The dream didn't feel like a dream.
There was no slow fade into darkness, no drifting sensation.
One moment, I was sitting by the dying fire, the soft crackle blending with the faint whispers of Drak'thul's winds.
The next—
I was somewhere else.
A sky stretched overhead, burning crimson and gold, streaked with clouds like torn silk. The air was thick with the scent of ash and iron, mixed with something ancient—blood and dust, maybe, but deeper than that. Older.
I wasn't Noctis anymore.
I could feel it in my bones—or rather, the absence of the ones I knew.
My body was different. Taller. Broader. Heavier. My fingers were wrapped around the hilt of a sword I didn't recognize, though it felt like it had been part of me for years.
I stood at the edge of a battlefield, but this wasn't like the wars I'd known. This was ruin.
Cities burned in the distance, their towering spires crumbling into the ground like the gods themselves had reached down to rip them apart. The land was cracked and bleeding, rivers of molten earth carving through what used to be fields. The sky wept fire.
And in the center of it all—her.
A woman stood at the heart of the chaos, her figure wrapped in flowing black robes that seemed to drink in the light around her. Her face was hidden beneath a veil, strands of silver-threaded hair spilling over her shoulders like liquid moonlight.
But I knew her.
Not Elaris. Not Alaria. Not anyone from this life.
Veylara.
Not the whispering shadow in my mind—but real. Solid. Beautiful and terrible all at once.
She turned slowly, her gaze finding me through the haze of ash and smoke, though I couldn't see her eyes.
"Azrael."
The name hit me like a blade to the chest.
I knew that name.
My name.
But not the one I carried now.
Not Noctis.
Azrael.
A life forgotten—buried beneath layers of reincarnation, hidden even from myself.
My heart raced, but my body didn't hesitate. I stepped toward her, my sword heavy in my hand, slick with blood that wasn't fresh, as if I'd already fought a battle I couldn't remember.
"You brought this," I heard myself say, my voice deeper, rougher—not my voice, but mine all the same.
Veylara tilted her head slightly, her smile hidden but felt. "I only showed you the truth. It was always going to end this way."
I glanced around—the bodies, the broken spires, the crumbling world.
"You lied to me."
She took a step forward, her feet hovering just above the cracked ground, as if she refused to be touched by the destruction she'd caused. "No, Azrael. I freed you. I gave you purpose when the gods turned their backs."
My grip tightened on the sword. The rage was there, burning beneath the surface, but so was something else—familiarity. Connection.
Love?
No.
Something older than love.
Obsession.
"Is this what I was to you?" I asked quietly. "A weapon? A vessel to burn their kingdoms down?"
She stopped a few feet away, the veil shifting slightly with a breeze that smelled of death.
"You were never just a weapon," she whispered. "You were mine."
The words sank deep, tangled in emotions I couldn't name.
I lifted the sword—whether to strike her down or to reach for her, I didn't know.
But before I could move, the sky split apart, a crack of light tearing through the clouds like the world itself had been ripped open.
A figure descended from the breach—a silhouette bathed in blinding radiance, their presence suffocating, overwhelming.
I couldn't see their face.
But I felt it.
A pull, sharp and undeniable.
Familiar.
She's watching.
Veylara's smile grew beneath the veil.
"Ah," she whispered, her voice a blade wrapped in silk. "There you are."
I turned to face the figure, my sword trembling in my grip—not from fear, but from something deeper.
Recognition.
Not Veylara.
Not this time.
And as the figure stepped closer, light swallowing the world—
I remembered.
Another life.
Another truth.
Another me.
The light swallowed me whole, drowning out the broken sky, the burning cities, Veylara's shadowed smile, and even the name Azrael, leaving behind only the weight of it all—like echoes pressed into bone.
But I wasn't gone.
Not yet.
I felt the shift before I saw it, like reality itself turning inside out, peeling away layers of time until I wasn't standing in the ruins anymore.
I was falling.
Not through air.
Through memory.
Through lives stacked on top of each other like fragile glass, each one splintering as I passed—until finally, I hit the ground.
But it wasn't ground.
It was stone, cold and smooth beneath my fingertips. I gasped, my breath sharp and quick, but when I looked down—it wasn't my hand.
