"I’m sorry, Aysa." Adyr’s pupils trembled as a pale brilliance gathered over his skin, as if invisible doors to a haven had swung inward and poured sanctified light onto him, layer by layer, until it felt like a benediction.

Aysa’s body twitched for a second, the sudden change drawing a tightness through her shoulders and spine. But the strain loosened almost at once, ebbing like a tide and leaving behind something new—something she had forgotten long ago, a warmth she could not name yet instinctively knew.

The light spread around them, soft at first, then sure. With it, the basement began to change.

Moldy black walls shed their filth and age, turning new and clean until not a speck of dust remained. The stench in the air thinned and vanished, replaced by the sweet aroma of a freshly baked cake, still warm.

The butcher table and the rough, grim kitchen reshaped themselves into a tidy, orderly kitchen and a proper dining table. Two figures appeared, seated at that table as if they had always been there: a man with dark hair sprinkled with white by the years and a woman with blond hair and blue eyes, her face so pure it seemed untouched by sorrow.

She looked at them—looked at the way they sat together, casual, easy, smiling—and the simple joy of it punctured something inside her.

Her small blue eyes trembled. Tears gathered, then streamed, drawn out by sorrow and by another feeling she could not immediately name.

The woman turned toward her and called in a voice that somehow held both memory and promise.

"Aysa, you can play with them later. Come and eat your cake."

She glanced down and found her small dolls in her hands, clean and perfect. She remembered them at once—her favorite toys, cute and beautiful, the very ones her father had bought for her. The recognition steadied her breath.

Clutching the dolls to her chest, she rose and walked toward her father and mother, seated at the table where a clean, empty chair had been set aside for her. She took the fork her mother handed her, lifted a small bite, and tasted the chocolate. The sweetness rolled over her tongue and settled in her chest, drawing a smile to her lips and restoring a light to her eyes that had been missing for far too long.

"I failed to protect you once, but..." Adyr stood in a quiet corner, watching them with a faint, complicated smile. "I will at least make sure you live a happy life in my memories."

The words left his mouth and drifted into the warm light, but they reached no one. The small, three-person family continued eating their cake, savoring a moment that felt both ordinary and sacred—a moment that needed no witness to be real.

Adyr lowered his head. Something lifted off his chest, and his shoulders felt strangely light; at the same time, something lodged in his throat, a hard knot that would not pass. He tried to swallow and found it stuck there like a stone.

These were his memories. He controlled them. Yet the more he tried to step into that picture, the more he understood he could not. However he arranged the scene, he couldn’t place himself inside that happy family. The realization pricked at him, making him feel weak and small again, as if the light itself had turned honest.

Caw-caw.

A bird’s call cut through the hush. For an instant, it puzzled him enough to scatter the dark thoughts. He lifted his head and looked forward again.

His mother, his father, his sister—the entire tableau—were gone. Only a white bird remained, perched on the dining table, its deep black eyes fixed on him with an unreadable patience.

"Dawn Raven?" One of Adyr’s eyebrows lifted. Surprise slipped through his guard at the sight of the Spark appearing like this.

Caa.

With its beak opening and white wings spreading, the raven released a final call that sent the room tilting.

The kitchen, the living room, the warm smell of cake, and even the light itself all collapsed out of his vision at once. In the next heartbeat, he stood somewhere else entirely.

He turned in place, trying to catch up with his senses, and found that only a faint, dusty glow illuminated a vast cave around him. The air carried the chill of stone and an old stillness that clung to the skin.

It did not take long to recognize the place. He knew this cave; it was where he had first found and captured the Dawn Raven . Recognition calmed him in a precise way, the way a solved equation does.

"I’m inside the Spark’s memories now?" The answer arrived as soon as the question formed—yes.

On a high platform stood the Dawn Raven , small-bodied yet striking beneath the dim light, its spotless white feathers like frost that had never known dirt. Below, a cluster of skeletons knelt, all tilted toward the platform in silent fealty.

Adyr was not just watching. The emotions moved through him the way heat moves through metal, and he felt what the Spark felt.

For all its smallness, the Dawn Raven looked proud, an emperor at ease among its people. Yet its gaze was kind, the kind of weathered kindness an old man might bear when he has vowed to build a world where his people can live. That vow rang in Adyr’s bones as if it were his own.

"I see." He let the memories and feelings swell and flow, and his mouth curved with a quiet, knowing amusement.

Not long ago, Adyr had begun to adopt the same relentless ambition.

His new goal was clear: take control of the human world and the Outer Region, then construct his own empire from the foundations up.

Seeing the Dawn Raven now, understanding it at this depth, he realized the physical advantages and innate talents were not the only inheritances. He had taken in its will to dominate too, the architecture of a sovereign heart.

"It’s a big dream for a small body like that." His voice carried through the cave, distinct enough to make the bird turn. Their eyes met cleanly across the cold air.

Caa, caa.

The Dawn Raven called as if it understood the language. Its beak parted; the sound held resolve rather than threat. Then it opened its white wings wide and lifted, rising above its skeleton army in one sure sweep.

The sight blurred at the edges as Adyr’s vision began to slide again, tugged onward by a current he no longer controlled.

"What’s next? Mindrake?" He had no say in the sequence—these memories were not his to arrange—so he let himself be carried forward.

The world returned beneath an open sky where a monochrome sun burned in black and white, its austere light washing the ground just enough to draw the shapes of what lay below. Under that stark glow, the place unfolded.

Crumbling, age-worn houses lined the way, thick with dust. Wooden doors and walls had split and sagged; everything wore the weary marks of neglect.

The dirt roads had sealed over with tough grass and time, as if no living foot had crossed here in years. Scattered bones and forgotten tools lay half-sunk in the earth, quiet markers that told Adyr everything he needed to know.