The pressure in Aaron's shoulder was reaching its peak. His bones creaked. His sinew screamed. Saint-Gorath's grip was unrelenting—his face tilted with curiosity, a butcher considering how best to carve.
"What about a bigger wound... bigger wound... bigger..."
Then a voice rang out.
Deep. It cut through the space like iron through wool. The syllables carried weight, a resonance that somehow seemed older than even the stone beneath them.
"Gorath," the voice said, casual, almost weary. "I think you've had your fun."
The words stopped Gorath's hand mid-motion.
"Go to your designated mission… or face Locked Pilgrimage."
Gorath twitched.
He looked... reluctant.
A silence followed. The thick kind—like the world itself was bracing.
Then he appeared.
Three seconds before it would have all snapped.
Aaron didn't know how he knew that. But he did know.
The figure walked in from nowhere—not from a door, not from a path. He simply stepped out of before. Like the moment had been waiting for him to catch up.
Tall. Cloaked in a robe of black-copper threads that shimmered faintly like oil in water. A cracked hourglass mask covered his face, its surface clouded by fine dust. Tiny bells were stitched along the hem of his cloak. They didn't jingle. They clinked, like metal tapping glass in a quiet cathedral.
Cardinal-Syncrator Vel Xarn.
The People that met Vel Xarn weren't always a coincidence. They will notice he'd been present after something had gone terribly wrong.
Warden of the Fifth Reversal. Auditor of Timeline Heresies. Cloaked in the Bells of Recall.
Ordo Chronoclastica—one of the secret orders buried under the Cathedral's more public face. They watched the cracks in time. Plugged them when they could. Burned those who slipped through.
Vel Xarn raised his hand.
Two fingers extended.
A snap.
And then—a bell sound, high and sweet, like a memory being rung into shape.
Color surged back into the room. Like paint thrown over grayscale. The light returned. Warmth hit Aaron's skin. The air stopped buzzing.
Saint-Gorath laughed. A breathless, stitched-up chortle that didn't come from his mouth but echoed from somewhere else.
Then he dropped Aaron.
Aaron fell, knees hitting the stone. His lungs finally obeyed. He gasped and heaved in air, like someone who'd been underwater for too long.
His vision swam. Every inch of him burned. His finger still throbbed.
Gorath shifted.
He lunged.
But Vel Xarn was ready.
He held up a relic, a cracked, suspended hourglass, bound in etched copper and stitched leather. The moment it rose, it tinged—a sound too pure for the broken space it echoed in.
The Saint stopped mid-lunge.
Then—moved backward.
Not like he'd changed his mind.
But like he was being undone.
He retracted in smooth, reversed motion, like a reel running backward. His feet glided back. His censer swung the wrong way. His hand unwrapped from the air. His form slid back to the threshold of the chamber.
The door slammed shut behind him.
Silence.
Vel Xarn turned to Aaron.
"My name," he said in reversed scripture, though Aaron somehow understood, "is Cardinal-Syncrator Vel Xarn. I am the Warden of the Fifth Reversal. Auditor of Timeline Heresies. You may breathe now."
Aaron did, but barely.
He turned his head.
Khaline's body lay crumpled where Gorath had dropped her. She wasn't moving.
No breath.
Her eyes open, glassy, blood at her ears and her tongue missing.
Aaron blinked twice.
Still dead.
He looked back at Vel Xarn.
"Cardinal-Syncrator Vel Xarn," Aaron croaked, voice raw. "The guy who's supposed to be monitoring Saint-Gorath…"
His voice rose.
"Why the hell did you let him loose—"
Vel Xarn raised a finger. He placed it gently, playfully, against Aaron's lips.
"Shush," he said, smiling behind the cracked glass. "That's not how a saint should talk to a cardinal. You might get… marked."
Aaron stared, too exhausted to argue.
Vel Xarn let the humor fade. His tone dropped low.
"I'll make it up to you."
Then he extended his hand, holding it in a ready snap.
"Meet me at Lanternum."
The fingers closed.
Snap.
******
Aaron blinked.
He was sitting.
His breath caught in his throat.
A knife in one hand. A wooden toy in the other.
The basement altar. The light above. The dusty floor.
Everything was… normal?
He blinked again. Air rushed into his lungs like he'd just been yanked through a tube.
He dropped the knife.
Then the toy.
His hands trembled. The sensation in his stomach, like he'd been spun and squeezed and hung upside down in his own skin—made him gag. He bent forward, nearly retching, gripping the edge of the table for balance.
His breath came in heavy, broken gasps.
A shadow moved.
He looked up.
It was Khaline.
She was standing nearby, still watchful and cautious.
Then she turned to him, eyes widening.
"My lord!" she said, running over. "Are you ok—?"
Aaron stared.
His mind screamed.
She's alive. Alive. She's not dead. Her tongue... her eyes...
He grabbed her wrist.
Not too hard. Just enough to feel her pulse…Still warm.
I'm back…I'm back. He just reversed time…
Khaline knelt beside him, one hand on his back.
"My lord, you're pale. You dropped your tools. What's—?"
Aaron looked at her.
Then looked at the figurine on the floor.
Then laughed.
Short and bitter.
"I TAKE IT BACK!" he shouted, startling her.
Khaline recoiled slightly.
"I HATE THIS VERSE!"
The words echoed down the stone corridor, bouncing like thrown coins.
Khaline blinked at him.
"My lord?"
Aaron wiped his face with both hands.
He had no answer.
Just the memory of blood and gray air and a cracked hourglass chiming like bells in a storm.
*********
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[Relic: The Chronoseal of Vel Xarn]
Also Known As: The Moment-Censer, Vel Xarn's Five-Minute Mercy, The Finger of Undoing
(A warped censer-relic fused with chrono-glass and sanctified bone, suspended by a chain of ouroboric rosary-links. The relic constantly exhales pale incense in the shape of backward-moving script. Within its core spins a suspended fragment of pre-Velorian time, an impossible shard of the Moment Before Sin, preserved through apocryphal sacrifice.)
The Chronoseal is not worn. It orbits Vel Xarn at all times, like a relic-satellite, occasionally emitting chimes in reverse.
Primary Effect: Temporal Reversion
With a snap of his gloved fingers and a whispered prayer ("Let the Hour Bleed Backward"), Cardinal Vel Xarn can trigger the Chronoseal's effect: a short-range, localized time reversal, returning everything within its sphere to the exact state it was in five minutes prior.
Radius of Effect: ~28 meters (approx. the size of a full basketball court) centered on Vel Xarn.
Time Reversal Limit: Only the last 5 minutes. Cannot be stacked or extended.
Scope: Affects biological entities, matter, and psychic states, Vel Xarn can dictate wo remembers and who doesn't. Memories outside the radius are not erased, causing disturbing temporal dissonance for those partially inside the field.
Limitation: Usable three times per day before the relic must be ritually recharged via a blood-and-incense rite performed by the Chronomancer Choir.
Warning:
Extended exposure to the Chronoseal's field causes "Time Sickness", symptoms include nosebleeds, paradox hallucinations, and a phenomenon known as Remembered Undoing, where the soul briefly recalls alternate timelines that no longer exist.