The morning sun over the Refined Whispering Glades was a cruel beauty. It didn't
care that my heart was currently being shredded by the sound of a ticking clock
that only I could hear. It didn't care that the brass gear lying on the stone
floor of the Sovereign's Terrace was a shard of a future I wasn't sure I could
prevent. It simply cast its golden light over the silver-white leaves of the
trees, making the world look perfect while the foundations were beginning to
rot.
I sat in a chair carved from living iron-wood, my hands trembling as they rested
on the silk-covered swell of my lap. Aidan was finally asleep, tucked into the
silver cradle that still hummed with the protective resonance of Kaelum's soul.
But every few seconds, my son's chest would give a small, rhythmic hitch, and a
faint violet mist would escape his lips. The "Crystalline Cough" was gone, but
the Temporal Residue remained.
Kaelen stood by the railing, his back to me. He hadn't shifted out of his
