Corrupted Bonds-Chapter 94: The Forgotton Heart

The glyph above the cradle continued to spin—slower now. Like the system itself was hesitating.

A delay.

A breath held.

Then it tilted.

A single axis shift.

A subtle signal.

Like a nod from the system's unseen will.

[Sealed Remnant_01: active consciousness detected.] 

The voice wasn't loud.

But it rang in their bones.

Mira raised her rifle, her breath quiet but sharp. "What the hell does that mean—active? What was it before?"

Sloane stepped forward slightly, eyes narrowing. "Asleep."

Ren coughed. "Great. Let's just wake up another timeline ghost. That's never gone wrong before."

Rowan's eyes never left the cradle.

Neither did his hand—still hovering protectively over Lucian's unconscious chest.

"No... this one's not an Echo. It's anchored."

He could feel it.

Not corruption.

Not chaos.

But a stillness so absolute it felt... unnatural.

Vespera's voice dropped. "Lucian... do you know what's inside?"

Lucian's eyes fluttered open just a sliver—a haze of pain still fogging his gaze. He swallowed with difficulty, voice raw.

"It's me."

They all turned.

Lucian's lips trembled, but his tone was clear.

"Or... something that once was."

The cradle shivered.

A breath exhaled from within—a breath too steady for something unconscious.

The obsidian shell pulsed.

Once.

Twice.

Then—crack.

A single, jagged line split down the cradle's surface, glowing faintly from within—not white, not gold, but a soft, fading blue.

Quinn took a step back. "That's not a system light."

Zora drew one of his curved swords, quietly. The edge hummed faintly, his other hand tightening around his bow.

The line widened—

Cracks branching across the panel like glass webbing under pressure.

Then—

The cradle opened.

Silently.

One side peeled away on invisible hinges, revealing a shape inside—human, curled, covered in a second skin of translucent resonance gel that slid away in slow rivulets, like shedding the final layer of memory.

A man.

Slender. Tall.

Not armored, but wrapped in deep black fabric, seamless and smooth, threaded with fine gold and platinum veins that flickered faintly.

His hair was longer than Lucian's, tangled and silver at the temples. His skin was too pale, untouched by sun or air.

And his face—

Lucian's face.

But aged.

Haunted.

And when his eyes opened—

They weren't violet.

They were washed grey, as if every color had been drained through time and recursion.

He blinked once.

And then—

"Rowan," he said.

His voice cracked like frost underfoot.

"Did I save you... this time?"

The voice didn't echo.

It didn't need to.

It landed like a tremor in their spines, soft and direct, the kind of voice you remember from dreams you never wanted to wake from.

Rowan's heart stopped.

He froze mid-step, his hand still hovering near Lucian's chest, where he'd been monitoring the shallow rise and fall.

His name.

Said like a memory.

Said like a prayer.

The figure in the cradle stepped out slowly, gel dripping from his frame like melted glass, catching in the hem of his deep black robe—not tactical, not field gear—just smooth, seamless layers edged in platinum threads that shimmered with slow pulses of dull light.

He looked up.

Same face.

Same bone structure.

Same shape of mouth and jaw.

But those eyes...

They were not violet.

They were washed-out grey, like a mirror dulled with age and regret.

Rowan took a half-step back, his throat closing, words trying to form and falling apart.

"Who—what are you?" he asked, voice brittle.

The others shifted in response.

Mira's rifle lifted.

Zora's bow flexed.

Ren stayed still, but tense, his fingers twitching toward the fold of his jacket.

Only Vespera and Quinn remained poised, listening, eyes flicking between Rowan and the figure.

The Remnant tilted his head—slowly, curiously.

Not hostile.

But incredibly aware.

"You don't recognize me?"

He blinked, once.

"No... I suppose you wouldn't. Not this version of you."

Rowan glanced to Lucian, still lying weakly in Vespera's field support sling.

Lucian groaned faintly, trying to lift his head.

