CHAPTER 96: THE EVERSHINING DAWN

Kivas gripped Yevdi’s arms, eyes searching the future woman’s face as though she sought every secret etched in that delicate curve of her cheek.

The golden light that refracted through Yevdi’s essence trembled around them, a fragile aurora caught between timelines.

Kivas’s voice held steady but quivering beneath its veneer.

"Why did you do all of this?"

Yevdi tilted her head, features softening into a bittersweet smile. Her iris glowed with distant depths, as though she had lived centuries in a heartbeat.

The air between them shimmered, and unspoken centuries began to weave themselves into a single, charged breath.

Yevdi squeezed Kivas’s arms gently, her fingertips brushing warmth into the tense muscle beneath the divine cloth.

"Aactually, for that, there is someone more fitting to fill the blank I left without adding more irregularity to the state of this timeline."

She then whispered a pre-concocted spell—and the space around them quivered as what Yevdi carried unfolded.

Memories, compressed and gleaming, cascaded into Kivas’s consciousness like sunlight leaking through stained glass.

She felt them bloom within her, not as images but as living echoes.

The future’s Kivas spoke through them, an image of a tall and grandiose figure of light came forth and granted Kivas with her sweet and lulling voice.

"The future might be darker than the dimmest of night, as you always know. You might stumble your way forward, grasping for paths as beasts lurch at you, eat your arms, stake your heart.

"You will feel abandoned by dawn, yearn for the bones of hope, wonder if your light has any meaning at all. Yet remember this—

"Fathomi may be cruel, but also indescribably kind."

Kivas felt her breath catch as the future voice continued, carrying truths that bit and comforted simultaneously.

"I used every thread of power left in me to resonate with this timeline, the Dream Journey Timeline, or so I named it. I backtracked to the day I lost most of my individuality. I sent Yevdi—one of the brightest and purest of me—to guide you prevent a bleak outcome.

"Thus, all I achieved will unravel because this journey must be carried anew, through raw will, pure heart, and unsullied purpose. But even if all is reverted, everything that matters will persist through the flame we ignite in this snowstorm."

Salt welled in Kivas’s eyes as each syllable struck not her mind but her spine. The future’s purpose, the love woven into the regret of erasure—it held both sorrow and hope in equal measure.

"I have endured agonies you cannot imagine, pain and suffering that might break you apart again and again, but I trust that you will stay unwavering.

"Now you follow a path I once carved. I pray you do it even better than me because your soul remains whole... Please, treat yourself kindly.

"That wish you made to the three World Forgers—they have granted it." A smile appeared on the kind being’s face. "You have found your purpose already, it is time for you to preserve and never let it slip your grasp like I did."

Kivas’s tears fell freely as the echoed memory faded.

All that remained was her and Yevdi, tethered by intangible threads of sacrifice.

Yevdi stepped forward, cradling Kivas’s hands in both of her own. Her gaze searched Kivas’s, steady yet filled with love that spanned years and worlds.

"You will find me," Yevdi said softly, and even that phrase carried gentle certainty. "In this new timeline. If all goes as written, our paths will cross again, alright?"

Kivas lifted her chin, voice trembling but resolute. "I will find you. I will give you a life worth sharing—worth living." Each word left her lips like a prayer offered in defiance of time. "What you did is very brave, and what my future self in the future did is very cruel. But at the same time, there is no reason to dwell.

"I’ll chart my path, and in return, encounter yours."

Yevdi might be someone that Kivas had just met, but just like how Fathomi works, time mattered less when a bond overgrew the stay and expanded faster than the space and sight.

Not only that, it gave Kivas a new purpose, a new mission to accomplish other than just trying her best to survive and strive in this crazy world.

"You were always like this," Yevdi murmured, leaning forward until their foreheads touched. Tears glittered on her cheeks as she spoke. "Kind. Determined. Brighter than anyone I’ve ever known."

Because there had been no reading in her memories of jokes or bravado, every victory and every failure Kivas had suffered, she had endured with that same unwavering heart.

She fell down, but she will get up. A pole might have pierced her but she will eventually remove it and walk again.

It had always been there underneath. And now, that strand of herself reached out, again, across the fathomless sea of possibility.

Yevdi exhaled slowly, then wrapped her arms around Kivas in a gentle embrace that hummed with unseen resonance. Kivas responded, returning the hug with all the warmth she held—her arms pressed around Yevdi’s waist, holding fast in a moment suspended outside of time.

A single whisper drifted through Yevdi’s lips, as if she spoke directly into Kivas’s soul, not through ears. The words rippled through Kivas like music she’d known all her life.

"I love you."

Silence followed. But it shone. And the wound of Yevdi herself—future bride, sacrificial mirror—began to dissolve into drifting motes of golden dust that shimmered against the horizon of their shared moment.

