The bridge between worlds hummed with unstable energy, its iridescent surface flickering like the last embers of a dying fire. Raine's breath came in ragged gasps as she knelt beside Kaios, her crystallized fingers pressing against the wound in his chest.
The Void Ember's essence still thrummed in her veins, a cold, alien presence amidst the fire, wind, and earth that had long been part of her.
Lyria slumped nearby, her amber eyes dimming.
I't's holding,"she whispered, her voice fraying at the edges. But not for long."
Kaios coughed, his silver hair now entirely white, his mismatched eyesgold and iolet, like a fractured dawnstruggling to focus.
Temporal energy… leaking,"he managed. Like sand through an hourglass."
Raine's gloves crackled, the Fire Ember flaring in response to her desperation. Then we *stop* it."
A tremor ran through the bridge. The sky above them *rippled*, the remnants of the Rift's maw twisting like a living thing in pain.
Lorst was gone*absorbed*but his presence lingered in the way the shadows clung too tightly to the edges of reality, in the whispers that slithered through the cracks in the air.
And then-
The bridge *screamed*.
---
A shard of time materialized above Kaios's palm, its surface reflecting not the present, but a thousand fractured futures. Raine glimpsed herself in fragments:
- *A statue of crystal, standing eternal at the bridge's heart.* - *A shadow-wreathed queen, her eyes twin voids.*
- *A spark swallowed by the Rift, leaving only embers behind.*
Kaios's voice was a ghost. Every path leads to sacrifice. But the choice-has always been *yours*."
The shard *shattered*.
---
The ground beneath them convulsed. From the bridge's shimmering archway, figures emergednot void-spawn, but *people*. Refugees from the Storm Plains, their clothes tattered, their eyes hollow with loss. Behind them, the earth itself *rotted*, crumbling into the abyss as the Rift's collapse consumed the land.
A child stumbled forward, her hands burned black. You promised," she accused, her voice raw. You promised it would *end*."
Raine's breath caught. The Fire Ember in her glove pulsed, its heat searing her palm. She had reshaped the Rift, yesbut at what cost? The bridge was a lifeline for some, a death sentence for others.
Lyria's fingers brushed her wrist. Balance,"she murmured. The Embers need*balance*."
And then-
Kaios's body *glowed*, temporal energy leaking from his wound like liquid starlight. The Conclave"never cursed me,"he gasped. They *anchored* me. To the first hourglassthe one that *measured the Rift's birth*."
Raine's blood turned to ice. The truth unfolded like a poisoned flower:
Kaios wasnt just a Chrono-Walker.
He was the *counterweight*.
The Conclave had bound him to the Rift's pulse, his life a tether to keep it from consuming the world. And now, with the bridge unstable, his time was running outl. Literally*.
--.
The refugees pressed closer, their whispers rising to a cacophony. Save us!"* You owe us!"*Finish what you started!*"
Lyria's grip tightened. The bridge needs a heart," she said.
Somethingor*someone*to hold it together."
Kaios's gaze met Raine's. In it, she saw the unspoken truth:
*Him or her.*
One to stay. One to go.
The Fire Ember *roared* in protest, its flames licking up Raine's arms. The Earth Ember grounded her, the Wind Ember sharpened her resolvebut the Void Ember *ached*, its hunger echoing the Rift's own.
She made her decision.
--
Raine plunged her crystallized hand into Kaios's chest*+ot to harm, but to heal*. The Embers'energy surged through him, stitching temporal wounds with threads of fire and earth.
But time was not so easily mended.
Kaios's body *fractured*, his form flickeringbetween solid and starlight.
The bridge "shuddered*, its archway collapsing inward.
The refugees screamed as the ground beneath them dissolved.
And then-
A voice, neither Raine's nor the Rift's, but something *older*:
***Enough.***
The world *held its breath*.
---
The bridge's surface *hardened*, its iridescent light solidifying into a road of shimmering crystal. The refugees froze mid-fall, suspended like insects in amber. Even the wind stilled.
And from the heart of the bridge, a figureemergednot Lorst, not a void-spawn, but a being of pure *time*.
Its form shifted endlessly: a child, an elder, a warrior, a sage. Its eyes were hourglasses, their sands flowing upward.
***You break what you do not understand,*** it said, its voice the sound of a thousand clocks ticking in unison, ***The Rift was never yours to control."
**
Raine's gloves *burned*, the Embers recoiling. Who?"