Steam still filled the bathroom when Kaelan turned off the shower.

  Hot water ran down his back in heavy lines, tracing bruises and tension he didn’t remember earning a few hours ago.

  He dried his hair slowly with a towel.

  Nothing.

  Silence.

  The only place where there were no screams. No auras. No emotional pulses.

  Or so he thought.

  He looked at himself in the fogged mirror. Two droplets slid down the glass like borrowed tears. Kaelan wiped the surface with his palm—

  —but his reflection didn’t look the same.

  His eyes were tired. Heavy. Slightly more hollow than before.

  And for a fraction of a second, behind him—

  a white corridor.

  He blinked.

  Gone.

  Just the same bathroom.

  “I’m… tired,” he whispered.

  But he knew it wasn’t just exhaustion.

  It was the Resonance breathing inside him.

  Moving.

  Alive.

  He leaned forward, bracing himself against the sink. Water dripped from his chin onto the porcelain.

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  Then—

  TINT—TINT—TINT.

  The ceiling bulb flickered.

  Kaelan lifted his head slowly.

  TINT—TINT—TINT—TINT.

  That sound.

  That rhythm.

  THM.

  THM.

  THM.

  Not his heartbeat.

  Another one.

  Someone who shouldn’t still be alive inside his memory.

  “No…” he whispered.

  The light went out for a second.

  And when it came back—

  The bathroom was no longer a bathroom.

  It was a white room.

  Cold.

  Metal walls.

  A single lamp hanging from the ceiling.

  And a row of beds.

  Kaelan didn’t know if his eyes were open or closed.

  Because he was there.

  And he wasn’t.

  He heard small breaths.

  Children.

  Whispers.

  A muffled sob covered by a trembling hand.

  They weren’t his memories.

  But they were starting to feel like they were.

  A white shadow passed beside him. A robe. Latex gloves. A priest with a dead smile.

  “Another useless one.”

  “Another failure.”

  “Break the sword.”

  “Try the next.”

  Kaelan felt the air leave his lungs.

  The steam from the bathroom turned into fire smoke.

  The floor beneath his feet was no longer tile—it was hospital mosaic, stained with blood washed a thousand times.

  “No… no… no,” he gasped. “This isn’t mine. This isn’t mine.”

  THM.

  THM.

  THM.

  The pulse wouldn’t let him escape.

  A blond child screamed.

  Chains.

  Shattered glass.

  A flash of steel.

  Kaelan stumbled backward—

  —but the sink was gone.

  He hit the wall and slid down, shaking, nails digging into his own skin.

  The priest spoke again.

  “The weapon that refuses to obey… must be destroyed.”

  And then, before him, on a cold metal table—

  a broken sacred blade.

  EXCALIBUR.

  It shone.

  Holy. Perfect.

  Stained with tears and screams.

  Something cracked inside Kaelan.

  “I have to… I have to destroy them…”

  The words left his throat without permission.

  They weren’t his.

  They belonged to a child who had never been Kaelan.

  Kiba’s echo slipping through a fracture he didn’t know he had.

  The glow of the sword became the bathroom light—

  FLASH.

  And he was back.

  In his bathroom.

  Alone.

  Bare.

  Breathing in fragments.

  He covered his mouth, horrified.

  “I… did I just say that?”

  The bulb stopped flickering.

  THM.

  One final pulse.

  Then silence.

  Kaelan slid down to sit on the cold tile floor, trembling, clutching the towel like it was something solid.

  “They’re not my memories…” he whispered. “Or… are they?”

  He closed his eyes.

  The Resonance didn’t respond.

  It didn’t pulse nervously.

  It didn’t apologize.

  It slept.

  As if it had done exactly what it meant to do.

  Kaelan swallowed.

  Somewhere between his memories and Kiba’s, a sentence floated without a clear owner:

  The sword must fall.

  Kaelan’s eyes snapped open.

  And for the first time—

  he was afraid of himself.