The sound of steel against steel echoed in the warehouse like a broken bell.
Ethan stepped back, his arms trembling with the effort of keeping his sword raised. Sweat ran down his forehead, mixing with the dust that rose from the stone floor with each step. Wermilyass stood before him, motionless, the wooden sword in his hand, the black ribbon covering his eyes like a scar.
"Don't stop," said the Salrim, his voice neutral, as if commenting on the weather. "Hesitation is a wound. Brief. But deadly."
Ethan took a deep breath. His chest burned. His legs trembled. But he advanced.
The strike was vertical, straight to the master's chest. Wermilyass dodged with a minimal movement, almost lazy, and the tip of the wooden sword touched Ethan's shoulder with surgical precision.
"Too high," said Wermilyass. "Your wrist is stiff. Strength doesn't come from the arm. It comes from the body. From the hips. From the ground."
"I know," Ethan replied, gasping.
"Knowing and doing are two different things. Theory doesn't save lives. Instinct does. And instinct is trained."
Ethan attacked again. This time, he lowered his center of gravity, rotated his hips, and the strike was faster. Wermilyass blocked, but the impact made the wooden sword tremble.
"Better," said Wermilyass. "Still not enough. But better."
"More than last month?" Ethan asked, through gritted teeth.
"More than last week. That's what matters."
Ethan attempted a lateral movement, a feint to the right, then a strike to the left. Wermilyass predicted the movement and dodged, but Ethan had already expected that. He rotated his wrist, changed the blade's direction at the last second, and the wooden sword touched the master's shoulder.
Wermilyass stood still.
"Good," he said, finally. "Good."
Ethan felt a warm pride in his chest. It was small, almost insignificant, but it was his. He had earned it with sweat and blood.
"The technique is called 'False Reverse,'" said Wermilyass. "It's used to deceive the opponent's eye. The initial movement is a lure. The real strike comes after."
"And does it always work?" Ethan asked.
"It works against human opponents. Against monsters..." Wermilyass tilted his head. "It depends on the monster."
Ethan sheathed the wooden sword. His hands trembled, not from exhaustion, but from a nervous energy he couldn't name. Something was about to happen. He could feel it in his skin, in the air, in the way the neon light seemed to dance differently that afternoon.
The warehouse door opened.
Ether entered without making a sound. His steps, light as a feline's, did not echo on the stone. In his right hand, he held yesterday's child—the eight-year-old girl, whose memories the man had tried to steal. She was awake, her eyes visible through the broken mask, looking at the warehouse with cautious curiosity.
Ethan held his breath.
Ether was not wearing the mask.
The face revealed was of a beauty so strange it almost hurt. His hair, beige and curly, fell over his forehead in perfect waves. His skin, also beige, had a uniform tone that did not seem human, as if carved from porcelain. And his eyes—his eyes were a darker beige, deep, ancient, as if they had seen the birth and death of worlds.
He was the most beautiful person Ethan had ever seen.
And, for that very reason, the most frightening.
"Wermilyass," Ether said, his voice calm, devoid of the mask that always muffled it. "There was nowhere to leave her. And I need Ethan."
Wermilyass tilted his head. The black ribbon, motionless, seemed to fix on Ether.
"The child?" he asked.
"We can't abandon her," Ether replied. "Not now."
Wermilyass said nothing more. He just nodded, as if he had already expected that answer.
Ethan approached. The anger he had felt the night before was still there, but now it was mixed with something colder—curiosity, perhaps, or the hope that things had changed.
"What do you want?" he asked, his voice harsher than intended.
Ether did not respond immediately. The child in his arms stirred slightly, and he adjusted her weight with a gesture that was almost paternal.
"Sit down," he said. "We need to talk."
The two sat on the same stone bench where they had spoken the night before. Orthid's sun shone on the horizon, pale and distant, illuminating a sky that never became clear.
"The transmigrating orb," Ether said, finally, "has managed to retain enough arcane energy. Enough to pierce the barrier of the fourth world."
Ethan felt the ground slip from under his feet.
"The fourth world?" he repeated, his voice trembling. "Earth?"
"Earth," Ether confirmed.
