The world had stopped pretending to be normal.
Mael stood in the middle of the corridor, surrounded by bodies that were still mid-motion — frozen, trembling like frames caught in the teeth of a film reel. Blood hung in the air, suspended in arcs that shimmered under the dying light. Shattered glass floated halfway to the ground. Even the sound of breathing had paused, stretched thin.
He hadn't meant to do it.
He could feel the dial humming under his skin. It wasn't cold anymore — it was alive, vibrating through the bones of his wrist like a second pulse trying to overtake his own. Every time the relic sang, the world shivered to match its rhythm.
The countdown that had been echoing — five… four… three… — had gone silent. Time had obeyed.
For now.
Mael turned his head slowly. Every detail came to him clearer than it ever had — dust glinting like stars, the tremor in Raal's arm mid-swing, the panic locked in a soldier's half-open mouth. It was all perfect. Too perfect.
He raised his right hand. It felt heavy, like it was moving through water. The hairline crack across the dial gleamed faintly, tracing up his wrist. The edges of the metal had begun to merge with his skin. It didn't hurt — it just felt inevitable.
He exhaled, and even his breath sounded delayed, like the air was waiting for his permission to move.
"Ten seconds," he murmured.
That's all he had stolen — ten seconds.
He closed his eyes. The silence inside the stillness was complete. For the first time in years, the noise of the city wasn't there to drown him. Only the slow, perfect hum of the dial.
He could choose now. Which second to keep. Which one to let go.
A thought crossed his mind — simple, clinical, dangerous. If time listens, can it learn?
He pushed the idea away. Philosophy was for people who hadn't watched men die twice.
The air rippled. The frozen droplets began to fall again, the soldiers resumed mid-scream, the twins stumbled forward — all unaware that the world had just lost ten seconds of memory.
Mael flexed his fingers once. His glove smoked faintly, the fabric eaten away. Beneath it, his skin had turned pale silver, like metal cooled after forging.
He hated when power left marks. It meant it wasn't finished.
"Move," he ordered quietly.
The others obeyed immediately. Even in the madness, they could sense something had changed in him — that the calm in his voice wasn't calm at all, it was the edge of exhaustion shaped into control.
Raal limped past him, the glyphs on his skin still glowing faintly. "You did that," he said under his breath. Not accusation. Just observation.
Mael didn't answer. There was no point. The question had no clean shape anymore.
He looked down the corridor. The walls had begun to warp — bending inward, then snapping back. The Kernel was awake now, whispering its rhythm through the stone. Every breath the city took would now follow his timing.
He couldn't tell if that was victory or infection.
"Keep moving," Mael said again, sharper this time.
The Ninefold obeyed, dragging their wounded and stepping over corpses that looked newer than they should have been. As they advanced, the world behind them pulsed once, like a heartbeat out of place.
Mael didn't look back.
The cracks on the dial deepened — and when he flexed his wrist, the relic hummed again, faint but insistent. Almost eager.
He stared at it for a long moment, his face unreadable. Then he whispered to himself,
"Next time, I'll make it twelve."
And the hum beneath the city seemed to agree.
---