Chapter 648: The Seventh

Kael kept holding the page for a few more seconds, his fingers tight around the edges while the two sentences remained visible before him.

There was no protocol language, no classification produced by the First Archive, and no attempt to summarize the conflict in an impersonal line.

That had come from Nerya.

From somewhere hundreds of kilometers away, a woman who might not even know exactly what the First Archive was had found the only opening created during the review and used it to state something very simple.

I AM NOT LYSSARA.

MY NAME IS NERYA.

Sylphie was the first to break the silence.

"Then she has already answered the most important question."

Kael slowly nodded.

"Now we need to make sure she can still answer it fourteen hours from now."

Amelia was already moving on the other side of the crystal.

Orders were being relayed in the background, documents were being separated, and someone left the room carrying a stack of House Vharen records.

Irelia remained in front of the table, focused on something she had not yet shown the others.

Elion, meanwhile, brought instruments closer to the copy of the page he possessed, trying to discover how that challenge had managed to cross the distance.

"It isn’t normal communication," he explained. "She didn’t physically write anything. The First Archive’s authorization created a challenge condition tied to the project’s subject. When Nerya internally rejected the identity being applied to her, the divergence found that opening."

"So she can hear us?" Seraphine asked.

"Probably not."

Kael looked at the sentence again.

"Can she answer?"

Elion took a moment.

"Maybe. But I wouldn’t send a message directly to her. Anything we send through this connection risks being processed by Inner Moon first."

"In other words, if I write ’we’re coming to help,’ the project might decide Lyssara received help."

"Exactly."

Kael grimaced.

"I hate structures that correct existential grammar."

Umbra appeared over his shoulder.

"That was an oddly specific sentence."

"It’s been a specific day."

Irelia raised her head at that moment.

"I found an escape attempt."

Everyone immediately focused on her.

She placed three recent records in front of the crystal.

The first was a travel authorization issued eight months earlier in Nerya Vharen’s name.

Destination: a port city nearly nine hundred kilometers from the family estate.

The second was a cancellation, registered four hours later.

The third, much more interesting, was a payment note made to a private coachman that same morning.

"Nerya tried to leave the month after her first transformation," Irelia explained. "The authorization was approved by an administrator of House Vharen and then canceled by the family itself. The coachman stated that she never arrived at the meeting point."

"Who canceled it?" Kael asked.

"Lady Mereth Vharen."

"Mother?"

"Grandmother. Current head of the House."

Seraphine frowned.

"And the parents?"

"Father died seven years ago. Mother died when Nerya was twelve."

Kael did not like that sequence at all.

"There’s more?"

"Yes."

Irelia presented another document.

"Six months ago, Nerya consulted a private physician outside the Vharen lands. The report was sealed by the family two days later, but I found the billing record."

"Reason for the consultation?"

"Insomnia, memory loss, episodes of disorientation, and..."

Irelia paused.

"...the feeling of recognizing people she had never met."

Sylphie became serious.

"Lyssara’s memories."

"Probably."

"Did she know what was happening?"

"I don’t know. But a month later, she tried to buy a dream blocker and a lunar suppressant."

Kael raised his head.

"Werewolves use those?"

Sylphie nodded.

"In specific situations. Lunar suppressants can delay the depth of a metamorphosis, but they aren’t safe for prolonged use. If she was taking one on her own, she was probably trying to avoid another complete transformation."

"Because she realized something came in with it."

The Inner Moon page vibrated.

CURRENT SELF-PERCEPTION: INCREASING RESISTANCE.

Then:

PRESERVED IDENTITY STABILITY: 61%.

Kael stared at the number.

"What was it before?"

Elion checked his instruments.

"Nine months ago, ninety-four."

Seraphine breathed slowly.

"She’s winning?"

"At this moment?" Elion replied. "Yes. But the system interprets that as degradation."

The page added another line.

CORRECTION THRESHOLD: 50%.

Kael went still.

"Then we don’t have fourteen hours."

Everyone looked at him.

"If she keeps resisting and drops below fifty before the full moon, the correction might happen early."

Elion did not answer immediately, confirming the possibility before he even spoke.

"It might."

Sylphie grabbed Kael’s wrist before he could even move.

"Portal."

"I know."

"No Step."

"I know."

"You rest."

Kael looked at her.

"There’s a woman being slowly replaced by a dead one."

"And you’ll arrive there useless if you tear your channels apart on the way."

Seraphine crossed her arms.

"She’s right."

Kael turned his head toward her.

"You’re enjoying this too much."

"Being right?"

"Telling me to rest."

"That too."

Amelia interrupted before the argument could grow.

"I’ll open the portal twenty kilometers from the Vharen lands. No closer."

"Why?"

"Because the estate is covered by an old barrier tied to the bloodline. We don’t know whether entering directly would trigger Inner Moon or the entire family."

Umbra tilted her head.

"Twenty kilometers is a lot of caution."

"I’m compensating for Kael’s presence."

"Fair."

Kael decided not to argue with four people at once.

The portal was prepared in less than fifteen minutes.

