The skies above the Ravenn District were always a shade too clean.
Kael Thorne stood on the edge of a rooftop overlooking the silver towers below, watching the artificial clouds part like curtains over a stage. He hated how perfect the city looked—polished, symmetrical, obedient. Every detail calculated by the Temporal Authority. Nothing natural remained here. Not the air, not the time… not even the people.
His right hand tightened around the handle of his blade—the Chronos Edge, a weapon forged from compressed time. It pulsed faintly in its sheath, responding to the growing tension in his chest.
Today, he wasn't just tracking an anomaly.
He was tracking her.
A flare of light flickered in the far distance, near the industrial district's edge. The scanners in his neural lens immediately locked onto it—coordinates logged, temperature spike confirmed, and above all… a temporal fluctuation.
Kael leapt off the rooftop, time warping around his body as his boots hit a bypass conduit three stories below. He didn't wince at the impact—he never did. The warp-field slowed him, just enough to avoid breaking bones, but not enough to feel human.
He sprinted down the alley as the echo of the anomaly grew stronger. It wasn't just a rift—it was a wound in the fabric of time. And like all wounds, it was bleeding.
And she was the one bleeding through it.
Elira Solen didn't belong in this world.
The sky here was wrong. Flat. The stars didn't move. The air smelled of static and ozone. Nothing like the place she came from—the Realm of Eon, where time flowed like water, slow and graceful. Here, it felt… brittle.
She stepped lightly over broken glass in the alleyway, her bare feet silent. The silver strands in her gown shimmered softly in the neon light, casting illusions that danced around her body like memories struggling to take shape.
The rift behind her closed with a final flicker, sealing the opening between realms for now. Her time was limited.
She reached out and touched the nearest wall—cold metal, humming with lifeless energy. Her heart ached at the sterility of this place. No trees. No magic. No rhythm to the world. Just machines ticking endlessly toward some unknown end.
But he was here. She could feel it.
She had dreamed of this moment for years. Not just one version of it—many. In one, he shot her. In another, he turned away. In the most painful version, he simply never saw her at all.
But none of that mattered now.
Because in this strand of time, she was finally going to meet him.
Kael found her standing in the alley, bathed in the glow of the closing rift, like something torn from a dream.
For a moment, he forgot his protocols. Forgot the mission. Forgot the years he'd spent erasing anomalies and correcting timelines. She wasn't what he expected. No creature. No weapon. No threat.
Just a woman.
Barefoot, delicate, and completely out of place.
Their eyes met—and the world tilted.
Kael's first instinct was to draw his blade. His second was to drop it.
She didn't move. Didn't run. Didn't seem afraid of him at all.
He took a slow step forward. "You're the anomaly?"
Her head tilted slightly. Her eyes—violet and ageless—studied him like she already knew the answer. "And you're the one who never smiles."
Kael froze.
He should've demanded identification. Should've arrested her, restrained her, scanned her for bio-temporal contamination. But all he could do was stare.
How did she know that?
"How do you—?"
"I've seen you," she said softly, voice like wind brushing over memory. "In fragments. In echoes. In timelines that no longer exist."
Kael stepped closer. The air around her was warmer, more alive than anything he'd felt in years. His chest tightened. Time shimmered faintly around her edges, as if her presence didn't quite belong here.
"You're bleeding time," he said.
She smiled, a little sadly. "So are you."
That stopped him cold.
Most anomalies radiated unstable time signatures—but they didn't see it. This woman… this Oracle, whatever she was, understood time as more than a tool. She felt it.
Kael blinked, activating his ocular scanner. A thin red grid passed over her body—but the readings were… impossible.
Age: Undefined.
Origin: Unknown.
Temporal Signature: Layered.
Multiple timelines. Overlapping.
She shouldn't exist.
And yet, here she was.
Elira stepped forward slowly, her gown whispering against the broken ground.
She could feel him unraveling. Not just in this moment—but in all the versions of him she'd seen. Kael the weapon. Kael the exile. Kael the sacrifice. Each version haunted her dreams, but this one… this was the one who hesitated.
