Vince's words loomed over them like a storm cloud.
"You're more than connected. You're part of it."
Asher sighed, reclined in the chair, fingers tapping out an impatient rhythm on the armrest. He wasn't sure what he expected, but this?
This changed everything.
It was Seraphine who first broke the silence. "Start talking, Vince."
Vince sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "You two are really making me have headaches."
Asher smirked. "We try."
Vince shook his head and activated another holographic display — a sequence of old runes, laid out in spirals, lines, and grids. Some resembled scripts, while others could pass for blueprints.
"I've spent years collecting Rifts intel," he said. "And I kept stumbling into these inscriptions — carved thousands of meters deep into some of the oldest Rift zones."
Seraphine frowned. "Inscriptions? Like messages?"
Vince nodded. "Messages, warnings… and instructions."
Asher narrowed his eyes. "Instructions for what?"
Vince's voice dropped lower. "For controlling them."
That caught Asher off guard.
"…Controlling the Rifts?"
Vince touched the screen, zooming in on a particular symbol — a swirling pattern nearly identical to the mark that had burned into Asher's arm after he met his double.
"This mark," Vince said. "It's appeared before. A long time ago."
Seraphine crossed her arms. "How long?"
Vince's face was grim. "Centuries. Maybe longer."
Asher's heartbeat quickened.
"Wait." He leaned forward. "You're telling me this mark has been around for centuries? That someone else has had it before me?
Vince hesitated. "Not exactly."
Seraphine gave him a sharp look. "Explain."
Vince exhaled. "There are records—old, fragmented—of individuals who could manipulate the Rifts. Open them. Close them. Stabilize them."
Seraphine blinked. "Like… Rift Masters?"
Vince nodded. "That's what the texts refer them as. But they all disappeared — erased from history."
Asher clenched his fists. "And now I have their mark."
Vince met his gaze. "That's why the Guild is keeping an eye on you, Asher. And why the people who made the Rifts might be as well."
A gradual dawning came over him.
It was no longer about survival.
It was about who he was becoming.
Asher sat back, breathing in deep. His thoughts cascaded with potentialities, inquiries and a slowly percolating dread.
Rift Masters. The ones who came before.
If they would be able to control Rifts, then…
Could he?
He remembered the Ghost Rift. To the way his double had talked to him — like he was incomplete, like he wasn't meant to be here yet.
"The truth is coming."
Is that what the doppelgänger was referring to?
Was he supposed to be something else?
Seraphine's voice snapped him out of his thoughts.
"So what now?" She asked, arms still crossed. "Because if the Rift system really is tied to Asher, then the Guild isn't going to let him just walk free.
Vince nodded. "They won't. The Guild does not like unknown variables."
Asher let out a dry laugh. "I've been an unknown variable my entire fucking life.
Seraphine ignored the joke. "What's our next move?"
Vince looked them both over for a long moment, then tapped some keys on his console.
Another image flashed across the screen—an underground facility buried beneath kilometers of stone and steel.
"It's time you met someone," Vince said.
Thirty minutes later, Vince was leading Asher and Seraphine through the lower levels of the city.
They made their way, deeper and deeper under the clamouring streets, into a labyrinth of forgotten tunnels and shuttered hallways.
"Where are we going?" Asher asked, striding over a rusted pipe.
"To see someone who knows more than I do," Vince said. "And that's what should terrify you."
Asher did not take that well.
They came to a big, reinforced door. Vince entered a sequence on the keypad, and the locks disabled with a hiss.
Inside was a room full of old-world tech—monitors, consoles, Rift analysis machines that looked decades ahead of anything the Guild had.
And at the center of it all — was a woman.
She was older than Asher'd expected — late forties, maybe fifties — with silver-streaked dark hair and penetrating green eyes.
She glanced up from her work.
"Well," she said, leaning back. "You finally found my guy, Vince."
Asher frowned. "You were looking for me?"
The woman smiled back at him, sharply and knowingly.
"I have searched for you long before you ever entered this world.
Asher's breath caught.
Seraphine tensed beside him. "Who the hell are you?"
The woman rose, strolling up to them with slow, purposeful elegance.
"My name is Dr. Evelyn Rhyse," she replied.
Her gaze locked onto Asher's.
"And I know exactly why you're here."
When the Past Meets the Future
A frigid silence descended between them.
Asher didn't move.
Dr. Rhyse studied him for another moment, then motioned to a nearby monitor.
"You've gotten visions, haven't you?" she asked.
Asher tensed. "What?"
"Memories," she continued. "Glimpses of things that are not yours. Someone who lingers in your mind."
Asher's jaw tightened.
How the fuck did she know that?
Seraphine's gaze bounced between them. "How do you know about that?"
Dr. Rhyse smirked. "Because you were not the first one."
Vince exhaled. "And now things are getting complicated."
Asher crossed his arms. "They weren't already?"
Dr. Rhyse ignored his sarcasm. "How does reincarnation work?"
Asher's heart stopped.
Beside him, Seraphine stiffened.
Asher's voice came slow, measured. "It's enough to know it's not supposed to be possible."
Dr. Rhyse's features stopped computing.
"Then you are going to get a very rude awakening."
Some commands on her console, and a moment later — a parade of holograms.
Images of other people. Other warriors. Other Rift Masters.
All marked.
All connected.
And in the middle of them all…
Asher's face.
His own face — across different ages.
His pulse roared in his ears.
Dr. Rhyse folded her arms.
"You did not invent this, Asher."
Her green eyes shone with wisdom far older than them all.
"And you won't be the last."