My Infinite System.

Lucian found Alistair on the eastern wall just after dawn.

The older man stood with his hands resting on the stone, watching the light crawl across the distant hills. He didn’t turn when Lucian approached.

”You’re leaving,” Alistair said.

”Yes.”

”To Marc and Silas.”

”They’re buying us time. I should be there.” Lucian leaned against the wall beside him. ”Evelyn is safe. The kids are recovering. Lucy has Althea. There’s nothing more for me to do here that someone else can’t handle.”

Alistair was quiet for a while. ”The Outer Gods won’t make it easy.”

”They never do.”

”And if the Warden comes while you’re gone?”

Lucian looked out at the horizon. ”Then the keep holds. You’ve held worse lines.”

Alistair almost smiled. It didn’t reach his eyes. ”Go. I’ll keep them breathing until you get back.”

Lucian nodded once and walked away.

He found Evelyn in the small courtyard behind the main hall. She was sitting on a low stone bench with Vyn and Reia, the three of them close enough that their shoulders nearly touched. Lucy had taken Althea into the gardens earlier. The kids were training lightly under Finn’s direction on the far side of the yard.

Evelyn looked up as he approached. Something in her expression shifted when she saw his face.

”You’re going,” she said.

”Yes.”

She didn’t argue. She just studied him for a long moment, then nodded. ”Marc and Silas.”

”They’ve been holding the outer rim alone long enough.”

Reia glanced between them. ”How long will you be gone?”

”As long as it takes.” Lucian’s voice stayed even. ”I’ll send word when I can.”

Evelyn stood and stepped closer. She rested her forehead against his for a second, eyes closed. ”Come back.”

”I will.”

He left them there and went to gather what little he needed. No grand farewell. No speeches. Just the quiet certainty that the work waiting on the outer rim wouldn’t finish itself.

After he was gone, the three women stayed on the bench.

The morning air was cool. Somewhere in the gardens, Althea’s laughter drifted on the wind, light and unexpected. Vyn leaned back against the stone wall and exhaled.

”Feels strange,” she said. ”Sitting here like this. Like nothing ever happened.”

Reia tilted her head. ”Everything happened.”

Evelyn didn’t speak at first. She watched the empty archway Lucian had walked through. Then she said, ”Do you ever wonder who else came back?”

Vyn frowned. ”What do you mean?”

”The reset. The regression. Whatever Lucian did when he returned. It didn’t just bring him. It changed things. Lucy lived. Althea was born. We remember each other again.” Evelyn’s voice stayed quiet. ”What about everyone else?”

Reia was silent for a while. ”My parents died in the first wave. Before any of us awakened properly. I used to think... if something rewrote the world, maybe it could rewrite that too.”

”Did it?” Vyn asked.

”I don’t know. I haven’t looked.” Reia’s fingers tightened around the edge of the bench. ”I’m not sure I want to know.”

Vyn let out a soft breath. ”My brother was already gone by the time the academy took me. I used to write letters I never sent. Pretended he was still out there somewhere, waiting for me to come home.” She paused. ”I stopped writing after the first year. Felt cruel to keep pretending.”

Evelyn nodded slowly. ”I keep thinking about the academy.”

Both women looked at her.

”Athena,” Evelyn said. ”Do you think she’s still out there?”

The name settled between them like a stone dropped into still water.

Vyn’s expression tightened. ”Athena was already old when she taught us. Strong, though. Stronger than most of the instructors combined.”

”She survived the early purges,” Reia said. ”Last I heard, she was still running field operations near the eastern sectors. But that was before everything fell apart.”

Evelyn stared at her hands. ”If the reset brought back people who should have died... if it rewrote enough of the world to let Lucy live and Althea exist... then maybe it brought her back too. Or maybe it left her exactly where she was.”

”Would you want to find out?” Vyn asked.

Evelyn didn’t answer right away. The wind moved through the courtyard, carrying the faint smell of the gardens and the distant sound of the kids sparring.

”I don’t know,” she said at last. ”Part of me wants to believe the people we lost are still out there somewhere. Another part of me is afraid of what it means if they are. Or if they aren’t.”

Reia leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. ”We spent so long surviving that we never really got to grieve properly. Then the world ended. Then it started again. And now we’re sitting here talking about instructors and families like we still have time to look for them.”

”Do we?” Vyn asked.

Evelyn glanced toward the archway again, the one Lucian had disappeared through. ”He thinks we do. Or at least he thinks we should try.”

The three of them sat in silence for a while after that.

Eventually Vyn spoke again, quieter. ”If Athena is out there... she’d probably be furious we didn’t check sooner.”

Reia almost smiled. ”She’d make us run drills until we collapsed. Then she’d make us run them again.”

Evelyn’s mouth curved faintly. ”She always said the ones who lived longest were the ones who refused to stay down.”

”Sounds like someone else we know,” Vyn said.

They all looked toward the empty archway.

The morning stretched on. Somewhere beyond the capital, the horizon remained still for now. But none of them believed the stillness would last.

Evelyn rested her hands in her lap and let the quiet settle around them. For the first time in a long while, the silence didn’t feel empty. It felt like something waiting to be filled—by answers, by people they had lost, by whatever came next.

She didn’t know if Athena was still out there.

She didn’t know if anyone else from the old days had been carried forward by the same fracture that had spared Lucy and given them Althea.

But sitting there with Vyn and Reia, the possibility no longer felt impossible.

And that, more than anything, was new.