Kivas tightened her embrace for an instant longer before letting go.

Her eyes remained locked on the particles as they fell and faded beyond sight. Somewhere along the span of that silent goodbye, a single white flower drifted downward, landing in Kivas’s palm.

A gift from a timeline still unfolding, still rooted in courage and love.

The flower was impossibly white, as pure and fragile as the hope it represented. Kivas closed her fingers around it, pressing it against her heart.

Yevdi’s final glance held both relief and longing.

Then she dissipated fully—no pain, no victory, no struggle—just the quiet surrender of purpose complete, of timelines rejoined, and of love released but never lost.

The realm held no echoes. Only Kivas remained, standing alone on that seam of day and night, still holding the living testament of both Yevdi’s sacrifice and her own irrevocable promise.

She inhaled once, deeply, as the fractured sky above her stretched wider than any horizon she had known.

Fathomi itself seemed to hold its breath.

Kivas turned slowly, eyes aflame with both chastened humility and steeled resolve.

On the windless sea of time and possibility, the white petals began to drift upward, carrying on currents she could not see and cannot yet command.

She clasped the flower against her chest with both hands and exhaled through lips pressed firm.

Her path was clear.

And somewhere—soon—Yevdi would walk beside her again.

"Looks like it is time for me to return."

Kivas stirred beneath the ceremonial canopy, the familiar linen folds overhead still scented faintly of incense and flower-soaked bark oils.

Her body ached, yet it was the pleasant kind of ache—the kind earned from surviving something meant to destroy her.

The light filtering through the freshly added sacred veil of her bed’s forest canopy was soft and blue.

She looked down.

Curled beside her, arms clinging tightly even in unconsciousness, was Oizys.

Her expression was peaceful for once. No frown. No playfully teasing or bratty smug. Just soft, even breath and fingers grasping onto Kivas’s fabric like she was afraid she’d disappear again.

Her cheek pressed lightly against Kivas’s ribs.

On her other side, seated upright with unblinking focus and arms crossed across her lap, was Samael.

That signature deadpan face met Kivas’s awakening gaze without even a blink. But beneath the mask of apathy, there was something else waiting quietly.

A flicker of softness in the angle of her brows. Samael must’ve had been scared to death about the sudden Apotheosis, and Kivas really bad about it.

So Kivas smiled, low and playful.

"Thanks for saving me... again."

Samael didn’t smile back. But her gaze shifted down to Oizys, and something in her expression changed—like a shadow being peeled away from a fire’s edge.

"I didn’t save you this time," she said plainly. "She did."

Kivas turned toward Oizys again, fingers brushing the white-streaked bangs from her sleeping face.

"...How long was I out?"

Samael folded her arms a bit tighter, like she was holding in a sigh.

"Today is the fifteenth day you’ve survived in this timeline."

Kivas blinked slowly.

"...Fifteenth?"

Samael nodded. "You never made this far, no? I thought that it is quite the achievement."

A chuckle left Kivas’s lips before she could stop it. Her voice was hoarse but filled with tired amusement.

"Guess I finally broke the record."

"You broke it for numerous streaks already. Not only that," Samael muttered, her tone just a touch warmer. "You’re still here."

Kivas sat up, gently shifting Oizys to rest more comfortably against her hip.

She stretched one leg off the bed, then leaned back against the pillows, patting the space on her lap.

"Was it hard? Waiting for me to wake up?"

Samael hesitated.

Her eyes narrowed, lips pressing together in mild irritation, but she moved anyway, lying down beside Kivas with mechanical grace.

Samael’s head rested on the bed, but her body stayed stiff—shoulders square, posture rigid like she’d been caught off guard and didn’t know what to do with her limbs now.

Kivas ran a hand through Oizys’ hair and Samael’s hair with her respective hands, smoothing the strands with slow, steady motions for both of them."

"You’re pouting," Kivas teased.

"I am not," Samael replied with precision and an immediate pout.

"You are," Kivas grinned, brushing her thumb across the side of her face. "Let me guess. You’re jealous?"

Samael averted her eyes toward the far wall of the chamber.

"Oizys has been clinging to you for days, regardless of whether she deserves it or not," she said flatly. "It’s excessive. She’s receiving too much... reward."

Kivas laughed softly, unable to resist the mirth bubbling in her chest. "You want compensation, huh?"

Samael’s gaze flicked back to her.

"I demand it."

Kivas leaned down slightly, her voice lilting and warm. "Then you get it. Four hours."

Samael blinked. "Four?"

"Cuddles. Four hours. Undivided attention. No interruptions. Pillow optional. Holding hands is mandatory. We might get steamy depending on the development."

Samael nodded once, all traces of her earlier irritation vanishing into the air like vapor. Her voice barely even shifted in tone.

"I have no further complaints."