Slimmer. Scarred. A silver ring etched with strange runes wrapped around one finger, humming faintly with warmth.
I pushed myself up, my body unfamiliar yet instinctively mine. The air was thick with incense, mingling with the faint metallic tang of something older than dust—magic.
I was in a vast chamber carved into the earth itself, its ceiling lost in shadows far above, the walls covered in murals depicting gods I didn't recognize. Their faces were blurred, distorted, as if time had tried to erase them but failed.
Candles floated midair, their flames flickering without wind, casting golden light across obsidian floors polished to a mirror-like sheen.
But it wasn't the room that stole my breath.
It was the mirror.
A towering slab of black glass stood at the far end of the hall, framed by jagged stone like a portal carved from the bones of the world. It wasn't a reflection I saw within it—it was another place entirely.
A place made of endless stars stitched into the fabric of darkness, like the universe had been caught in a net.
And standing in front of it—me.
Or… someone I had been.
Tall, draped in dark robes lined with threads of starlight, a chain of sigils glowing faintly around my neck. My face was different, sharper, framed by long black hair streaked with silver—not from age, but from something deeper. My eyes…
They weren't human.
Silver irises with rings of violet light burning softly around the edges.
Eyes that had seen too much.
Eyes that remembered things I couldn't.
Until now.
I felt the name stir in my chest, not spoken aloud but etched into my being.
Kaelen.
Not Noctis.
Not Azrael.
Kaelen.
A scholar. A mage. But not the kind who read books in dusty towers. I had studied the Rift itself.
I could feel it even now, humming beneath my skin, not wild and untamed like it was in my current life, but controlled, woven into me with precision and purpose.
But something was wrong.
The magic was frayed around the edges, thin and fragile like a spider's web about to snap.
I stepped forward—no, Kaelen stepped forward—toward the mirror, reaching out a hand that trembled slightly. Not from fear.
From recognition.
Because standing within that mirrored darkness was her.
Veylara.
But not the Veylara I knew.
This wasn't the shadow in my mind, the sultry voice that whispered like silk against steel. This Veylara was… different.
She wasn't veiled.
Her face was visible, breathtakingly sharp, with high cheekbones and full lips curved into a faint, knowing smile. Her eyes—void black with flecks of violet starlight—held galaxies within them.
Beautiful.
Terrifying.
Her voice echoed through the chamber, though her lips barely moved.
"Kaelen."
My name slipped through her voice like it belonged to her.
"You've come far."
Kaelen—**I—**felt a tightness in my chest. Not fear. Not anger.
Something closer to… longing.
"What are you?" I heard myself ask. My voice was steady, but there was a fracture hidden beneath it, a crack where the light couldn't reach.
She tilted her head slightly, her smile growing just enough to feel like a secret.
"I am what you made me."
The words hit harder than any blade.
Because…
Because I knew it was true.
Kaelen had done something.
I had done something.
Not in this life. Not as Noctis. Not even as Azrael.
But before that.
I had created her. Or released her. Or… something in between.
My heart—Kaelen's heart—raced, the pulse of the Rift growing louder, a drumbeat beneath my skin.
"I didn't mean to—"
"Intent is irrelevant, Kaelen." Her voice was softer now, almost kind. "You opened the door. You gave me form. And for that… I am grateful."
I staggered back, gripping my chest as memories that weren't mine—but were—flashed behind my eyes.
Rituals. Symbols carved into stone with trembling hands. The Rift ripping apart reality like fragile cloth. A voice in the dark, whispering promises I was too desperate to resist.
I had been searching for knowledge. For power. For truth.
And I had found her.
"Why am I remembering this?" I gasped, falling to my knees.
Veylara stepped through the mirror, though it didn't shatter. She moved like liquid shadow, her feet never quite touching the ground.
She knelt in front of me, her fingers cool as they brushed against my cheek.
"Because you're starting to understand."
"Understand what?"
Her smile faded slightly, her gaze piercing deeper than flesh and bone—into my soul.
"That you've never been running from me, Noctis." Her voice was soft now, almost tender. "You've been running from yourself."
Before I could speak, the chamber began to fracture, cracks spider-webbing through the walls, through the sky, through reality itself.
The Rift pulled me again, dragging me from Kaelen's life, from that moment—
And into the next.
