Chapter 112
Sang Sang woke screaming.
Firelight blurred into streaks as she jolted upright, breath tearing from her lungs. Her hands clawed at empty air, fingers shaking violently as if they no longer trusted the present to hold.
Kael was already there.
He caught her wrists gently but firmly, grounding her before her momentum could fracture something unseen. "You're here," he said. "Now. Breathe."
Her eyes struggled to focus. When they finally locked onto his face, tears spilled without warning. "I saw it again."
Kael's jaw tightened. "What did you see?"
"Everything," she whispered. "And nothing. Cities that don't exist yet. People dying who haven't been born. You—" Her voice broke. "You were always too late."
The fire crackled.
Lirien knelt beside them, placing two fingers against Sang Sang's temple. Runes flared softly, stabilizing the chaotic pulse thrumming beneath her skin. "Her dreams aren't dreams anymore," Lirien said. "They're bleed-throughs."
Darius leaned against a nearby tree, blade resting across his shoulders. "Meaning?"
"Meaning the future is starting to notice her," Lirien replied. "And it doesn't like being watched."
Sang Sang swallowed, chest still heaving. "It wasn't just visions this time. Something was… responding. Like it knew I was there."
Kael released her wrists slowly, but did not move away. "Did it speak?"
She nodded.
"What did it say?"
Sang Sang hesitated. "It asked me why I was still alive."
Silence pressed in around the camp.
Darius straightened. "That's not ominous at all."
Lirien rose to her feet. "We can't stay here."
Kael was already standing. "Agreed."
The River Province had been a temporary refuge, nothing more. Now even the illusion of safety had rotted away. Kael could feel the pressure building—causality tightening its grip, correcting for their interference.
"They'll send more," Darius said. "Bigger this time."
"They won't send hunters," Kael replied. "They'll send anchors."
Sang Sang frowned. "What's an anchor?"
Kael looked down at her. "Something that makes a moment unavoidable."
They broke camp before dawn.
Mist still clung to the ground as they moved north, following a forgotten trade road that no longer appeared on any map. Kael walked ahead, shadow stretched thin and alert, while Lirien kept close to Sang Sang, reinforcing her temporal boundaries with quiet precision.
By midday, the pressure worsened.
Sang Sang felt it first—a heaviness behind her eyes, a dragging sensation in her bones. Every step felt fractionally delayed, as if the world were resisting her movement.
"Kael," she said. "Something's wrong."
He stopped instantly.
The air ahead of them shimmered.
Not like heat.
Like hesitation.
The road twisted, folding inward on itself, looping through the same stretch of cracked stone over and over. Darius swore. "We've been walking straight."
"We have," Lirien said. "The road hasn't."
A figure stood at the center of the distortion.
Tall. Motionless. Cloaked in pale fabric that reflected the sky but not the ground. Its face was smooth and featureless, yet Sang Sang felt its attention lock onto her with crushing intensity.
"Anchor," Kael muttered.
The figure raised one hand.
Time slammed shut.
Darius froze mid-step, muscles locked. Lirien's runes flickered wildly before stalling, half-formed symbols hanging uselessly in the air. Even Kael staggered, shadow compressing painfully back into his body.
Only Sang Sang could move.
She took a step forward, legs trembling.
The anchor tilted its head.
"Anomaly confirmed," it said, voice echoing from several seconds at once. "You persist beyond projected termination."
"I didn't choose this," Sang Sang said, forcing the words out. "You dragged me into it."
"Incorrect," the anchor replied. "You were selected. Probability favored your fracture."
Anger flared hot and sharp. "I'm not broken."
The anchor's hand lowered.
The world lurched.
Sang Sang felt the pull—an invisible force dragging her backward through branching moments, toward a future where she did not survive. Images flashed violently: her body cold on stone, Kael screaming, the world correcting itself with brutal efficiency.
"No," she whispered.
She reached.
Not outward.
Backward.
She grabbed hold of the instant just before the anchor's hand had moved.
And she refused to let go.
The air screamed.
Kael felt it like a blade ripping through his spine. Shadow exploded outward instinctively, slamming into the frozen world with raw, uncontrolled force. Cracks spiderwebbed through the distortion as he forced motion back into existence.
"NOW," he roared.
Lirien reacted instantly, pouring every remaining reserve into a destabilization sigil. Darius tore free, charging with a shout as his blade ignited with suppressed energy.
Sang Sang pushed.
She didn't try to destroy the anchor.
She displaced it.
She shoved its existence sideways, into a moment where it had never arrived.
The anchor convulsed.
For the first time, it screamed.
The sound collapsed into silence as its form unraveled, scattering into pale motes that evaporated before touching the ground.
The road snapped back into place.
Everyone fell to their knees.
Sang Sang collapsed forward, vision dimming.
Kael caught her again.
This time, his hands shook.
Lirien looked up slowly, fear naked in her eyes. "She didn't just resist it."
Darius wiped blood from his mouth. "She beat it."
Kael stared down at Sang Sang's unconscious form.
"No," he said quietly. "She rewrote it."
Far beyond the world, alarms cascaded through systems that had not been challenged in millennia.
Anchor unit lost.
Causality deviation exceeding tolerance.
Subject Sang Sang reclassified.
Priority elevated to absolute.
Kael felt the shift even without seeing it.
The hunt was no longer reactive.
It was personal.
As night fell again, they hid beneath the ruins of an old watchtower. Sang Sang slept fitfully, her dreams bleeding faint distortions into the air around her.
Kael did not sleep.
He watched the horizon, every sense stretched thin, knowing with terrible certainty that the future was no longer merely watching them.
It was coming.