Chapter 71 Echoes of Tomorrow
SERA
Three days.
Three days of acting like I was fine while everyone else thought I was going to break.
Three days of waking up and reaching for a daughter who wasn't there yet.
Who might never exist. Who sacrificed herself to save a future no one else remembered.
Three days of hell.
"You need to feed."
Kael stood in the doorway to our room. Our rooms felt odd because they weren't set up for a child. Because Nyx's room wasn't here. This was three years ago, and nothing seemed right. "I'm not hungry."
You haven't eaten in three days.
You need blood."
"I need my daughter."
Silence. Heavy. Painful.
"Sera." He crossed the room. Sat beside me.
"I don't get what's going on. You continually bringing up a daughter we don't have.
About a future that has not occurred. About threats that do not exist yet."
"They will exist. In three years. If we do not change things now." I looked at him. Really looked. He was younger here. Not by much.
But the creases around his eyes were less deep. He felt less weight on his shoulders.
He had not lived through everything yet.
And he did not remember. Did not know what we survived together. What we built. What we lost.
"Tell me," he said. "Tell me everything. Even if it sounds insane. Even if I do not believe it. Tell me.
So I did. All of it. The bond fully forming. Nyx being born. Her impossible power. The threats. The wars. The sacrifice. The reset.
He listened. Did not interrupt. Did not dismiss. Just listened like he promised.
He didn't say anything for a long time after I was done. That is a very interesting story. It isn't a story.
It is memory. It is truth. It is everything we lived through.
I took his hand. "I know you don't recall. I know it sounds crazy. But please. Please believe me."
"I believe you believe it."
"That is not the same thing."
"No. It is not." He squeezed my hand. "But I also believe something happened. Something that changed you. Something that put fear in your eyes I have never seen before.
So even if I do not remember this daughter. Even if I cannot verify this future. I believe you are trying to protect me from something real."
It was not full belief. But it was something. More than nothing.
"Thank you."
"Do not thank me yet. If what you say is true, we have three years to prevent war and somehow recover a child who was erased from existence." He stood. "That seems impossible."
"Everything about us is impossible."
"Fair point." He walked to the window. "What do we do first?"
"We find Arianna. The older one. She can walk through time.
"She is the only one who can help me find Nyx." This timeline's Arianna is still locked up in the Sanguine Vault.
"Then we unseal her."
"She was sealed for good reason. She went mad. Killed dozens of people before we contained her."
"She also taught Nyx everything. She understands time magic better than anyone." I stood. "We need her. Even if she is dangerous."
Kael studied me. "You have changed. In the future you remember. You are harder. More willing to take risks."
"I am a mother who lost her child. That changes everything."
We went to the Vault that afternoon. Down. Down. Down into darkness and old magic and things that should stay buried.
Arianna's cell was exactly as I remembered. Symbols on the walls. Wards glowing faint red. And in the center, a woman who looked like me but ancient. Broken. Lost.
"Well." Her voice crackled. "This is unexpected. The half-blood queen coming to visit me. Years early."
I froze. "How did you know?"
"I am a time walker, child. I see threads. Past. Present. Future. All tangled together." She stood. Moved to the bars. "You remember a timeline that was erased. You remember a daughter who sacrificed herself to reset everything. And you want my help finding her."
"Yes."
"Why do you want me to help you?" Because you did in that other timeline.
Because you became family. Because you taught Nyx everything and loved her like your own." I moved closer.
"Please don't let me go through that again because you know what it's like to lose everything."
Arianna looked at me with eyes that saw too much.
"If I help you. If I teach you to walk through time. To find traces of what was erased. You have to do something for me."
"What?"
"Take the curse. The one that is slowly killing me. Split it between us like you did in that other timeline. Let me live. Let me have purpose beyond dying alone in a cell."
Kael took hold of my arm. "No." No way. You are not taking a curse to protect someone who might turn on us.
"She will not betray us. Not if she remembers what we became." I looked at Arianna. "Do you? Remember? Even a little?"
"I remember echoes. Ghosts of timelines that do not exist. A child with red eyes who called me grandmother. A version of myself who was not alone." Her voice broke. "I remember feeling loved. Even if it was not real. Even if it was just echo."
"It was real. In that timeline it was real. And we can make it real here too. If you help me." I held out my hand. "Deal?"
She took it. "Deal."
The ritual to split the curse was agony. We performed it that night. Arianna's curse flowing into me. Dark. Hungry. Wrong.
But manageable. Split between two people. Bearable.
When it finished, we both collapsed. Both gasping. Both alive.
"Thank you," Arianna breathed. "I forgot what it felt like. To not be constantly dying."
"Teach me. Teach me how to find her."
"Time magic does not work that way. You cannot just find someone who was erased. They are gone. Removed from existence."
"But the older Nyx appeared. From the future. That means some version exists. Somewhere. Somewhen." I grabbed her shoulders. "Help me. Please."
"There might be a way. A dangerous way. A probably fatal way." Arianna stood slowly. "We walk backward through time. Through the moment of erasure. Try to catch an echo. A fragment. Something she left behind."
"How?"
"By almost dying. By letting your consciousness separate from your body and travel. By risking everything for a maybe." She looked at Kael. "I will need help. Someone to anchor her.
"To pull her back if she goes too far." "I will do it," he said right away. You don't even think she was real.
"I believe Sera believes it. That is enough."
We prepared in Arianna's old ritual chamber. The one she used before going mad. Symbols on the floor. Candles at cardinal points. Everything precise.
"Lie down," Arianna instructed. "Center of the circle. Blood on the stone. Let it connect you to the flow of time."
I did. Cut my palm. Let blood pool. Felt magic respond.
"This will hurt," Arianna said. "You will feel yourself die. Repeatedly. As you pass through moments that are and are not. Do not fight it. Let it happen. Trust the magic to bring you back."
"And if it does not?"
"Then you stay dead. Lost between moments. Forever."
"Comforting."
"I am not here to comfort. I am here to help you do something impossible." She knelt beside the circle. "Ready?"
"No. But do it anyway."
She began chanting. Old language. Shadowborn language. Words that hurt to hear.
The world tilted. I felt myself separating. Body and consciousness splitting.
Then I was falling. Through time. Through moments. Through everything.