The girl's thorn-scarred palms glimmered like wet rubies in the lantern light. Jaren's breath hitched as her fingers brushed his wrist—a touch colder than winter graves. "The whisper isn't just a voice," she said, her amber eyes reflecting the vanished rose's inky petals. "It's a bargain. And you've already paid."
Her words slithered into his skull, sharpening the hum in his bones to a scream.
Lyra's voice flickered between a girl's defiance and a rasping growl that smelled of burnt roses. She claimed to be a "gardener of echoes," tasked with pruning timelines Gideon deemed "rotten." When Jaren demanded answers, her pupils dilated into black roses.
"You're the rot now," Gideon's voice hissed through her lips. "And rot feeds the roots."
Jaren stumbled back, lantern light trembling. "What did I bargain for?"
Lyra's laugh fractured into two tones—her own and Gideon's. "A second chance. A weakness." Her crimson-streaked hair darkened as thorns sprouted along her collarbone. "He's been waiting for someone stubborn enough to claw through time… and stupid enough to think they could win."
The trees pulsed like living organs. Roots coiled into serpents that gnawed at Jaren's boots. Bark peeled away, revealing flesh-like pulp oozing amber sap. The air thickened with the reek of iron and decay, warping time itself. A moth flew past Jaren's face, disintegrating to ash mid-flight.
Lyra pressed her palm to a tree trunk. "This isn't a forest. It's a wound." The sap bubbled black, etching glyphs into her skin. "Gideon's realm bleeds into yours. Every step you take here…" She glanced at Jaren's shadow, now twisted into a gnarled vine. "...roots you deeper."
Jaren's veins darkened, branching like thorned vines beneath his skin. Pain seared his ribs as a metallic taste flooded his mouth—rust. Lyra pressed a hand to his chest, her touch freezing the corruption's spread.
"Your mother was right… but it's too late for right," she said, her hair streaking with gray. "Resist, and the thorns will crack your ribs. Submit, and Gideon will hollow you into a puppet. Either way, you'll scream."
Lyra seized Jaren's wrist, her thorns piercing his flesh. The world dissolved into a vision:
The golden-scarred man from Jaren's earlier vision writhed in a chamber of mirrors, half-consumed by metallic decay. He clawed at his chest, tearing free a locket shaped like a rose—identical to the one Jaren touched. A woman's voice (Lira) echoed: "Don't let him become the Thief! Burn the locket, burn it all—"
The vision shattered as Lyra's voice deepened into Gideon's: "You'll beg to be my puppet before the rot takes your tongue, boy."
Jaren recoiled, vomiting black petals.
Lyra collapsed, blood trickling from her nostrils. The forest floor split with a sound like snapping bones, disgorging a figure wrapped in ash-streaked bandages—Varyn's reanimated corpse, Lira's locket glowing in its ribcage. Its jaw unhinged, spewing black roses that swarmed toward Jaren.
"Run," Lyra gasped, her crimson hair wilting to gray. "He's rewritten the roots. The whole forest is his hourglass now." Varyn's corpse lunges, roses erupting from its ribs. Lyra's hair turns fully gray as she whispers, "The hourglass is you."