Heart of a Chalyn: Chapter 70

There’s a lot to digest here, and it’s key to the endgame. If you want to tie all the threads together on your own, skip reading this bonus page. Or come back to it later.

First, Redan lays out for us the cycles that matter, in order:

  1. Human Cycle. Ours. The one we are living today. It ends when Masaki launches his weapon of mass destruction. That bends the laws of physics, twists space and time, and creates the Mists. The shadow world. Oblivious to the anomaly of this cycle’s ending, the Watchers come in, clear away the remnants of our civilization, and plant the next crop of dragonkind.
  2. Dragon Cycle. Kazera and the trolls. Their cycle played out next, and ended in self-inflicted destruction, as well. But this time, the Watchers didn’t swoop into clear the board. Relics of technology not obliterated remained. Swiftgates. Phoenix Island. And the handful of kazera survivors.
  3. Human Cycle. The Rootstock Saga cycle. The Watchers didn’t plant new seeds. They commandeered their own, those stranded in the dens after the last cycle’s devastation. Scientists. Engineers. Arbiters of the game. With their memories wiped clean, they were forced out into the world. They became the seeds. But humans aren’t walking the earth alone this time. Kazera are here, too. And so are the shadows from Cycle #1.

Second, Redan sees it unfold:

  1. The blue light crackles.
  2. He climbs out of the ground.
  3. A methodical voice reassures him.
  4. He loses his capacity for speech
  5. He seeks safety in the herd
  6. The herd is not alone
  7. The wisps remember all that his mind had lost

Third, the anomalies that matter;

  1. The Watchers did not clear the board before Cycle #3
  2. The shadow world from Cycle #1 is still around, and it remembers.

The board was not cleared.

The slate was not wiped clean.