Violet remained in the Garden of Bones with Elion and Edras, coordinating the separation of the dead, while Seraphine returned with Amelia to help investigate the old records from the first transfers.

Kael wanted to take her, but she refused herself.

"I don’t remember Rhaden," she explained. "And someone needs to find out who Lyssara was before you meet what remains of her."

Kael agreed.

It was not a mission that required numbers.

The fewer people who appeared before a family that had hidden six identity transfers over two centuries, the better.

So only Kael, Sylphie, and Umbra crossed through.

On the other side, they found a region completely different from Meridia.

Northern Rhaden was cold even at that time of year, with low mountains covered in dark forests and long stretches of fields where gray stones rose among the vegetation.

The Vharen estate lay beyond a chain of hills, in an area where no major road had passed for decades.

The sky was clear, but a pale moon was already visible on the horizon, too small to trigger any transformation and yet enough to remind Kael of the fourteen hours.

Sylphie led him to a small abandoned house once used by hunters and, before he could complain, pushed him inside.

"One hour."

"Thirty minutes."

"One hour."

"Forty."

She crossed her arms.

Kael sighed.

"Fifty."

"One hour."

Umbra appeared behind him.

"You negotiate very badly when you’re tired."

"I didn’t ask for analysis."

"It’s free."

Kael finally lay down.

He did not fall asleep immediately.

His mind was still too occupied with Nerya, the percentage of preserved identity, and the way someone could spend twenty-five years being one person only to discover their own family considered that period preparation for someone else.

But his body settled the argument for him.

The exhaustion from the last journeys, the Hollow Throne, the Garden of Bones, and his channels still recovering made his thoughts lose clarity within minutes.

When he opened his eyes again, Sylphie was sitting beside the window.

"How long?"

"One hour and twelve."

Kael abruptly sat up.

"You..."

"You needed it."

He started to answer, but realized his chest hurt less when he breathed and his ankle no longer felt as stiff.

"One hour was enough."

"You snored."

"I do not snore."

Umbra spoke from the ceiling.

"You do."

"Traitors."

Sylphie smiled and handed him the crystal.

There was a message from Amelia.

NERYA HAS NOT LEFT THE ESTATE IN THE LAST FOUR MONTHS.

OTHER CONFIRMED RESIDENTS: TWENTY-SEVEN.

BLOODLINE MEMBERS: FOUR.

ADMINISTRATION: LADY MERETH VHAREN.

Below it, another line:

INTENSE RITUAL ACTIVITY SINCE YESTERDAY.

Kael stood.

"Enough resting."

Sylphie did not object.

They left on foot.

There was no reason to run.

Umbra moved ahead through the shadows of the trees while Sylphie kept her attention on the distant barrier.

Kael avoided using the Celestial Step, even though he could almost feel it like an itch in his muscles every time the path stretched ahead of them.

Instead, he maintained a steady pace, letting his body work without forcing the channels.

An hour later, Umbra returned.

"I found the estate."

"Movement?"

"A lot."

"Guards?"

"Twelve outside. More inside. But they aren’t looking outward."

Kael frowned.

"Where?"

"At the house."

Sylphie looked at her.

"Protecting it?"

Umbra shook her head.

"Stopping someone from leaving."

That was enough.

They reached the edge of the barrier shortly afterward.

The Vharen manor stood in the distance among tall pine trees, built from dark stone and wood, large without being palatial.

There were no towers, walls, or any exaggerated display of wealth.

Only a residence far too old, surrounded by land that had belonged to the same family for generations.

Kael raised his hand before crossing.

"We don’t go in without Nerya."

Umbra looked at the barrier.

"How do we ask?"

Kael took out the Inner Moon page.

The number had changed.

PRESERVED IDENTITY STABILITY: 58%.

He felt his jaw tighten.

Three points in a little over an hour.

Sylphie approached the barrier without touching it.

"It’s tied to blood."

"Can you send something without crossing?"

"Not words."

Kael understood.

"The same as with the Choir."

"A possibility."

Sylphie closed her eyes and let a tiny root grow to the edge of the property.

It did not cross the barrier.

It merely touched the boundary and offered a presence.

No order.

No formulated request.

Only a simple emotional question.

Is there someone out here you want to let in?

They waited.

Five seconds.

Ten.

Twenty.

Then the barrier trembled.

It did not open completely.

A small fissure appeared at the point in front of them, narrow enough for one person to pass through at a time.

Kael looked at Sylphie.

"That’s a yes?"

"It is."

The page reacted.

INDIVIDUAL CHALLENGE UPDATED.

A new sentence appeared beneath the previous ones.

COME IN.

Then another, written with far greater difficulty.

BEFORE SHE WAKES.

Kael became serious.

"Who?"

The answer took time.

So long that Kael started to believe it would not come.

Then the ink appeared.

THE WOMAN WHO REMEMBERS MY LIFE AS IF IT WERE HERS.

No one spoke.

It was not only Lyssara invading Nerya with old memories.

Something inside that manor was already using Nerya’s memories.

Kael crossed the barrier.

"Now we’re in a hurry."