A week passed. The dust from Prince Cassian's humiliating departure had settled, but the air in the academy remained charged. The encounter with the robed man—the one with the scorpion gesture—had left a mark on the fabric of my peaceful existence, a tiny crack I couldn't simply rewind away.
I found myself, more than usual, observing the flow of time around me. Not the grand currents I could command, but the subtle eddies and whispers. And I started to notice… inconsistencies. A dropped quill that took a fraction of a second too long to hit the floor. The echo of a laugh that seemed to repeat itself just once, too softly for normal ears to catch. They were ghosts of manipulations, residues of a power that was not my own.
Someone else was touching the threads of time. And they were being careful. Sloppy enough for me to detect, but skilled enough to leave no clear trail. It was a message. A challenge.
My primary source of distraction, thankfully, remained Kael. His ego, inflated by the official narrative of his "heroics" during the Anomaly attack, had reached stratospheric levels. He now walked the halls as if he owned them, his earth magic used for petty displays like raising small platforms to step over puddles… or to look down on me.
"Watch it, Null," he grunted as I mopped the main stairwell, deliberately scuffing his muddy boot on the step I had just cleaned.
I gave him my best vacant smile. "Sorry, Kael. Wouldn't want to delay a hero."
He puffed out his chest. "You're lucky we have people like me to protect this place. You'd be Anomaly food without us."
If only you knew, I thought, that the "Anomaly food" was the one ensuring the floor you're sullying is spotless. But I just nodded, my expression one of simple-minded gratitude. "We're all very grateful."
He sneered and continued his grand ascent. As he reached the top, I decided a minor recalibration of his ego was in order. Not a grand temporal rewrite, just a nudge. I focused on the small, loose stone his showy earth magic had left on the top step. I didn't stop time. I just… greased the wheels of causality. I increased the probability, to near certainty, that his next step would land on it at the perfect angle.
His foot came down. The stone rolled.
With a yelp that was immensely satisfying, the great "hero" Kael pinwheeled his arms and tumbled down three steps, landing in an undignified heap at my feet.
I looked down at him, mop in hand. "You should be careful, Kael. The floors can be slippery."
The laughter from the other students in the hall was like music. His face, red with fury and humiliation, was the crescendo. He scrambled up and fled, the spell of his invincibility momentarily broken.
It was a small, petty victory. But it felt good.
Later, in the deepest part of the library archives—a section even I had to pause time to properly dust—I found her. Princess Seraphina was waiting for me, a large, ancient tome open on the table before her. She didn't look up as I approached.
"The Scorpion of the Shattered Hourglass," she said, her voice low and serious. She tapped an illustration in the book. It depicted the same symbol the robed man had gestured: a scorpion, its tail arched, poised to strike a broken hourglass.
"Charming fellows," I remarked, leaning on my mop. "What's their story?"
"They're a cult, or a secret society. Historians debate which," she explained, her finger tracing the ancient text. "They don't believe time is a river to be sailed. They believe it's a fortress to be stormed and conquered. They seek absolute dominion over the past, present, and future. They believe any use of temporal power, no matter how small, creates a 'fracture' they can track."
That explained the subtle "inconsistencies" I'd felt. They weren't accidents. They were breadcrumbs.
"And the man with Cassian?" I asked.
"An agent. A Seeker. His job is to find these fractures. Cassian's ridiculous necklace was just a pretext, a blunt instrument. The Seeker was the real threat. He confirmed the presence of a powerful temporal artifact—you—in the academy."
"So, they're hunting me."
"They're hunting the power they felt when you closed the rift and unmade the Anomalies," she corrected, finally looking at me. Her amethyst eyes were hard. "They don't know you're a person. They think you're a thing. A weapon to be captured and controlled."
A weapon. The word hung in the dusty air. It was a far cry from a janitor.
"What do you suggest?" I asked, curious to hear her strategy.
"We use their arrogance against them," she said, a sharp, calculating glint in her eyes. "They're looking for a monumental power source. So, we give them a decoy. A flashy, obvious, but ultimately fake, temporal event. While they're investigating that, we find them."
It was a good plan. Risky, but clever. It played to my strengths: misdirection and control.
"Where and when?"
"The Royal Gala," she said without hesitation. "In two weeks. Every noble, diplomat, and power-player in the kingdoms will be there. It's the perfect stage for a grand distraction. And the perfect hunting ground for them… and for us."
I nodded slowly. A gala. A room full of the most self-important people in the world, all gathered in one place. The comedic potential alone was tempting.
"Alright," I agreed. "We'll give them a show."
As I turned to leave, my mop bucket "accidentally" tipped over, the soapy water spreading across the floor. Seraphina raised an eyebrow.
"Clumsy me," I said with a shrug.
But as the water flowed, I paused it for a single, frozen second, shaping it. When time resumed, the spilled water had formed a perfect, shimmering image of the scorpion symbol on the stone floor, before draining away.
Seraphina stared at the spot, then back at me, a new level of understanding in her gaze.
The message was clear. I wasn't just a force to be hidden. I was a will to be reckoned with. The Scorpion thought they were hunting a weapon.
They were about to learn they had poked a god.
And this god was going to make their hunt very, very interesting.