The walls of Raine's prison groaned as the fissures spread, veins of darkness threading through the basalt like creeping roots. The runes etched into the stone flickered erratically, their light dimming as the Shadow Tide gnawed at the edges of reality.
She clutched her crystallized forearms, the shards pulsing in sync with the distant, thunderous heartbeat of the Rift.
Kaioss hand remained extended, his silver hair drifting as if suspended in some unseen temporal current. His mismatched eyesgold and violet, like a fractured sunsetbore into her, unyielding.
*"Every second you hesitate,"* he murmured, *'the Rift feasts on another fragment of your world."*
A scream echoed down the corridor, cut abruptly short. The air tasted of ozone and something older, something *hungry*.
Raine swallowed hard. "Why me?"
Kaios's lips curled, though his smile was devoid of warmth.
*"Because youre the spark that lit the fire."* His fingers twitched, and a sliver of light coalesced above his palma- fragment of time itself, translucent and shimmering. *"
And Ive seen what happens if you refuse."*
The fragment expanded, revealing a vision:
---
*Raine stood at the heart of a ruined Aeris, her body fully crystallized, jagged spires of obsidian and amethyst erupting from her skin. The Shadow Tide coiled around her like a lover, whispering in a language of void and stars. Behind her, the Rift yawned wide, consuming the last remnants of the floating city. The Conclave elders lay broken at her feet, their sigils dark, their throats slit by her own crystalline claws.*
**You could rule this,"* the Tide crooned in her voice. *"No more chains. No more lies."*
---
The vision shattered.
Raine recoiled, her breath ragged. "Thats not me."
**Its one possibility."* Kaios closed his fist, crushing the time-fragment into glittering dust. *"But the future is a tapestry, not a thread. And Im here to*weave*."*
The ground lurched violently. A section of the ceiling collapsed, crushing the far end of the corridor in a cloud of debris. Kaios didnt flinch.
*"Now,"* he said, *"do you want to live long enough to change it?"*
Raine seized his hand.
---
The world *twisted*.
Time unraveled around them, the prison walls melting like wax, Raine's stomach lurched as colors bled into shapes, sounds into sensations. She glimpsed fractured momentsa- child laughing in Aeris's market, a Conclave elder whispering over a bloodied dagger, her mother's hands braiding her hairbefore they were ripped away, replaced by the sterile, metallic halls of a *Temporal Nexus*.
Kaios released her, his silver hair settling as the temporal storm subsided. Around them, the Nexus hummed, its walls lined with pulsating veins of blue energy. Archways of frozen lightning crackled at irregular intervals, each leading to some unknowable elsewhere.
Raine staggered, her crystallized arms throbbing. "What *is* this place?"
*"A crossroads,"* Kaios said, striding toward the nearest arch. *"One the Conclave would kill to control."*
She followed, her boots clicking against the glass-like floor. Beneath its surface, shadows movednot the Rift's hunger, but something *older*.
*"Chronovores,"* Kaios said without turning. *'They feed on lost time. Step carelessly, and youll join the forgotten."*
Raine quickened her pace.
---
The archway led to a chamber suspended in nothingness, its circular platform ringed by floating shards of mirrored glass. Each shard reflected a different moment: a battle, a birth, a death. At the center stood a pedestal, upon which rested a single, cracked hourglass. Sand trickled from its fractured middle, though some grains floated *upward*, defying gravity.
Kaios approached it, his fingers hovering over the glass. *"This is where they cursed me."*
Raine frowned. "Who?"
*'The Conclave."* His voice was flat. *"They needed a key to the Rift, Somethingorsomeonewho could stabilize its growth. So they took a Chrono-Walker and *broke* him."*
He turned his palm upward. A new time-fragment formed, this one darker, edged in crimson. It showed Kaiosyounger,unmarkedstrapped to an altar, his screams silent as Conclave elders drove a blade of molten gold into his chest. The wound didnt bleed. It *split*, revealing a void within, a miniature Rift writhing inside him,
*"They called it a blessing,"* Kaios spat. *"A 'gift' of foresight. But all I see are *endings*."*
The fragment dissolved,
Raine's throat tightened. "You cant change what you see?"
*"No."* His gaze met hers, bleak. *"But you can."*
---
A tremor rocked the Nexus. The mirrors shuddered, their reflections distorting. Kaioss head snapped up.
*"Theyre here."*
The Conclave's huntersmaterialized from the archwaysfigures clad in silver-plated armor, their helms featureless save for the glowing sigils etched into the visors. *Temporal Enforcers.* Weapons of coiled lightning crackled in their grips.
**Surrender the unstable element,"* the lead Enforcer intoned, *"and the Chrono-Walker will be granted mercy."*
Kaios laughed, low and bitter. *"Liar."*
He grabbed Raine's wristand the world *shattered* again.
--
They tumbled onto a windswept cliff, the Nexus and its pursuers gone, Below, the ruins of Aeris smoldered, the Shadow Tide lapping at its carcass like a blackened tide. The sky was a bruise, streaked with violet lightning.
Raine gasped, her crystallized arms burning. "Where?"
*"The edge of the Storm Plains,"* Kaios said, rising. *"Where the wind remembers *everything*."*
He pressed his palm to the ground. The earth trembled, and a new time-fragment eruptedthis one vast, consuming the horizon.
---
*The Storm Plains, whole and unbroken. The Conclave's first experiment: a village, its people shackled to a stone monolith. Elders chanted as the Rift's precursora- tiny, shrieking tear in the airhovered above them. One by one, the villagers were pushed in. Their screams lasted seconds. The Rift grew larger.*
*And thena-child, no older than ten, was thrown in. The Rift *shuddered*. For the first time, it *spoke*.*
*"More,"* it whispered.
The vision vanished.
Raines nails dug into her palms. "They *fed* it."
*"And now it's starving."* Kaios's voice was grim. *"But we have a way to stop it."*
He reached into his coat and withdrew a small, pulsating sharda-fragment of the Earth Crystal from the Conclave's hall. It glowed faintly, its light uneven.
*"The first of the Arkalos Embers,"* he said. *"The remnants'of creation. Gather them all, and we can seal the Rift."*
Raine stared at the shard. "And if we dont?"
Kaios's eyes darkened. *"Then the Rift becomes a god. And you and I? Wer e just its first meal."*
The wind howled, carrying the distant, hungry whisper of the Tide.
---