Erith's Reach loomed like a jagged crown atop the spine of the mountains, its obsidian spires defying the chaotic sky above. Lightning crackled without thunder, arcing silently through clouds that swirled in impossible colors. The fortress had long stood as a bastion of power and memory, its walls lined with relics from before the First Collapse. Now, it was a haven for the scattered survivors of time's disarray.
Caius led the group through the open gates, where arcane wards flickered like tired sentries. Inside, torchlight cast dancing shadows across the stone floor. The fortress's great hall had become a congregation point for scholars, timekeepers, and soldiers displaced by temporal storms. Their eyes tracked Caius and his companions, a murmur of recognition—or perhaps unease—rising in their midst.
A tall woman approached, her robes inscribed with glowing glyphs that shifted with every step. "You're the one they call the Chrono-Binder," she said. Her voice was calm, but layered with fatigue. "I am Maereth, Keeper of the Reach."
Caius nodded. "We bring warning. The Spiral Veins are active. The Fifth Witness walks again."
The name sent a ripple through the chamber. Whispers erupted—some in disbelief, others in panic. Maereth's composure cracked for a heartbeat. "Then the edge is closer than we feared."
Selene stepped forward. "He's resting now, but his mind remains sharp. He spoke of something worse than the Chronophage. A hunger that grows with every paradox left unresolved."
Maereth gestured toward a side passage. "We must speak in the Hall of Echoes. The relics there might aid our understanding."
The Hall of Echoes was unlike any room Caius had ever entered. The walls were covered in floating time-fragments—shards of memories and moments, suspended in transparent crystal. As the group entered, the fragments shimmered, reacting to the presence of the Chronomancer's Heart beneath Caius's cloak.
One shard flared as he passed, casting a vision of a child pulling petals from a silver flower beneath twin moons. Another displayed a battlefield with warriors frozen mid-charge, their bodies twisted by temporal collapse.
Elias marveled at the display. "Each of these… echoes of lost timelines. Preserved here."
"Preserved," Maereth confirmed. "But unstable. They decay, like all things touched by broken time."
At the hall's center stood an altar made of glasslike stone. Upon it rested a relic—a fractured orb, swirling with black and violet mist.
"The Ecliptic Core," Maereth explained. "Once, it stabilized time fluctuations within the Reach. Now it feeds on them, mimicking the very force you've described."
Caius reached out, his hand hovering just above the core. It pulsed in response, a harmonic vibration that matched the Chronomancer's Heart. A tremor ran through his arm, and for an instant, he glimpsed a vision—
—a ruined world, where only echoes walked. A tower of light ascending into a dark sky. And a figure—cloaked in silver and ash—standing atop it, watching him with eyes full of regret.
He staggered back, breath ragged.
"What did you see?" Selene asked, steadying him.
"A choice I haven't made yet," he whispered.
That night, Caius stood atop the walls of Erith's Reach, watching the storm-twisted sky. Selene joined him, silent for a while before finally speaking.
"You always carry it alone," she said.
He didn't answer.
"We're not just following you, Caius. We're standing with you. Even if time fractures around us."
He turned, his eyes reflecting the aurora. "And if I become the fracture?"
"Then we'll hold you together," she replied, her hand brushing against his.
Their fingers lingered.
Below, the Fifth Witness awoke screaming.
Elias and Maereth rushed to his side as he clawed at invisible threads in the air.
"They're here," he gasped. "The Echoborn—they found us!"
From the skies above, the stars shifted.
And across the timelines, something answered.
The winds howled through the narrow mountain passes as Caius and his companions approached Erith's Reach. The storm above seemed to follow them, spiraling in unnatural hues—lavender, deep green, and shades no eye was ever meant to see. It was as though the sky itself were caught between realities. The snow, once white, had taken on a bluish luminescence, reflecting the chaos above.
As they drew nearer, they passed remnants of other travelers—abandoned camps, frozen in strange loops of time. A campfire sparked and died repeatedly, each cycle beginning the instant the last ember faded. In another, a figure stood mid-step, unmoving, their cloak fluttering even though no wind touched it. Elias sketched furiously, his eyes wide with both horror and fascination.
"These are… not echoes," he said. "They're temporal scars. Living fragments."
"They're warnings," Caius replied grimly.
The gates of Erith's Reach finally came into view, black stone rising from the earth like the bones of some long-dead god. The wards above them shimmered, struggling to remain whole as the chaotic tides of time buffeted their anchors.
Within, they found the sanctuary a hive of whispers. Soldiers trained in slow, deliberate drills to avoid temporal distortion. Mages etched new protective glyphs with trembling hands. Timekeepers measured the hours with pendulums that sometimes ticked backward, and sometimes stopped altogether.
In the Hall of Echoes, Elias paused before one floating shard—a memory of a world where the Chronophage had never existed, where peace reigned under twin suns. He watched, entranced, as children laughed among golden fields. Then the shard trembled and cracked slightly. A spiderweb of black lines crept across its surface before the vision faded into static.
"Even hope decays," he murmured.
Maereth heard him. "These fragments are reminders. Not of what was, but what might have been—and what might still be, if we fail."
Later, as the others slept, Selene wandered the Reach's inner corridors, her thoughts restless. She paused in a chamber lined with mirrors that didn't reflect her—only other versions of herself. One bore a crown of thorns. Another wore bloodied armor. One held a child. Each mirror shimmered with unspoken paths not taken.
When Caius found her there, he stood silently by her side.
"I used to think our fates were written," she said softly. "But what if they're just… chosen?"
Caius met her gaze in the dark mirror. "Then we'd better choose carefully."