This was the one who might choose her.
She raised a hand, palm open.
He flinched, but didn't pull away.
She touched his chest, lightly, just over the sternum. Beneath the armor, she felt it: his heartbeat. Steady. Controlled. But real.
"You've been walking through broken time so long," she whispered, "you forgot what it feels like to be in the present."
Kael's mouth parted, but no sound came.
In that instant, something rippled through the alley. Not light. Not heat.
Memory.
A rush of sensations—not his, not hers, but shared. Holding hands in a snowstorm that never happened. A first kiss on a rooftop that didn't exist. Fighting side by side in a ruined temple beneath twin moons.
A life that was never lived—but wanted to be.
Then it vanished.
He stumbled back, breath catching. "What the hell was that?"
"A possibility," Elira said gently.
In the shadows above, a red light blinked silently.
Kael's lens flared. Incoming ping. Temporal Authority alert.
"Unauthorized Chrono breach detected. Reinforcements dispatched. Eliminate the anomaly. Immediate compliance required."
Kael's heart dropped.
They found her.
He looked up—and saw the first drone slip from the clouds like a spider from webbing.
"Elira," he said. Her name came without thought. "We have to go. Now."
She didn't question. Just turned, and as if she'd always known the way, ran toward the edge of the alley.
Kael followed, blade drawn.
Behind them, the drones descended. Sirens began to wail. And time itself began to bend.
The alley crumbled behind them.
Kael grabbed Elira's wrist, pulling her through the narrow passage as the first drone opened fire. A blast of red plasma scorched the wall beside them, searing a hole through metal and stone.
"Elira—" he shouted, "—do you know where the next rift is?"
"Yes!" she called over the chaos. "But it's not open yet."
"What do you mean not open?!"
"I mean we have to make it!"
Kael cursed under his breath. He hadn't stepped off-regulation this far in years—hadn't improvised, hadn't trusted anyone—but this woman spoke of time like it bent to her voice. And somehow, he believed her.
Another blast sizzled past them, this time striking the ground just feet away. Kael raised the Chronos Edge and slashed through the air behind them—ripping open a momentary fold in time, a distortion field that would delay the drones by sixty seconds.
"That won't hold long," he muttered.
They burst out of the alley onto a broken platform above the drainage canals. Lights flickered across the skyline like dying stars. The edges of the city seemed to warp and twist—space no longer linear. Time was failing here.
"Elira," Kael said, panting, "we're running out of… everything."
She turned to him. Calm. Radiant.
"I need you to trust me."
"I don't trust anyone," Kael replied.
"But you used to."
She stepped forward, raised both hands, and sang.
It wasn't words—it was sound shaped by something deeper. The melody echoed through the structure of reality. Kael felt it—not with his ears, but with something buried inside him. A memory that didn't belong. A longing he had buried. His mother's laugh. The wind on a cliff where he once almost kissed someone.
A soft golden light bloomed in the air.
The hourglass.
A swirling shape formed between them—an hourglass suspended in midair, turning upside down. Sand flowed both ways, its center glowing like a miniature sun.
"That's the gate," Elira whispered.
Kael stared. "That's impossible."
"I've been keeping it hidden from them for years. But you—you're the one who can open it."
She turned to face him, closer now.
"You've touched fractured time so many times, Kael. Your presence weakens the wall between moments. You can walk through the hourglass. But not alone."
She reached for his hand.
He hesitated.
Behind them, the drones screamed closer. He could feel time trying to collapse in on itself, the past and future bending inward like folding pages.
Kael gritted his teeth. "If this kills me—"
"It won't," Elira said softly. "Not in this version."
He took her hand.
They stepped through.
The city vanished.
For a heartbeat, Kael felt everything. Every life he had lived—or might have lived. Every regret. Every kiss stolen or denied. He wasn't falling or flying—just drifting across the unseen fabric of what could be.
Then he landed.
On grass.
Real, living, dew-covered grass.
