CHAPTER 1229: AFFECTION’S AFFLICTION (2).

She didn’t look back. "The first Watcher to defy the Divine Will. The one who warned that humans would suffer if left unguarded." A pause. "He vanished long before the Fallen revolted."

"So he’s dead?"

"Watchers do not die. They are unmade."

"Same thing."

"No." She turned, eyes unsettlingly calm. "Unmade means erased from continuity. From memory. From every trace of existence. If the First Light spoke to you, something has broken the Divine prohibition."

Kade’s stomach tightened. "So I’m involved in cosmic politics now. Perfect."

"You already were." Seren gestured with two fingers. "This way."

They reached the ground just as the Interstice shuddered. The bone tower bent slightly, as though reacting to a sudden weight. The sky overhead rippled like disturbed water.

"What’s happening?" Kade asked.

"The second anchor has awakened. The Interstice is shifting to accommodate its new resonance. We must secure the final anchor before it destabilizes."

"And the last one is the imprint, right?"

"Yes."

"And where do I find it?"

Seren looked at him, and for the first time since he met her, she hesitated.

"You do not find it. It finds you."

"Fantastic. Any idea when?"

A sound like cracking ice tore across the horizon.

Kade spun. A tear was splitting open in the air, thin at first, then widening with a wet, ripping sound. Darkness leaked out—not like shadow, but like spilled ink spreading across water.

"That’s not normal, right?" he said.

"Not normal," Seren confirmed.

The tear widened further. Something pressed against it from the other side. An outline. A shape. A silhouette of a person.

Kade’s breathing hitched. "Is that—someone trying to get in?"

"Something," Seren corrected. "Not someone."

The fox bristled and backed up behind Kade’s leg.

The tear split fully—and a figure stepped through.

It was him.

Or rather, a version of him.

Same height. Same build. Same face. But the eyes were hollow black, swirling like miniature voids. A faint distortion clung around its outline, like bad reflection on broken glass.

Kade went still. "That’s... not good."

Seren stepped between them. "That is the imprint."

"The imprint looks like me?"

"It is not you," she said sharply. "It is everything you could have become if every fear, every failure, every unresolved choice had been left to rot. It is the sum of your unchosen paths."

The imprint tilted its head. Its voice echoed in a wrong doubled tone:

You were not meant to exist.

Kade forced a step forward. "Pretty bold for a cosmic knockoff."

You deviate from the intended shape.

You corrupt the lattice.

You violate the pattern.

Kade’s fingers curled. "Yeah, well, I’ve been having a very long day."

Seren raised a hand. "Do not provoke it. The imprint must bind to your resonance. Confront it, but do not fight it."

"Define confront."

"Accept what it shows you. Without denial."

"That sounds unbelievably unfun."

The imprint took one step forward—and the Interstice shifted violently. The sky tore open, fractures spreading in branching lines. The ground rippled like a breathing creature.

Kade staggered. "Is it doing that?"

"It is reflecting your instability," Seren said. "You anchored yourself, but your identity is fragmented. This confrontation is necessary."

Kade sucked in a breath. "Alright. Then let’s do it."

He stepped toward the imprint.

It mirrored him.

Kade touched the shard against his chest. Light flared.

The imprint reached its hand forward, its fingers dripping shadow like liquid night.

Their hands met.

The world collapsed.

---

He was standing in the ruins of his childhood home.

The broken roof. The overgrown yard. The scorch marks on the walls. He hadn’t seen this place since—

"No," he whispered. "No, I don’t want this."

Want is irrelevant, the imprint said beside him. Truth is compulsory.

A second memory rose. The hospital corridor. The dying fluorescent lights. The smell of antiseptic and fear.

Kade clenched his teeth. "Stop it."

You carry this wound and pretend it is sealed.

More scenes surged—his failures, the moments he ran instead of fought, the choices he buried because admitting them hurt too much.

Pain squeezed his lungs.

He dropped to one knee.

The imprint crouched beside him, face blank.

You are unstable because you lie to yourself. You must choose the path you fear most.

Kade lifted his head, eyes burning. "Which is?"

To become what you were meant to be. Not what you settled for.

The shard pulsed.

The Interstice shuddered.

Kade rose slowly, breathing hard, and stared the imprint straight in its hollow eyes.

"I’m done running from myself."

The imprint’s outline cracked.

Light exploded.

The blast of light ripped outward like a shockwave. When the glare faded, Kade stood alone in a blank expanse—no sky, no ground, no horizon. Just endless white, flat and depthless.

His pulse hammered in his ears. "Seren?"

Nothing.

The imprint’s hollow voice echoed from everywhere at once:

We are not finished.

Kade tightened his grip on the shard. Its glow throbbed against his palm, syncing with his heartbeat. "We burned through the memory gauntlet already. What else do you want from me?"

A shape formed ahead—fuzzy, flickering, then sharpening into crisp definition.

It was him again.

Not twisted. Not monstrous.

Perfectly normal.

And that was worse.

This version of him looked relaxed, well-rested, confident. The version he used to imagine he’d become if life had been kinder. A version without scars, without losses, without the weight he carried in his chest every single day.

The imprint spoke through this double, voice calm and unnervingly even:

This is who you think you should have been.

Kade’s fingernails dug into his palm. "That’s not me."

It is the shadow of a path you still cling to.

You resent what you have become because you mourn what you never were.

Kade stepped closer, jaw clenched. "I don’t have time for therapy metaphors."

The double smiled—his smile, but smooth in a way that didn’t feel earned.

"You don’t resent me. You envy me."

"You’re not real."

"I’m real enough to hurt you."

The ground cracked under Kade’s feet. The white void shook, and lines of black ripped across the empty horizon like ink bleeding through paper.

The double lifted a hand.