Rowan's hands flew to him.

"Lucian—don't move, it's okay—stay down, you're still recovering—"

Lucian's lips parted, voice a breath.

"The voice..."

He didn't finish. He didn't need to.

The Remnant's gaze lowered.

When he saw Lucian, his expression changed.

A momentary stillness, then something flickered behind those greyscale eyes—recognition, yes. But also something stranger.

Pity?

Resentment?

Sadness?

He didn't speak.

Rowan looked back up, this time steadier, his voice cracking from fatigue and shock.

"Are you—him?" he asked. "A version of Lucian?"

The Remnant gave a soft breath of a smile. Not warm. But not cruel.

"Yes. And no. I was once."

"Once?" Rowan echoed, confused.

The Remnant's shoulders rose and fell in a slow, tired shrug.

"I was him before recursion became recursion. Before the desperation. Before the erasures. Before... all of you."

His gaze lingered on Rowan again. And this time, it was aching.

"I tried to save you too. But I failed. My world ended. I was supposed to disappear."

Quinn whispered to Vespera, "He's coherent. Grounded. But I don't feel a tether."

Vespera's eyes narrowed. "He's not echoing. He's something else."

Mira spoke again, louder this time.

"Then what are you now? A ghost? A fake? A time trick?"

The Remnant didn't answer her. He didn't even look.

His eyes were locked on Rowan.

"I'm the one they chose to keep," he said softly.

Rowan frowned. "Who's they?"

"The system. The recursion. Whatever you want to call the engine behind the threads."

He walked forward slowly, still barefoot.

No weapon.

No armor.

"I remembered you. Even when I wasn't supposed to. Even when everything else fell apart."

His hand twitched slightly at his side.

"And I guess that was enough to make me... interesting."

Lucian stirred again.

Rowan flinched, crouched quickly beside him. "Lucian, stay with me—"

The Remnant finally looked away from Rowan, toward his ruined counterpart.

The two Lucians.

One standing. One collapsed.

One erased. One preserved.

For a long moment, he said nothing.

Then—

"You're smaller than I remember," the Remnant said quietly.

The others stiffened.

"Paler. Unraveled."

He stepped within five feet of Rowan.

"He's not ready for what's coming."

Rowan stood. Blocking his path. Even though his knees trembled.

"He's fighting. We all are."

The Remnant tilted his head.

"And how many of you have died so far?"

The Remnant's voice was quiet—soothing, almost.

But the words burned like ice.

Rowan's shoulders rose, breath pulling in sharp.

He stepped forward fully now, standing in front of Lucian's slumped body as if his frame alone could block history.

"He's still here," Rowan said softly, "and he's still fighting."

The Remnant tilted his head again—slightly, slowly—like the movement cost something.

"So were we," he murmured. "Before the system replaced us."

Mira shifted. Just half a step. But her boot echoed loud against the floor.

Her rifle remained trained—not a tremor in her grip.

"You get any closer to them," she said, tone low and sharp, "I won't ask questions."

Her amber eyes were narrowed, hard with something more than caution—protectiveness born from survival.

"I've watched too many versions crawl out of the dark pretending to be something they're not."

The Remnant's eyes flicked to her, and for the first time, he blinked longer—not insulted, not angry, but with a faint sadness.

"You don't need to fear me," he said.

"Yeah, I do," Mira replied instantly. "That's what keeps people alive."

Zora lowered his bow slightly, though his muscles remained taut, his long black coat swaying gently with each breath he took.

Ren scratched the back of his neck, eyes darting between Rowan and the Remnant. "I'd just like to point out," he muttered, "I have not emotionally prepared myself for a Lucian clone today."

"It's not a clone," Quinn said quietly. "It's a divergence. A fracture that lived long enough to remember being whole."

Vespera gave a single, solemn nod. "And loved long enough to remember the pain."

The Remnant smiled faintly again.

His gaze returned—and stayed—on Rowan.

"They understand more than I thought," he said, softly. "You've found good people."

