The consequences arrived quietly.
Lys noticed them in the smallest things first.
Ash fell upward for a heartbeat before correcting itself. A crack in the stone repeated the same echo twice. When he exhaled, the breath lingered a moment longer than it should have, hanging in the air like it was waiting for permission to disperse.
Time was… irritated.
Elda confirmed it an hour later, her voice tight as she traced ward-lines that refused to settle. "The encounter left a temporal scar. Not large—but active. Like a splinter."
Nyra leaned against a boulder, arms crossed. "Great. So now the world's broken and impatient."
Valerius said nothing. He was staring at Lys.
"Stop looking at me like that," Lys muttered.
"I'm trying to decide," Valerius said slowly, "whether you're still fully here."
That earned silence.
Lys clenched his jaw. He felt it too—the subtle drag, like part of him was half a step ahead of himself. His thoughts arrived before his words. His heartbeat skipped, then compensated.
And beneath it all, the Dragon was restless.
Chronal interference is not meant for vessels, it warned. You are anchored to flame and stone, not to when.
"I didn't invite him," Lys shot back internally.
He did not come for permission.
The mountain trembled again—not violently, but unevenly, like a miscounted step. A seam of light split open near the ridge wall, not fire this time but pale and thin.
Nyra drew her blades instantly. "That's not a door."
"It's a reversion fault," Elda said. "A moment trying to revert to a previous state."
The seam widened.
Something crawled out.
It looked like an Eclipsed at first—humanoid, shadowed—but its movements stuttered, repeating the same step again and again before completing it. Its body blurred between ages: child, adult, corpse, then back again.
A Chrono-Warped.
Valerius swore. "That thing shouldn't exist."
It screamed—not in sound, but in overlap. The noise hit all of them at once, a chorus of moments collapsing into a single sensation.
Lys moved.
He didn't think—he aligned.
The second seal opened reflexively, fire flooding his limbs, but this time it bent strangely, stretching as it traveled. Lys felt resistance not from matter, but from sequence.
The creature lunged.
Nyra intercepted, slashing clean through its torso.
The cut closed.
"Okay," she said, backing off. "I hate that."
"Fire won't stabilize it," Elda called. "It's not corrupted—it's displaced!"
Lys felt the third seal stir, eager, dangerous.
No, he thought. That's what he wants.
The memory of the pale-haired boy surfaced—variable or fixed point.
Lys changed approach.
He closed his eyes.
Instead of pushing power outward, he listened—to the rhythm beneath everything, the heartbeat of the volcano, the slow patience of stone. He anchored himself to the present, to now.
"Here," he whispered.
The Dragon quieted.
Lys opened his eyes and stepped into the creature's path. He placed one hand against its chest.
"Stay," he commanded—not with fire, but with presence.
The dragon eyes flared—not brighter, but sharper.
The Chrono-Warped convulsed, its forms snapping together like puzzle pieces forced into place. For a heartbeat, it was a man—terrified, solid, real.
Then it crumbled into dust that fell normally.
Silence followed.
Everyone stared at Lys.
Nyra let out a slow breath. "You just told time to sit down."
Lys swayed.
Valerius caught him before he fell. "You okay?"
"No," Lys admitted weakly. "But I learned something."
Elda looked at him sharply. "What?"
Lys met her gaze, dragon pupils narrowing.
"He can't control me directly," he said. "So he's trying to desynchronize me—pull me out of the present."
Far away, beyond moments and memory, the Time Dragon observed the correction ripple outward.
Its incarnation stood at its side now, watching countless branching outcomes collapse and reform.
"He anchored himself," the incarnation said quietly.
The Time Dragon's still eyes did not blink.
"Then we adjust," it replied. "Fire can be guided. Stone can be broken."
A pause.
"But time," it added softly, "can always wait."
Back on the mountain, Lys straightened slowly, staring at the horizon where nothing seemed wrong—
And knowing that was the most dangerous part.
The hourglass had cracked.
And the next grains would fall differently.