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“You would ask me to forget what Nykeir has done to my family? That man deserves a slow, sunless death without mercy or hope.”

“Aye, that he does. But you do not deserve to waste your life in the miserable pursuit of him.”

At that, she turned away and made no response.

“At this point, ‘tis a matter of mere pragmatism. You must realize this, my dear. On some level, you must. You have acquired much of the influence that you might have once inherited, but Nykeir’s kingdom is no longer the fledgling power that it was when he conquered your home. He is among the most powerful men on the continent. Perhaps the world, even. There is no victory for you against him. And even if there was, there is no kingdom to reclaim. Better to focus on defending what you now have, rather than risking it all to take back what once was.”

After that, the memory fragmented--but it didn’t quite break down entirely. Hector could see that the conversation between the two was continuing. He just couldn’t make out what they were saying. It felt like there was more here. He thought he could sense it, somehow. But then everything seemed to speed up and fade away, disappearing into a fog.

Damn. He supposed that was still pretty informative, but he’d really felt like--

Wait a minute. No. There was something more here. Another memory. Linked to that one. How? By time? By the people?

He found it.

The scene that appeared before him one of utter devastation. Pillars of flame shot up into the air, roaring with such intensity that he could almost feel them. Red and orange filled his view, blanketing the Gate in its entirety.

So it was as he’d thought, then. He was convinced. That giant thing had indeed been a Fusion Forge, and this memory here was its destruction.

How had it happened, though? Why was the memory starting off like this? Shouldn’t it have begun earlier? With a bit of context or something? He tried rewinding, but it didn’t work. Whether that was because the memory itself was incomplete or because he simply wasn’t doing it right, Hector couldn’t quite tell.

Until he tried fast forwarding, instead. That worked like a charm. The flames raged higher and higher, seeming to reach all the way into the sky, before eventually beginning to dissipate. Hector had no concept of how long it might’ve taken. These couldn’t have been normal flames, surely, if they’d been able to destroy a forge.