I didn’t see the door open.
One moment, Caitlyn was crumpled in my arms, her fox half-buried in the dust—and the next, light swallowed us.
Not just light. Time.
The world folded in on itself like pages in a burning book. The valley vanished. The Silver Pact. Rygar. Everything disappeared in a pulse of brightness that wasn’t blinding, but bone-deep. I felt it in my marrow, like memory made flesh.
We were inside the Vault.
But this wasn’t a chamber carved into rock.
This was a world suspended outside time.
I couldn’t speak at first. None of us could. The air felt heavy, like stepping into a room full of memories you don’t quite recognize.
Above us, lights moved across a ceiling that looked like sky, but wasn’t. It was smooth and dark, like water reflecting distant stars—except those
