent screams.
"Veyron," Aria hissed.
The man turned, helmet retracting to reveal a face scarred by crystalline burns. "Ah. The new Prime Core. Heard you let your sister die."
Kael lunged, but Lira blocked him.
"Pathetic," Veyron sneered. "You cling to pacts while the Voidspawn feast. Domination is strength." He raised a hand, and one of his alternates—a holloweyed mage—froze the ground beneath Kael's feet.
"Let me out," Aria demanded.
Kael's Core flared. Harmony Tier merged Aria's instincts with the Scholar's tactics. He shattered the ice, ducked Veyron's counterstrike, and landed a blow on his armor.
Veyron laughed. "Not bad. But this?" He snapped his fingers, and the mage alternate detonated, hurling Kael into a wall. "This is true power."
Lira struck a chord on her lute, silencing the chaos. "Enough, Veyron. The Council's watching."
Veyron's alternates retreated. "Enjoy your delusions of morality, boy. When the Voidspawn come for you, you'll beg for my way."
That night, Kael wandered Elysion's archives, shelves stretching endlessly under a ceiling painted with constellations. Tomes glowed softly, each documenting an alternate's life: Darian the Diplomat, Ignis the Pyromancer, thousands more.
Lyra's absence ached. She'd love this place.
"Regret weakens you," Aria said, materializing beside him. "Veyron's right. Domination is the only path."
"You're one to talk. You're bound to me."
"A miscalculation. I'll correct it."
A book pulsed on a shelf—Lyra of the Azure Fields. Kael's breath hitched. The pages showed his sister in a sunlit meadow, healing a creature with silver magic.
"Don't," Aria warned. "That's not her."
He opened it. Light engulfed him, and suddenly he stood in the meadow. Before him, Lyra—no, not Lyra—turned, her smile achingly familiar.
"Hello, Kael," she said softly. "I've been waiting."