The question dug deep.
It hadn't let go since he woke. Since he remembered.
It gnawed behind every word he said, clawed at every choice he didn't. A tether—thin, invisible, unbreakable—ran somewhere between this body and the boy he'd become on Giselsin.
He didn't know what held it in place.
He only knew it hadn't snapped.
Elara's eyes surfaced—sharp, green, steady. That last look she gave him before the door closed. Loyalty worn raw.
Then Kikaru, blood and light streaking down her face, that final scream still echoing in the pit of his chest.
His mother's hands followed. Gentle. Certain. From a world this one refused to acknowledge.
I failed them. Once already. Maybe more.
But they still tethered him.
Anacards. Primed Epics. The Federation's silence. The crystal. The gem.
I need answers.
But if he chased them recklessly—if he pushed too far, said too much, opened the wrong door—
I could lose both worlds.