Another life.
Another truth.
Another me.
The Rift didn't feel like a passage this time.
It felt like a tether snapping, like a thread yanked violently from the fabric of time, leaving frayed edges in its wake.
I was falling again, not through space but through my own existence—the pieces of lives I'd forgotten spinning around me like shards of shattered glass. I could see glimpses as I spiraled past them—faces I didn't recognize but felt in my bones, voices shouting words in languages I shouldn't understand but did.
Then—
Impact.
But no pain. Just stillness.
I opened my eyes to a sky bleeding with colors I'd never seen before—hues that didn't belong in nature, shades that twisted and pulsed like living veins stretched across the heavens.
The air was thick with heat, heavy with the scent of smoke and metal.
And blood.
I pushed myself up—or rather, he did.
Another me.
This body felt different. Lighter, but not weak. Lean muscle pulled taut under dark, intricate armor etched with symbols that glowed faintly like embers. Fingers callousifed from years of wielding something sharp, stained faintly red.
I stood in the middle of a city—or what remained of one.
Stone towers crumbled into ash, the streets split by jagged cracks that oozed molten rock. Fires burned without restraint, casting shadows that danced like they had minds of their own.
But it wasn't the destruction that held my attention.
It was the bodies.
Dozens. Hundreds.
Scattered like fallen leaves, twisted in unnatural ways, faces frozen in expressions of fear, pain, and disbelief.
And at the center of it all—
Me.
Sword in hand, stained with blood that wasn't fresh. My breath came out in ragged gasps, but it wasn't exhaustion. It was rage.
Pure. Blinding. Rage.
A name pulsed in my chest, rising like something carved into the marrow of this body.
Ishar.
That's who I was. Ishar.
Not a scholar. Not a reluctant wielder of power. Not even a cursed soul lost in the echoes of the Rift.
I was a conqueror.
A god-slayer.
I looked down at the sword gripped in my hand—jagged, dark, humming with an energy that felt like a heartbeat. Not mine. Not the Rift's.
Someone else's.
I heard footsteps behind me. Slow. Deliberate.
I turned, expecting an enemy.
But it was her again.
Veylara.
No veil this time. No shadowed face or cryptic words. She was clear, sharp against the chaos around us, her silver-streaked hair flowing like liquid metal, her dark eyes reflecting the fires consuming the world.
She looked the same. And yet… different.
Younger, maybe. Or perhaps it was me who was older in this life.
"Ishar," she said softly, her voice like a melody wrapped in the echoes of screams.
I didn't respond. My heart raced, not with fear, but with the familiar ache of knowing her too well.
"You never learn, do you?" she whispered, stepping closer, her bare feet leaving no mark on the blood-soaked ground.
I clenched the sword tighter, my jaw locked. "I should've killed you when I had the chance."
She laughed—light, musical, the sound utterly wrong against the backdrop of death.
"You did."
The words hit me like a blade.
Because I knew she wasn't lying.
Somewhere in this tangled web of past lives, I had tried.
And failed.
"Why am I seeing this?" I demanded, my voice rough with a fury that didn't belong to Noctis but bled through anyway.
Veylara's smile faded, her gaze softening—not with pity, but with something more dangerous.
Affection.
"Because you're not just Noctis," she whispered, reaching out as if to touch my face. I didn't flinch, but my heart slammed against my ribs. "You're Ishar. You're Kaelen. You're Azrael. And countless others."
Her fingers brushed my cheek—cool, soft, electric.
"You're every mistake you've ever made. Every life you've ever broken. Every god you've ever defied."
I wanted to pull away. To deny it.
But deep down, I knew.
She was right.
"Then what am I now?" I asked, my voice quieter, raw.
Her smile returned, smaller, sadder.
"You're the sum of all your sins."
The ground trembled beneath us, the Rift's pulse growing louder, deeper, like a drumbeat counting down to something inevitable.
Veylara leaned in closer, her lips near my ear, her breath warm against my skin.
"And you still haven't met her yet."
I turned sharply to ask—Who? Who was she?
But the world shattered around me again, breaking apart like glass hit by a hammer, pulling me into the next life—
Or perhaps back to my own.
Back to Noctis.
But not the same.
Never the same.