The world unraveled like a frayed tapestry, threads of reality snapping one by one as the First Chrono-Walker raised its hand.
Raine's breath caught in her throattime itself had become a weapon, and she was standing in its path.
Kaios's body flickered beside her, his form dissolving into starlight, his silver hair now translucent as frost on glass. The wound in his chest pulsed with erratic temporalenergy, each heartbeatscattering fragments of his existence into the void.
*"You break what you do not understand,"* the being intoned, its voice the echo of a thousand collapsing futures.
Raine's crystallized arms burned, the Embers within her writhing in protest. Fire, Wind, Earththeir energies clashed against the suffocating weight of the Chrono-Walker's power. The bridge beneath them groaned, its iridescent surface cracking like thin ice.
Lyria staggered forward, her amber eyes wide with recognition. *"It's not just time,"* she gasped. *"It's* memory. *The First Walker doesnt control timeit* consumes *it."*
The revelation struck Raine like a physical blow. The refugees frozen around them werent suspendedthey were being *erased*, their pasts and futures unraveling into nothingness. The child who had accused her moments ago was now half-transparent, her outstretched hand fading into the abyss.
*"Stop!"* Raine lunged, her fist igniting with the Fire Ember's fury.
The Chrono-Walker didnt dodge. It *absorbed* the flames, the fire twisting into its hourglass eyes, grains of sand glowing red before turning to ash.
*"You cannot fight time, little spark,"* it murmured. *"Only bargain with it."*
Kaios's voice was a whisper at her ear, his breath cold as winter wind.*"Raine·the dagger."*
She glanced down. The rusted shard of his temporal blade lay between them, its edge dull but still humming with residual energy,*"Its not a weapon,"* he rasped. *
"It's a* key. *
To the first hourglassthe one that measured the Rift's birth."*
The Chrono-Walker's gaze snapped to the dagger. For the first time, its expression shiftedsomething akin to *fear* flickering in its endless eyes.
Lyria moved first.
Her fingers closed around the dagger's hilt, and she *plunged* it into the bridge's shimmering surface.
The world *screamed*.
---
Raine's vision fractured. She stood in a cavern older than gods, where a circle of robed figures chanted over a pool of liquid void. At its center hovered an hourglassnot of glass and sand, but of *flesh and starlight*.
The First Chrono-Walker stood among them, its form shifting between youth and decay, *"We will tame the abyss,"* it declared.
But the void *answered*.
A hand, blackened and clawed, tore free from the hourglasstorst's* hand. The Conclave's ritual hadnt summoned the Rift.
They had *woken* it.
---
The vision shattered. Raine gasped, her knees buckling as the bridge trembled beneath her. The dagger's strike had done more than disrupt time- it had *revealed* it.
The Chrono-Walker staggered, its form flickering. *"You fool,"* it hissed at Lyria. *"That hourglass was the only thing keeping the Rift from* consuming*everything!"*
Kaios coughed, his body solidifying slightly as the temporal leak slowed.*"No,"* he corrected hoarsely. *"It was keeping the Rift* hungry. *You didnt measure its birthyou* delayed *its feast."*
The refugees' frozen forms began to dissolve entirely, their memories unraveling like smoke. The bridge's cracks spread, veins of darkness creeping toward Raine's feet.
She had seconds left.
The Embers in her veins *roared*Fire for defiance, Wind for freedom, Earth for permanence. But it was the Void Ember's whisper, still lingering from Lorst's absorption, that gave her the answer.
*"Balance,"* she murmured.
Then she *leaped* at the Chrono-Walker.
---
Her crystallized fist connected with the being's chestnot to strike, but to*anchor*. The Embers'energy surged into it, not as attack, but as*offering*.
*"Take them,"* Raine snarled. *"Take the Fire, the Wind, the Earth. But the Void stays with me."*
The Chrono-Walker's eyes widened. It understood too late.
The Embers werent just powerthey were *counterweights*.
Fire to light the abyss. Wind to carry its voice. Earth to bear its weight.
And the Void?
The Void was the *lock*.
The being *screamed* as the Embers flooded its form, its hourglass eyes overflowing with molten gold. The bridge *shuddered*, its fractures sealing as the stolen time *reversed*, pouring back into the world like a tide.
The refugees gasped back into solidity, their memories intact. The child's burned hands healed before Raine's eyes.
But the Chrono-Walker-
It *fractured*, its form splitting into countless shards of mirrored glass, each reflecting a different era.
*"You.cannotoutrun time** it whispered, before dissolving into the wind.
Silence.
Then-
A single grain of golden sand landed in Raine's palm.
Kaios collapsed beside her, his breathing ragged but steady. His hair was no longer white, but streaked with silver againthe temporal wound closed.
Lyria stared at the dagger, now crumbled to dust. *"It's done,"* she breathed.
But Raine looked up.
The bridge stood whole, its archway shimmering with new stability. Yet beyond it, the sky still ripplednot with the Rift's hunger, but with something*watching*.
Something *waiting*.
Kaios followed her gaze. *"The Rift's not gone,"* he said quietly. *"Just… balanced."*
Raine clenched the grain of sand in her fist.
*"Then were not done yet."*
---
As they helped the refugees to their feet, Raine glimpsed a flicker in the corner of her visiona shadow, tall and hooded, standing at the bridge's edge.
Golden eyes met hers.
Then vanished.
The message was clear.
This wasnt victory.
It was a *truce*.
And truces, like time, could be broken.