Dawn crawled across the castle like warm blood seeping into pale cloth. Leo stood at a high window, hands tucked into his pockets, watching the horizon as if time itself might answer his questions. Beyond the castle walls the morning looked ordinary — mist lifting from fields, a cart trundling along the road — but in his mind the world had been folding and tearing like old parchment. He felt it in the way people's faces had gone blank, in the empty spaces where laughter had been.
The great doors sighed open behind him. Aurelius entered without flourish, cloak still damp from the dawn air. He paused when he saw Leo's expression and, for a moment, his carefully measured mask of royalty softened.
"Your friends are being tended in the east wing," Aurelius said, coming to stand a few paces away. "You can see them after our meeting. The village for your… companions is built. Injured ones are being healed. We've kept it quiet — closed the road so no one sees what we shelter. It was the only way."
Leo didn't answer. He watched the slow, uncanny rolling of the fields again, the way a child's cart seemed to step half a beat out of time and then catch itself.
Aurelius folded his hands behind his back and came a little closer. "Do you want me to explain what's happening? Properly," he asked.
Leo turned, the question already on his tongue. "Yes. Tell me. Tell me what that is out there. I can feel it, but I can't make sense of it."
Aurelius nodded, slow and careful as one opening an old book. He drew a breath like someone pushing a door ajar and spoke plainly.
"Think of the world as a line," he began. "From my castle as a starting point, the line runs through the arena, through the villages, out to the mountains. The disturbance is centered near my hall — the Main Hall of the Zycrist. That place anchors time in this region. When the anchor wavers, the line frays. People near the anchor feel the fraying first: memories slip, names vanish, whole moments go missing. At first it looks like forgetfulness; next it becomes disappearance." He looked at Leo directly. "You saw it on the road. People one moment — gone the next."
Leo's jaw clenched. "Why now? Why here? I was just here—this didn't happen then."
"You were outside the field of influence." Aurelius's voice had the quiet gravity of a man naming a disaster. "The hall is a thin place. It binds timelines. If something damages the weave there, the break spreads outward like a stain. The closer you are, the sooner you feel it."
Leo swallowed. "And the Khronokai… what are they? You said that name before."
Aurelius let out a breath and watched the wood floor at his boots, as if the polished grain might carry the explanation for him. "Khronokai are guardians of the weave. Their souls are older than any king's line — fragments of the Zycrist entrusted to mortal shells. Each generation a new vessel holds that guardian-soul. I am a Khronokai in body; my spirit carries an answer that predates our empires. I can mend, nudge, soothe the threads, but I cannot stitch a tear alone when the rip runs too deep. The Zycrist — beings older and larger than gods — made the weave. They gave us custodians. They did not give us everything."
He lifted his head. The castle's morning light caught in his hair, making him look for an instant less like an emperor and more like a tired man. "If we do nothing, the frays will widen. First the border villages, then entire counties. Whole eras could begin to rewrite or vanish. People would blink out of history. I have seen—a glimpse of futures—where cities fade as if they'd never been built, where children never existed because some event never happened to make them. It is not some tale to frighten you. It is a fracture in the world's memory."
Silence pooled between them. Leo's fists tightened where they dug into his coat.
"And what will I get if I help?" he asked finally, each word flat with exhaustion and a steadiness that had nothing to do with hope. It was the practical question: he would not risk everything for promises.
For a long instant Aurelius's face went hard. Anger flashed and then blanched into something lonelier. "If this collapses," the king said, voice low, "this world — as you know it — will not survive. Not your village, not the people under your care. Do you understand the scale of that?" His eyes searched Leo's face. "If you refuse, it is not only them you gamble. It is every person whose names your children might one day speak."
Leo looked away, to the small courtyard visible beneath the window where servants had already set up silent work. "I don't care about titles," he said, quiet as a knife. "I will save the people I can. I know I can."
Aurelius's jaw worked. He had expected entreaties, offers, perhaps even flattery. He had not expected that fierce, claustrophobic certainty. For the king, it was both infuriating and oddly honest. He let his frustration out in a breath and, after a heartbeat, altered course.
"Then tell me what you want," Aurelius said. "If you will fight with me, I will not ask you to give up your people. I promised refuge to your humans and demi-humans — healing, shelter, work. But you asked me the same question: what will you gain?" He paused. "Name it."
Leo's eyes hardened. The world had shown him how fragile everything loved could be. He had come to Aurelius as a debtor of fate and child of loss. So he did not ask for trinkets or titles.
"I want my own land," Leo said. "A place to build without being hunted. A mountain hold or a valley — somewhere our people, goblins and those like them, can live as they are. An empire of my own, if you will. If a great power like yours vouches for us, no other state will dare touch the place. You help me build it — defend it — and I help stabilize the timelines here."
Aurelius blinked, then a slow, unreadable smile creased his mouth. The offer was bold. Dangerous. But it came with the currency Aurelius respected: stubborn, concrete demand, not some wavering plea.
"Very well," the king said after a pause, steady. "I will help you. I will give you land — a site beyond the foothills we cross to the north. My knights will guard its borders. My engineers will help build. And I will keep its nature secret from the court as long as I can. That is my vow."
Leo extended his hand. Aurelius regarded it for a breath and then took it, their palms closing in a quiet pact as the dawn bled fully into day.
