Chapter 49
FORTY-NINE
CYAN
Clean water was still a commodity on Gaia, but his great-great niece had insisted on them each taking a full three-minute shower after dinner. Cyan’s old bedroom was occupied by the children now, but they were given a spare room in the corner of the house that faced the garden. By the time he and Elaina were finally alone with Priad lying protectively at the closed door, it was well past midnight.
Elaina looked at the sword in his hands, waiting for him to set it aside. But his grip tightened on the hilt, finding comfort in its familiarity.
“I’m going to go out for a bit,” he said finally. “I need some air.”
He recognized a flicker of resignation on her face, but she didn’t press him. She never did.
“Can I ask where you’re going?” she asked, her voice soft.
“To visit my parents.”
The gravestones were draped in a soft layer of moss, the edges worn smooth by years of rain and sun. His mother. His father. His sister. Time had buried them all.
Cyan kneeled before them, brushing his fingers against the cool granite. The names etched into the stone, once so familiar, now felt like distant echoes of a life he could barely remember.
His hand dropped to the hilt of his sword. Even that felt fragile now. How could he fight fate itself with a toy he’d found in this very forest?
“I can’t stop this,” he whispered, his voice cracking in the still air. “I can’t protect anyone.”
His words hung in the silence, unanswered. The forest around him remained indifferent. No matter how far he ran, there was no escaping fate. Cyan scoffed to himself. And there he was this whole time, thinking he’d been running toward it...
With his parents’ graves at his feet and Elaina waiting for him back in the house, the futility of it all hit him harder than ever. Maybe this was all he had left. This brief moment of peace with her here, now. A fleeting glimpse of the life they could have had. But it would end. The Architect was coming, and when it did, there would be nothing left of this place. Nothing left of him, or Elaina, or the lives inside that house.
She lost people too.
The thought hit him like a punch to the gut. Elaina had traveled a century for him, leaving behind everything she knew. Everyone she loved back in her quadrant, including her family, however out of touch they’d been, was gone—just like his family were here.
And for her, that loss was fresh. She had followed him into a future where no one awaited her .
With a deep breath, he stood, brushing his fingers one last time against the gravestones before turning back toward the path leading him home.