His voice lost some of the haunted edge then. There was something warm, flickering like dying embers behind his grey eyes.

"You always did have a way of drawing the right ones to you."

Rowan's throat worked.

He didn't look away.

His mind was spinning, every instinct screaming to protect Lucian behind him. But there was something in that voice—familiar. Fractured, but not foreign.

"You... loved me."

He didn't mean to say it.

It just spilled out.

The Remnant stilled.

His gaze lowered.

Just for a second.

"I still do," he whispered.

Not a confession.

Not a declaration.

Just... truth.

The chamber seemed to exhale.

The mist shifted.

The glyph above the cradle slowed its spin.

The resonance in the walls pulsed once—gentle.

Lucian stirred again, brow twitching in pain, breath ragged.

Rowan flinched toward him, crouching fast, brushing his hair from his damp forehead.

The Remnant didn't move.

But he looked down at them—at Rowan holding this version of him, shielding him, comforting him.

And something in his face cracked.

"I'm not here to take your place," he said, quieter now. "I'm just... what he almost became. If love had given out a little earlier."

Rowan's breath caught.

He didn't cry.

He didn't speak.

He just stood there, one hand still resting against Lucian's shoulder, the other pressed against his own chest—fingers curling tightly, like holding back something too large to be let out.

His expression was unreadable at first.

Then—a flicker.

Not anger.

Not disbelief.

But something more painful.

Something worse.

Empathy.

"That's not fair," Rowan said, voice barely above a whisper.

The Remnant's head tilted. He said nothing.

"You talk like you were weak... like giving up was love, too."

Rowan's jaw clenched. He looked down at Lucian, so pale beneath him—breathing shallow, damp hair stuck to his temples, chest barely rising beneath the tangle of his coat and the resonance field.

"But he never gave up. Not once. Even when he should've."

He looked back up.

"He held on through hell. Through corruption. Through the weight of every mistake he's ever made. And he—he's still here."

The Remnant's gaze dropped slightly, almost ashamed.

Rowan took a step forward now—not aggressive, but deliberate.

"And you..."

His voice trembled.

"You talk about love like it was something you buried. But if you really loved me—your me—you would've fought harder."

The Remnant flinched.

"I did," he murmured. "You just didn't live long enough to see it."

A low sound broke the stillness.

Lucian.

A breath dragged in too sharply. A cough—wet and raw.

Vespera's hand flew to his chest, resonance charm flickering dim as she steadied him.

Lucian's eyelids fluttered, violet eyes cracking open, sluggish and unfocused.

"Rowan...?" he rasped.

Rowan turned fast, cradling his face. "Hey. I'm here. I'm here."

Lucian blinked up at him, the haze thick behind his eyes. Then, slowly, they flicked past Rowan—to the figure beyond him.

The mirror.

The Remnant.

Lucian squinted, chest rising with effort.

"That's me..."

The Remnant stepped forward just slightly—slow, careful.

"You're awake."

Lucian gave a bitter breath of a laugh.

"Unfortunately."

He tried to sit up. He failed. Rowan caught him, arms wrapping around him tightly, grounding him without words.

Lucian didn't look at Rowan. Not yet.

His eyes stayed on the Remnant.

"So what are you? A warning? A... prize?"

The Remnant paused.

"Neither."

Lucian exhaled sharply, then groaned as pain lanced through his chest.

"Then why are you here?"

The Remnant didn't answer immediately.

He just looked at them.

At Lucian, bruised and unraveling.

At Rowan, holding him like the most precious thing in a dying world.

And he smiled.

A broken, hollow smile.

"To remember what it felt like... to almost get it right."

The silence that followed the Remnant's soft confession was dense, like dust caught in still air.

Even the hum of the system faded beneath it.

Quinn stepped forward.

Quietly.

No sudden movements, no raised voice—just the slow, grounded presence of someone who didn't need to fight to be heard.

