Chapter 56: Catalyst Bound, III
The world was on fire.
But there were no flames. No smoke.
Just the sound of everything tearing at once—time, memory, place.
Threadlight erupted in all directions, distorting space into coils of vibrating color. The structure of the illusion buckled—rooms colliding, doors imploding, the ceiling unraveling like ribbon pulled from an unwritten story. Each pulse shook my ribs, and each moment came undone faster than I could comprehend.
Clara stood in the center of it.
Not stable.
Not whole.
Just standing.
The girl—the one we forgot—watched her with eyes that shimmered between ages. Her face fractured between childhood and something older, more eternal. As if time couldn't decide what to make her. Her posture shifted with each heartbeat—child, orphan, ghost.
Clara reached forward, her breath ragged. "I don't know you name... but I remember the sound of it."
The girl's shoulders trembled. "Then say it."