“Not resurrection in the strict sense? I’m listening, like night leaning toward a whisper.”

Aphelia asked without a blink, patience spreading like calm water whenever Brynhildr was involved—especially now, when Brynhildr’s will stood before her like a lantern in fog.

Since she’d left Merlin, this was the first time Brynhildr truly spoke to Aphelia face-to-face, like two stars finally sharing the same sky.

By all logic, Brynhildr should’ve vanished into the river of time, her traces washed clean like footprints in rain; yet she hadn’t—she’d risen from the deepest well of Aphelia’s soul like a pale dawn.

Wariness pricked Aphelia like thorns in shadow; last time someone did this, it was Sigdrifa, and she’d tried to seize Aphelia’s body like frost over a mirror. The two came from one root; even if Aphelia wanted to relax, her eyes were her only law, sharper than any retold history.

“Do you have to be that guarded?”

A point of white radiance gathered Aether like dew beading on a blade. With Brynhildr’s half-wry, half-helpless voice, her figure returned, clearer now, like ink on fresh parchment.

Silver hair, black eyes, a fine-boned face and a frail frame—beauty with a hint of fever, the kind that stirs pity like wind through reeds; hard to pair that with an invincible Valkyrie, yet Aphelia knew, bone-deep, this was Brynhildr.

The pure-white silhouette that haunted her memories finally shed its veil, true features rippling into view like moonlight on a lake.

Unlike the tall, iron-clad Valkyrie others pictured, the Brynhildr before her looked like a delicate girl; that sickly grace tugged at the urge to protect, hard to imagine how this soft figure became a Valkyrie who never lost.

“Sigdrifa’s mess wasn’t even that long ago. I’m bad at many things, but holding grudges? I’m an ace.”

Aphelia shrugged with a crooked smile, self-mockery drifting like smoke.

Brynhildr’s expression dimmed, like a candle cupped against wind.

“Sorry, Aphelia. That wasn’t my intent…”

“Intent or not, it’s not that simple. Sigdrifa is you. Only together are you the whole Brynhildr. I know that.”

Aphelia didn’t take the apology, her voice steady as a bell at dusk.

She understood Sigdrifa acted from her own will, and the body of Brynhildr had little say; yet in a sense, Sigdrifa was Brynhildr’s obsession given legs, like a shadow cast by a brighter flame.

If the complete Brynhildr were cornered to the cliff’s edge, wouldn’t she do the same?

Aphelia didn’t voice it, but the meaning hung there like frost. Brynhildr heard it; she sighed, pain soft as ash, then began to explain.

“Sigdrifa’s deeds do tie back to me. That’s not a stain I can whitewash. But my ‘revival’ isn’t a trap for you, Aphelia. Please, believe me.”

Brynhildr’s plea was gentle as rain on stone. Aphelia exhaled, helplessness pooling like a cool stream; now wasn’t the hour to chase guilt, not with heavier matters looming like stormclouds.

“A little trust, I can give. So, Brynhildr—tell me why you’ve returned to stand before me.”

Relief unfurled in Brynhildr like a white flower; her pale hands folded at her chest, and she finally breathed out, as if granted pardon at dawn.

“Aphelia, do you know the relation between the era you lived in and the era you’re in now?”

The question landed like a dropped pebble, and Aphelia paused, recalling Odin and Enkidu’s sequence like threads in a loom.

“The civilization I was in should be earlier than this one, and later than Asgard. We already had Rune power back then, though we relied on it less than Asgardians.”

Brynhildr only shook her head, slow as snowfall. She traced a timeline in the air with pure-white Aether, a line like a river under starlight. Colored points gleamed upon it. Before Aphelia could speak, Brynhildr began her tale.

“The black point marks the Ancient civilization—earliest yet longest, a mountain rising out of mist. What lies before it, no one knows.”

She pointed further along the line, each dot a seed of memory.

“This blue-green point is Asgard, Odin’s realm—civilization from the dawn of the divine age to its late winter. There, they broke from the Ancient Aether, and Asgard, with the World Tree that held it, collapsed like a fallen canopy. That marked the end-phase of the Age of Gods.”

“This emerald point is the Two Rivers civilization managed by Enkidu. After Asgard’s collapse, it kept the last bridge between humanity and the divine age. Enkidu had clear eyes; to free humanity from that order, he guided the gods to die out, like cutting a knot clean.”

“This red point… sits between where we are now and the Two Rivers. The flame of origin revived on this land, bringing a brief return of the divine age after its fall. Records got tangled into many myths, scattered like leaves; hard to trace.”

Aphelia listened and nodded, her assent light as a flicked fan. It matched what she knew; aside from that middle Eastern age she hadn’t walked in, everything stood as Brynhildr said.

As a guardian of later eras, Brynhildr had scoured for how former ages grew and died, carving their bones into memory; now she recited them fluidly, like old poetry.

“This gray point is our era—rites fallen, music broken, faith thinned like watered ink. If not for the Eldritch Gods’ descent and the Valkyries’ arrival, people would never know their ancestors shone like constellations. But this civilization still ended in ruin.”

Aphelia cut in, her brows knitting like knotted silk, surprise biting like cold.

“Brynhildr, you mean this civilization will be destroyed? But the Daemon Beasts…”

“It’s not about the Daemon Beasts, Aphelia. Let me finish, and I’ll answer everything.”

Her certainty was a spine of iron. Aphelia sighed and held out a hand, an invitation like a bridge—go on, speak it through.

“After this civilization, the black-and-white point marks the era where Sigdrifa and I coexisted. It lasted a very long time, like a candle that refuses to gutter. Much legacy stayed intact, but most power was lost to time’s teeth. For humanity, the greatest enemy is time.”

All these civilizations lay before the era Aphelia once lived, and the one under Brynhildr and Sigdrifa stretched longer than the sum of those before, like winter outlasting three autumns.

“So my civilization is actually the youngest,” Aphelia murmured, thoughts turning like gears. “I thought it followed Enkidu’s Two Rivers. Seems not.”

She watched the points and their paths, and her voice fell soft, like dust on an old page.

As Brynhildr said, any lineage that survives is already fortune; time is a sea that erases shorelines.

“Right. But because you intervened, the timeline no longer flows like it did. If it stayed the same, Violet would already be dead under the Eldritch Gods. Warzones would be shattered; continents would convulse with quakes like roaring drums—all from their descent.”

Aphelia wasn’t slow; the hint lit her thoughts like a spark to dry tinder. Doubt still clung like mist.

“You mean my arrival changed the Valkyries’ fate—changed the civilization of this planet?”

It sounded absurd at first glance, yet it sat right, like a blade fitting its scabbard.

Without Aphelia’s strength, the American warzone’s power struggle would’ve spilled far more blood, a river sick with red. The Valkyries wouldn’t have cared for human life; to them, Brynhildr was the north star.

“Yes. In this era, the girl who serves as my vessel doesn’t exist. I should still be lying in a sealed chamber left by the Ancient civilization, sleeping like ice. With too little power, I wouldn’t wake. Only when the Eldritch Gods descended and stirred the planet would I return to an Aether age.”

At that, Brynhildr’s gaze went bleak, sorrow spreading like ink in water.

“If we stop the Eldritch Gods in this era, the tragedies later might never ripen.”