His gloved hands were relaxed by his sides, but there was a tension in his shoulders, a careful poise—the weight of someone who understood loss on a molecular level.

"What was your Rowan like?" Quinn asked gently, his voice like a warm current cutting through frozen air.

The Remnant turned to face him.

His movement was smooth—fluid in a way that felt... familiar.

Too familiar.

He stood with the same subtle lean as Lucian when injured—left side ever so slightly dipped, as if favoring an old rib wound.

His fingers flexed at his sides in slow, unconscious pulses—the exact same way Lucian had done in the medbay, when trying to ground himself from dissociation.

Even the way he exhaled was similar—through his nose, soft but sharp at the end. Like control was a glass always threatening to crack.

Quinn watched him carefully.

The Remnant's eyes didn't narrow, but something behind them dimmed, like he'd tucked away a memory behind a closed door.

"He was... quieter," he said at last. "Gentler. He had this nervous smile, like he was always afraid he was taking up too much space. But gods, he had the sharpest mind I'd ever seen."

He looked down.

His fingers twitched again.

The same as Lucian.

Exactly the same.

"He forgave too easily. That's why he didn't make it."

The words were spoken like he hated saying them.

"He tried to stabilize me during a system breach. His tether snapped when I..."

He stopped.

Breathed.

"...when I froze time to escape a recursion loop. I thought I could rewind the moment if it failed."

A pause.

"It didn't rewind. The system advanced."

Zora, standing behind Quinn, shifted his stance slightly. His hand drifted to one of his curved swords, not in aggression, but in discomfort—as if trying to find something solid in a moment made of ghosts.

Lucian's voice rasped, drawing the attention back like a string pulled taut.

"And the system saved you?"

The Remnant looked up slowly.

For a breath, their eyes met.

Same bone structure. Same exhaustion.

Same mind, broken in different ways.

The Remnant's mouth twitched. Not a smile.

Not really.

"It didn't save me," he said. "It stored me. Filed me under 'potential error.'"

Lucian tried to sit up again. Rowan helped him, looping an arm behind his back, supporting him carefully.

Lucian's eyes narrowed.

His hair clung wetly to his jaw. Sweat trickled along the cut of his temple. His pale lips parted, and a tremor rode his voice.

"What do you remember?" he asked.

The Remnant's throat bobbed.

"Everything."

Lucian flinched—his hand tightening around Rowan's.

"Every death?" he whispered.

The Remnant's voice dropped.

"Every version of you. Every version of him. Every time I watched you fight the recursion... and fail. And every time I begged the system to let me intervene... and it left me frozen instead."

He took a step forward.

And the way he moved—even the tilt of his head, the weight of each footfall—matched Lucian's so precisely that Rowan's breath hitched.

Like watching Lucian stand while Lucian still lay bleeding.

The chamber felt colder now.

Not from the air.

But from something older.

More still.

Lucian stared at the Remnant—his own reflection held together by memory and grief.

His breathing was shallow, each inhale rasping like glass scraped along bone.

Rowan's hand never left his. A thumb traced small, grounding circles across the back of Lucian's trembling fingers.

The Remnant waited.

Silent.

Open.

Like he knew what was coming.

Lucian's voice cracked when he spoke.

"If you were me... and you still remember everything..."

He paused. His lips trembled. He looked at Rowan—still alive, still holding him.

Then back to the Remnant.

"...Do you still think it was worth it?"

The question hovered.

Unbearable in its simplicity.

The Remnant didn't smile.

Didn't blink.

He stepped one pace closer—mirroring how Lucian used to move when hiding a limp.

He held Lucian's gaze. And for a moment, it was like time fell still again—not frozen by power, but by grief recognizing itself.

"If I didn't think it was worth it..."

"I wouldn't have kept your face."

No one moved.

No one breathed.

The resonance lights pulsed once—slow and dim, as if the system itself bowed to the moment.

And then—

A quiet shift.

A flicker of motion across the chamber, pulling us away—