The wind had changed.
It was not a mere breeze, but a shift in the world's rhythm—as though time itself had inhaled. Louise walked away from the broken cave, each step dragging the dust of ancient battles with him. The Ashen Clock still rotated faintly behind his spine, its spirals less like a gear and more like a slowly wilting flower. Its hunger had quieted. But not ended.
He was not alone.
In the horizon's shimmer, dunes of golden ash parted. Something vast stirred beneath the sand.
Fuzi had once said: "When the Ashen Clock awakens, the First Remnants will rise again. And with them, memory will become weapon."
Louise tightened his grip on the broken blade he'd drawn from the Temporal Ring. Its edge was now cracked—shattered slightly from the overload of his last technique. But it pulsed with fragments of time still active.
He needed answers. And rest. But neither would come easily.
A flock of birds scattered in the sky.
Someone else approached.
---
A figure in gray robes, mouth covered with ceremonial cloth, walked toward him along the ridge of dunes. The stranger bore a staff that shimmered not with magic, but with stillness. Louise couldn't explain it—but wherever the staff touched, sound itself seemed to vanish.
"Louise of the Broken Time," the figure said.
"Who's asking?"
The figure bowed. "My name is Amon. I am a Shadow Keeper of the First Watch. I bring you warning… and invitation."
Louise's breath caught. The First Watch?
"I thought the Keepers were myths," he said.
Amon's eyes glinted. "Myth is simply memory too dangerous to repeat."
He held out a scroll—sealed with black wax and the triple spiral sigil.
Louise took it, but didn't open it yet.
"What do you want from me?" he asked.
"Nothing," Amon said. "But they will. The Council. The Archivists. The Chrono-Ascendants. You have disturbed the quiet flow. You bent time in a way that has not been done in ten thousand years. And now, all who drink from the river of time will feel the ripples."
Louise's grip on the scroll tightened.
Amon continued. "There is a sanctuary. Hidden in the Riven Steppes. There, answers await you. But so do tests. If you go, you may find your purpose. If you turn back, you may yet keep your soul."
"What would you choose?" Louise asked.
"I already chose," Amon said. "That's why I wear this veil. I've seen too much."
Then he turned and vanished into the sand as if he'd never existed.
---
Louise opened the scroll.
It contained no words.
Only a moving map—a temporal thread—leading him far northeast, past the Fractured Spires and across the Bleeding Plains. At the edge was marked a name: The Citadel of Echoes.
He felt it then.
A pull. Not magical. Not logical.
Familiar.
Like the same pull he had felt years ago, when he first touched the dying hands of his sister and promised her he would unravel the truth behind their parentless lives.
Now that promise had taken form.
And it whispered to him from the dust.
---
Night came.
He lit no fire.
Instead, he listened. The sand whispered. The stars blinked in broken constellations. Time was different here—minutes felt like hours, and then vanished like seconds. He could feel the Clock even in his sleep, gently rewinding or slowing his breath so that he barely aged.
And in that stillness, he dreamed.
---
The Dream of Before
A woman stood at the edge of a mirror lake. Her eyes were black voids, filled with shifting galaxies. She held a child—not a baby, but a boy with glowing silver hair and a spiral birthmark on his neck.
"Do not fear time," the woman said. "Fear forgetting."
The lake split open like a book. And in its pages, Louise saw wars fought across centuries, lovers separated by a single moment, kingdoms erased by forgotten names.
Then she looked at him.
"Some are born outside time. You are one of them. But to remain outside is to be alone."
The lake closed.
He woke.
---
Louise sat up, heart pounding. The dream was too vivid.
And his Clock was glowing.
Not red. Not silver.
But gold.
It was resonating with something buried beneath the earth.
He dug.
Hands blistered, nails torn—he clawed through the ash until his fingers hit stone. Then metal. Then… glass.
A capsule.
He pulled it free.
It was smooth, ancient, and humming softly with stored energy.
When he pressed his hand against it, the sigil on his spine glowed in response.
The capsule opened.
And from within it rose a projection—flickering and old.
A woman. Not the same as the one in the dream. This one had short hair, battle armor, and a gaze that made even the desert hush.
"If you have found this," she said, "then the war is not over. I am General Ceira of the Last Timeguard. And you are the next keeper."
Louise leaned closer.
"The Citadel is lost," she continued. "Buried beneath timelines erased by the Ascendants. But you can bring it back. Piece by piece. The first shard is within you. The second lies beyond the Bleeding Plains. If you reach the Citadel, the full truth will awaken."
Then the image faded.
Only silence remained.
---
Louise didn't sleep again.
He walked.
By dawn, he reached the edge of a cliff. And below it, shimmering through the morning mist, stretched the Bleeding Plains—an endless red landscape of war relics, frozen soldiers, and screaming statues locked in loops of death.
He exhaled.
And stepped forward...