The Archive shifted.
No longer pulsing with judgment or fire—but with something gentler.
Deeper.
It was calling Skyler inward.
Not upward.
Not forward.
Inward.
---
Aelira remained at the City of Stars, watching over the rewritten Council.
Skyler stepped into a corridor carved from living memory, descending alone.
At his side, the pendant of Remembering pulsed one final time.
"She waits where memory sleeps. Where witness began."
The walls around him whispered as he passed—scenes of a woman cloaked in white flame, her voice echoing through centuries:
"To remember is to bleed."
"To protect memory is to be hated by history."
"But someone must witness."
He came at last to a chamber of lightless fire.
At its center was a single throne of stone, cracked and vine-wrapped—a memorial.
And sitting before it…
Was her.
Aeria Novaah.
Not young.
Not burning.
Not divine.
Just... tired.
And finally at peace.
---
Skyler's breath caught.
All the stories, the recordings, the visions—none prepared him for the moment.
He fell to his knees.
"You were real," he whispered.
"And I… I'm sorry it took this long."
Aeria looked up slowly. Her eyes were like his.
No—his were like hers.
"It took exactly this long," she said softly.
"That's why I made you. That's why I burned."
He trembled. "They said you cursed us."
She smiled. It was the saddest smile he'd ever seen.
"I did."
"But not because I hated us."
"Because I loved us."
She rose, placing a hand over his heart.
Her fingers passed through him like mist and memory, and flame sparked in his chest.
"If they had known who you were—what you could become—they would've erased the Archive itself to stop you."
"So I buried your identity in story, sealed it in myth, and placed your name where even gods wouldn't look."
"I cursed us… so you could be born free."
---
Skyler closed his eyes.
Tears streamed down, glowing white-gold.
"I thought I was broken," he said.
"I thought… the bloodline was reduced. That we were accidents."
She shook her head.
"You were not reduced. You were refined."
"You were never cursed to forget. You were blessed to choose when to remember."
Aeria's flame began to flicker.
Her time was ending.
She looked up at her son—her creation, her memory made flesh—and said:
"Skyler Novaah… you are the last Witness."
"But not the last flame."
"Soon… you'll meet her."
---
He stepped forward, hand reaching for hers.
Their fingertips touched.
And in that moment, the throne of stone behind her ignited, transforming into a memorial tower—its peak lit with Aeria's eternal memory.
Skyler stood tall.
Aeria's form faded, smiling one last time.
"Tell them the truth," she said.
"And let the flame remember again."
---
As Skyler returned to the City of Stars, the Seventh Seal burned brighter.
The Archive now lived through him fully.
But a new name pulsed at the edge of flame:
"The One Who Was Never Born."
And he knew…
The next truth wouldn't be about the past.
It would be about the child the Archive forgot.