As they let go, Aurelius's face grew thoughtful again. "There is more," he said. "If you join me — truly join me — I will teach you what a Khronokai feels when the weave shivers. I will show you how to see a thread, to sense a break. You asked earlier what the timeline means. You will need to learn to read it."
Leo's mouth twitched, half grin, half grimace. "Deal," he said. "But one more thing."
Aurelius cocked an eyebrow.
"You will not lie to me about Arvaris," Leo said. "If he betrayed you — if he betrayed us — I want to know the truth now, not later."
Aurelius's gaze drifted out past the window for a heartbeat, then snapped back to Leo. His voice had gone low, almost a growl beneath his usual calm.
"I will find Arvaris," he said. "I will find him, and I will ask him that why he did this."
He turned fully toward Leo. Leo turned too, their eyes locking like two points on the same line. The air between them felt charged, as if the castle itself was waiting to hear the next words.
"But before that…" Aurelius paused.
Leo's jaw tightened. "First…"
And together, like a vow, their voices overlapped:
"—the temporal disruptions."
The words hung in the room like a tolling bell, carrying the weight of something neither of them could ignore.
Aurelius straightened, all traces of the tired king vanishing, replaced by the full gravity of the Khronokai.
"Before we chase traitors or settle debts, we mend the weave," he said. "If the world unravels, there will be nothing left for either of us to rule, nothing left to save."
Leo's eyes narrowed, his tone cold but steady. "Then teach me. Show me what I'm fighting."
Aurelius nodded once. "At dawn we go to the Hall of Zycrist. That's where you'll see the truth of what I'm talking about. Only then will you understand what it means to stand where I stand."
As they both stepped out of the chamber, the echo of their boots filled the silent corridor. The castle's long marble hall stretched endlessly, lit only by flickering torches that wavered as if uncertain of their own flame.
Aurelius walked ahead, his crimson cloak brushing the stone floor, until the sound behind him stopped.
He turned. "What's wrong?"
Leo stood frozen mid-step. His eyes were wide, staring past Aurelius at nothing — or perhaps at something he couldn't yet see. His voice came out low, uneasy.
"If your castle is the first and most affected by these… temporal disruptions," he said, "then why hasn't it affected you?"
Aurelius blinked once, understanding the weight of the question. Then he answered quietly,
"Because I am a Khronokai. The distortions can't alter a guardian of Zycrist. I exist within the timeline and outside of it at once."
Leo's heart skipped. His breath trembled. "Then…"
He stepped forward, eyes locking onto Aurelius's golden ones. "What about my friends? My people staying here?"
Aurelius didn't answer immediately. His expression hardened, and for the first time, even his aura flickered.
Leo's voice rose — desperate, cracking through the stillness.
"Answer me, Aurelius! What about them!?"
And then, as if in response, the torches down the hall began to shudder. A ripple passed through the air — faint, but real.
Aurelius's gaze snapped toward the far corridor, where the air itself seemed to bend. His face darkened.
"…It's starting earlier than I thought."
Leo's pulse spiked. "What do you mean—"
But before Aurelius could speak again, a scream echoed from deep inside the castle — distant, distorted, and wrong.
Aurelius clenched his fists. "They're not safe," he said, his voice grim.
"The disruption has reached to the castle."
They rushed through the twisting halls, the castle trembling as the temporal waves grew stronger. Walls flickered between age and decay, as though centuries were passing in seconds.
Finally, they stopped before an ornate door, carved with symbols that shimmered faintly like fractured time.
Leo caught his breath. "Is this the door?"
Aurelius gave a short nod. "Yes."
Without hesitation, they pushed it open — and what they saw froze them both.
Inside, Lyra was on her knees, her body flickering, fading in and out of existence. Each pulse of distortion made her more translucent.
Lia stood near the wall, trembling, her small hands clutching her head.
"Lyra!" Leo ran forward, dropping to his knees beside her. "Hey—hey, everything's going to be fine! Just hold on, okay?"
He turned to Aurelius, panic breaking through his voice. "Aurelius, tell me what's happening!"
But before Aurelius could answer—
Lyra's fading figure looked up one last time, her lips moving silently, and then—
she was gone.
"Lyra—!" Leo's voice cracked as he turned back, disbelief written across his face.
Aurelius stepped closer, placing a steady hand on Leo's shoulder. His voice was calm but heavy.
"Leo, calm down. We'll save her… I promise. But not like this—not now."
Leo's breathing steadied, his fists trembling. He turned toward Lia, who had fallen to the floor, tears streaking her cheeks.
"Lia, listen to me," he said softly, kneeling beside her. "You have to leave the castle right now."
She looked up, her eyes empty—lost. "W–Who are you? Why are you calling me Lia?"
Leo froze.
"I… I don't remember anything," she whispered, clutching her head. "Who… am I?"
And then she began to cry—helpless, terrified.
Leo opened his mouth, but no words came.
Outside, the sound of chaos was rising—shouts, screams, the rumble of the castle shaking.
Aurelius looked around, his face grim. "The disruptions are spreading. We don't have time." He stepped forward. "Leave her for now, Leo. Once we stabilize the core, time will return to normal. Then we can save everyone."
Leo hesitated—his heart breaking as Lia's sobs filled the room.
But in the end, he turned away.
"…Fine." His voice was low, distant. "Bring me to the Hall of Zycrist."
Aurelius gave a short nod. The door behind them shuddered as they left, leaving behind the sound of a crying girl who no longer remembered her own name.