The tower loomed like a spine carved from ruin. Its peak cracked against the sky, blackened by flames that no longer burned, but still carried heat. Lyle stood motionless at the base, his hand clenched around the Codex, Juno by his side, sword drawn but lowered.
The figure above was too familiar.
It wasn't just the voice. It wasn't just the name he spoke.
It was the stillness—the same calm Lyle had trained himself to carry. But where Lyle's stillness came from fear and discipline, this one… radiated certainty.
This wasn't a man hiding. This was a man waiting.
"Third ring," Juno whispered beside him. "What the hell is he talking about?"
Lyle shook his head. "I only know of one."
He glanced at the ring on his hand—the Dimensional Ring, Quinn's artifact, said to be unique. Said to connect only to the vampire world once a month. Said to be irreplicable.
But this Variant—this twisted version of him—was talking about something else.
"Let's go," Lyle said.
---
They ascended the ruined tower in silence.
Every step felt like pulling against a tide. The further they went, the more unstable the Codex became—glyphs flickering in and out, shifting languages mid-sentence. The Architect's sigils warred with Quinn's framework, each trying to impose meaning where the world had fractured.
Juno muttered, "This place… it's like a graveyard of systems."
Lyle nodded grimly. "Because it is."
---
The figure waited at the top, cloaked in rags that shimmered with broken runes. When Lyle and Juno reached the summit, the Variant turned—
And Lyle came face to face with himself.
Not older. Not scarred.
Just… different.
His left eye glowed faintly red, like bloodlight. The other remained normal—blue and clear. His Codex floated beside him, but it was cracked. Not physically. Spiritually.
"You look like I did before I made the worst decision of my life," the Variant said.
"I take it that decision involved the third ring?" Lyle replied, voice steady.
The Variant smiled humorlessly. "More like the second. The third came after I realized the first two were lies."
He stepped closer.
And the world around them shifted.
Ash turned to stone.
Stone to sand.
And suddenly, the tower no longer stood in Kretham.
It stood everywhere and nowhere.
A fractured realm of memories.
> [Threadspace Identified: Codex Shadow of Echoes]
Dimensional instability active. Architect-Variant sync 32%.
"Why did you destroy Kretham?" Lyle asked.
"I didn't," the Variant said. "You did."
Juno stepped forward, blade now up. "He never set foot here until just now."
The Variant looked at her, smiling slightly. "You think that matters? He carries the Codex. The real one. The unfinished one."
He turned back to Lyle. "You're a walking convergence. The more of you exists across the threads, the more unstable everything becomes. And someone—something—is using you to crack the seal."
Lyle clenched his fists. "What seal?"
The Variant reached into his cloak and pulled out a second ring.
Not the Dimensional Ring.
This one pulsed with silver fire.
"The third ring wasn't made by Quinn. Or the Architect. It was made by what came before them."
He held it up. "And it's waking up."
---
Suddenly, the sky above fractured.
The clouds split like glass. Through the crack poured a dark wind—something hungry, something that moved not like smoke or air, but like will.
Lyle's Codex screamed in warning:
> [Stability breached – Outer Echo influence detected]
Recommendation: Disengage from current instance.
Retreat or risk Codex corruption.
But it was too late.
The Variant flung the ring to the ground.
And the wind pounced.
Juno screamed as it slammed into them all. The tower collapsed in slow motion, stone turning to sand, sand to dust, and dust to memories.
Lyle was falling—
But this time, there was no ground.
Only a voice, and it was not the Variant's:
> "Greenbottle." "Breaker." "Heir."
> "Choose."
---
Lyle woke in a new place.
Juno was beside him, unconscious. The Codex hovered above them, burning with sigils Lyle couldn't read.
He wasn't in Kretham.
He wasn't in the city.
He wasn't even in Quinn's world.
> [Location: Unknown.]
Thread Unmoored. All paths converging.
And far ahead, standing beneath a tree that shimmered like a silver star, was the Variant—
Waiting.