Ethan couldn't hold back the tears. They fell down his face like a waterfall, hot and uncontrollable. He fell to his knees, his hands trembling, his chest tightening with a pain that was not physical.
"Thank you," he whispered, his voice faltering. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
Ether looked at him. His dark-beige eyes, motionless, showed no emotion. Only an ancient sadness, so deep it seemed to come from another time.
"How would you feel," Ether asked, his voice low, "if Macano had lied to you?"
Ethan raised his head. Tears still streamed down his face, but Ether's question entered his mind like a shard of glass.
"What?" he asked.
"If Macano had lied to you," Ether repeated. "About time. About Earth. About Júlia."
Ethan didn't understand. Or he didn't want to understand. Hope was too great, too fragile, to be broken by a question.
"It doesn't matter," he said, standing up. "What matters is that I'm going to see her. I'm going back to her."
Ether didn't insist. He just put on the porcelain mask—the smooth one, the beige one, the one that had no expression—and the crown floated over his head. The small black sphere, which had once been motionless, began to spin. The neon light seemed to darken.
Ethan felt the dizziness coming like a wave. The world spun around him, and the colors began to fade.
"Hold on," Ether said, with the voice Ethan knew, the one that came from behind the mask. "We're going."
The small black sphere above Ether's crown shone with an intensity Ethan had never seen. Orthid's sun—that pale, distant sun—exploded into light. It shone with an intensity that blinded Ethan for an instant, and the light did not go out. It stayed there, intense, eternal, as if the sun itself had decided to finally wake up.
Ether whispered, his voice so low Ethan barely heard it:
"A Void has just been born."
Ethan didn't understand. He only realized that the world around him was dissolving into fragments of light and shadow, and that Ether's body was the only solid thing he could hold onto.
The portal swallowed them.
+-+
The light was different.
Not the pale, sickly light of Orthid. Not the artificial light of neon. But a true light, warm, that came from lamps and fire and thousands of small lights exploding in the sky.
Ethan blinked. His eyes, blinded by the journey, took a while to focus.
They were on top of a building. It was enormous, of glass and steel, and the city stretched around them like a carpet of lights. Down below, the streets were full of people. Thousands of them. They shouted, laughed, embraced.
"Happy New Year!" someone shouted, somewhere.
Fireworks. Thousands of explosions of color in the night sky. Red, gold, blue, green. A celebration. A party.
Ethan felt his heart tighten. New Year's Eve. The end of a cycle. The beginning of another.
And then, he saw the billboard.
It was on the building across. Large, illuminated, with letters that glowed in neon. And a photograph—an old woman, with graying hair, her face marked by time, but with a smile Ethan knew. A smile that pierced his chest like a spear.
Your death was not in vain, revolutionary!
And beneath the billboard, the name he would never forget:
Júlia Melo Morreti, 2019-2113.
Ethan fell to his knees.
His knee hit the concrete floor with a dry sound, but he didn't feel the pain. He felt nothing. Only the void opening inside him, like a black hole, like the space between the stars.
Tears didn't come. Anger didn't come. Only silence.
"Júlia..." he whispered, his voice faltering.
The billboard didn't lie. Júlia had lived. 2019-2113. Ninety-four years. A whole life. A life he hadn't shared.
"Revolutionary." She had fought against the machines. She had made a difference. She had honored the memory of Denis—of Ethan—even without knowing what he had done.
And Ethan was there, on top of a building, watching fireworks explode, hearing people celebrate, knowing that the only person who loved him in the world no longer existed.
Time passed differently. He knew that. Macano had told him—or hadn't he? The memory was confusing, wrapped in lies and omissions.
"One day here could be a year there," Macano had said.
Or hadn't said.
It didn't matter. What mattered was that Júlia had died. And that Ethan hadn't been there.
The fireworks continued to explode. The sky was full of light.
And Ethan was on his knees, on top of a building, trembling in silence.
Ether, beside him, said nothing. He just stood there, holding the child, looking at the billboard with his dark-beige eyes.
"Go," Ethan said, finally, his voice hoarse, broken. "Take me back."
Ether didn't respond. He just extended his hand, and the world dissolved again.