Kael gasped, staring up at a sky of swirling silver clouds and faint twin moons. The air smelled of stars and lavender. Trees glowed faintly with bioluminescent bark. It wasn't just another place.
It was outside of time.
Elira knelt beside him. "Welcome to the Eon Veil."
He sat up slowly. "I thought your kind were just myth."
"We are," she said with a smile. "But sometimes myths remember more than reality does."
Kael touched the grass, dazed. "You brought me into a realm that shouldn't exist."
"I didn't," she replied. "You did. Because you wanted to. Somewhere deep inside."
Kael looked at her—and for the first time, didn't see the anomaly. He saw the answer to a question he hadn't let himself ask in years:
What if I'm not just a weapon?
She held out a hand again—not out of urgency this time, but quiet invitation.
"I know you don't trust me," she said. "But the world is dying, Kael. Your time is crumbling. Mine is fading. This place is the only one that remains untouched."
"And what do you want from me?" he asked, eyes narrowing.
Her voice was soft. Honest. "Nothing… except to remember what we were."
A long silence.
Then Kael asked: "Have we met before?"
Elira's eyes shone. "Yes. A thousand times. In a thousand broken timelines."
Kael stood, slowly turning in place.
The Eon Veil pulsed with life. Time here wasn't linear—it flowed in circles, in ripples. Every breath felt like both a beginning and an end.
He saw ghost-like images flickering between the trees—versions of himself. Younger. Older. Smiling. Bleeding. Holding Elira. Losing her. His chest tightened.
"This place…" he murmured. "It shows me things I haven't done."
Elira nodded, her gaze distant. "Not just what you haven't done. What you still might."
Kael walked beside her, his boots silent in the soft moss. They came to the base of a massive tree—its bark glowing silver, its branches stretching far beyond vision. Leaves whispered without wind. Its roots pulsed like veins.
"The Eonroot," she said. "It holds the memories of every timeline. Every path we did or didn't walk."
Kael reached out but stopped short. "Can it be changed?"
"Only by sacrifice," she said. "And by choice."
A silence passed between them. Not empty—charged.
"You said we've met before," he said. "Tell me what happened."
Elira turned to face him fully. "Sometimes we were allies. Sometimes we were enemies. Once, you killed me before I could speak. Another time, I watched you die in my arms, cursing the Timewalkers who made you what you are."
She paused. "But once—just once—we made it through. We lived a life together. Quiet. Hidden. You smiled every day. You asked me to plant a tree."
Kael blinked. His hand, unconsciously, dropped to his belt—where a tiny seed-shaped charm hung.
He never remembered where it came from.
"I thought it was a keepsake," he whispered.
"It was," she said. "From a version of you who chose love over control."
His heart thudded against his ribs.
Before he could speak again, the sky flickered.
The clouds stuttered. The ground trembled faintly.
Elira's eyes snapped to the horizon. "No."
"What is it?"
"They followed you."
Kael's hand went to his blade. "That's impossible. No one's ever breached—"
"They didn't breach. You brought them."
He turned slowly.
From the edge of the clearing, a shape emerged. Humanoid—but wrong. Wrapped in obsidian armor that shimmered like broken glass. No face. No breath. Just an endless hum of static.
A Null Sentinel—a creature from erased timelines. Agents of oblivion.
"They want the root," Elira said, voice tight. "If they sever it, all timelines collapse. Everything ends."
Kael stepped in front of her. "Then we don't let them."
The Sentinel raised its hand. Space around it twisted like a dying star. Kael's blade ignited with pulsing blue light—Chronos Edge, humming to the frequency of the threat.
"Can we stop it?" he asked.
Elira didn't answer at first.
Then: "Only together."
She stepped beside him. Their hands almost touching—but not quite. Not yet.
The Sentinel took another step forward.
Kael whispered, "Do you trust me?"
Elira's voice was calm. Certain.
"No. But I remember the version of me that did."
And as the Sentinel lunged, and time began to unravel around them, Kael finally smiled.