Time had never been a friend to Rowan.
As a warrior, he measured life in seasons of war and scars earned.
But ever since the Hollow Gate opened and the third moon rose, time no longer moved forward.
It fractured.
---
The signs came slowly.
A bird frozen mid-flight.
A fire that would not burn out.
Naeria waking in the same breath, gasping the same nightmare, four mornings in a row.
And then—on the fifth day—she woke and whispered:
> "We're not just haunted. We're looping."
---
Selene gathered them.
Around the campfire, beneath the crescent of the third moon, the truth bled through.
"We shattered prophecy," she said. "But prophecy was just a container. Time was its spine. And now it's… unraveling."
Rowan stared into the flames. "What happens when time breaks?"
Naeria answered softly, "It demands to be fed."
---
That night, Rowan stood watch.
The stars above flickered between constellations.
One moment he saw the familiar twins of Elira's birth sky.
The next—it was a field of unmapped stars.
He turned—and found a girl watching him.
Not a stranger.
Elira.
But not his Elira.
Her eyes were void-black. Her skin shimmered in and out of form.
She smiled faintly. "Not yet," she whispered. Then vanished into the dark.
---
The next morning, Naeria found the map charred.
But only the section leading east.
"To the Hollow Cradle," she murmured. "Where the first god died."
Rowan looked at her.
"Or sleeps."
---
They left before noon.
Selene and Kael stayed behind to protect the twins—both still shifting in and out of light and dream. Theron barely spoke now. Elira sketched stars in the dirt, whispering riddles only the third moon understood.
So it was Rowan and Naeria who rode out alone.
Toward a place where time had teeth.
---
The Hollow Cradle was less a location than a wound.
Mountains bowed around it, trees refused to grow near it, and even the wind passed by in silence.
In the center: an obsidian dome, cracked and ancient, half-swallowed by ash.
Naeria dismounted first. "This is where the god of endings was buried."
Rowan followed, sword drawn. "The one who whispered the Hollow Star prophecy?"
"No," she said. "The one who wrote it."
---
Inside the dome, time collapsed.
Steps turned into sand.
Walls shifted into reflections.
They moved forward—but also backward.
Naeria chanted an old spell, placing a silver coin over each of their hearts. "To anchor our presence in this moment," she warned.
Rowan nodded. "Good. I hate losing myself."
---
They reached the center of the ruin.
A pedestal of cracked stone.
And floating above it—
An hourglass.
But its sand fell upward.
Rowan stared. "That's…"
"The Broken Hourglass," Naeria whispered. "The last breath of the first god. Time, undone."
---
A voice echoed around them.
Old. Hollow. Soft.
> "Who steals what was never theirs must answer what was never asked."
Rowan raised his sword.
Naeria lifted a ward.
And from the shadows—
A figure emerged.
---
It had no face.
Just rings of time spiraling across its skin. Its body ticked like a clock. Its fingers dripped sand.
It bowed to them.
"I am the Watcher of the End," it said. "Bound by oath, forgotten by stars."
Naeria stepped forward. "We seek the truth behind the Hollow Star. Why it was created."
The Watcher tilted its head.
> "To slow the decay of fate. To give mortals one last rebellion before all returns to ash."
---
Rowan narrowed his eyes. "And Selene? What is she to you?"
The Watcher paused.
> "She is the error. The miracle. The one who cracked the pattern."
Naeria asked, "Then why is time collapsing now?"
> "Because her choice shattered the scaffolding of fate. The star remains—but the hourglass is empty."
---
Rowan looked at the floating artifact.
The sand inside had stopped.
> "Then what happens next?" he asked.
The Watcher turned its hollow gaze on him.
> "You refill the hourglass—or you let time end."
---
Naeria's voice trembled. "How do we refill it?"
The Watcher opened its hands.
From within them: a sliver of memory. Twisting, alive. A moment lost from the past.
> "Every act of selflessness, every true sacrifice, becomes a grain of time. One moment can delay the end."
Rowan stared at the memory.
His mother's laugh.
He hadn't heard it in years.
He reached for it.
It burned—but it sank into the hourglass.
The sand shifted.
---
Naeria offered a spell.
Her first spell. Cast when she was ten, just to make her father smile.
It glowed with old warmth.
It vanished into the hourglass.
And time ticked forward once more.
---
"We have to tell Selene," Rowan said.
But the Watcher raised a hand.
> "No. You must return this knowledge slowly. For her to know the hourglass can be refilled—means she might try to fill it alone. And that will consume her."
Naeria frowned. "Then what do we do?"
> "Live. And in living with love, with memory, you feed time itself."
---
Rowan turned back as they left.
The hourglass still floated.
Not full.
But no longer empty.
And above it, the third moon flickered.
As if watching.
Waiting.
---
They returned to camp just before twilight.
Selene greeted them with red-rimmed eyes. "They've stopped changing."
Elira slept peacefully.
Theron drew birds.
Kael smiled faintly.
And for a moment, time held its breath.
Then—
It resumed.