Time: UNKNOWN — The Stilled Battlefield of Ardentvale.
The air was thick with ash and frozen screams. Soldiers were suspended mid-slash, mid-scream, mid-death—locked in a time fracture so cruel it turned a single battle into a never-ending painting of suffering.
Kael stood amidst them, barely breathing.
Beside him, Lira Morwyn trudged forward in silence. Her relic blade, Oathbreaker, pulsed faintly—its edge sharp enough to sever time itself. She was quiet, but her grip on the hilt was too tight.
"This was my war," she finally said. "This is where I died."
Kael turned. "What do you mean 'died'?"
She stopped walking.
Then looked at him with a tired, broken smile. "I was meant to die here. In this battle. Saving people that didn't even remember my name."
He couldn't speak. She continued.
"The Clocktower pulled me out right before it happened. They said I was 'too valuable to waste.'" Her voice cracked. "So they ripped me from the timeline. Everyone I loved? Gone. I was never supposed to live past nineteen."
A soldier's blade hovered inches from her face — unmoving, unfeeling.
Kael finally whispered, "I'm sorry."
"No," she said, shaking her head. "Don't be. That's not the worst part."
She pointed toward the heart of the battlefield — to a blood-soaked banner stuck in the mud.
"That's me. Over there. Still dying. Every day."
They reached her corpse.
Or what remained of it.
It had no face. Just a broken, burning helmet and a hand still gripping a shattered relic sword. And just beside her was a small girl—half-burned, shielding Lira's fallen body. Frozen in the act of trying to save her.
Kael fell to one knee.
"That… That's your sister?"
Lira nodded. "She ran onto the battlefield. I told her to stay hidden. She never listened."
Kael stood up slowly, his voice low. "We can fix this."
Lira didn't move.
"You can't fix a timeline, Kael. You can only break it a different way."
Meanwhile, back in the Clocktower Bastion, Finn sat in the war room, rewiring one of Kael's broken relics when he found… a recording.
Static. A flash. Then:
A younger Kael. Bloody. Screaming."Do it, Finn! Erase my memory—NOW! I saw it—I SAW WHAT I BECOME!"
Finn dropped the relic. His breath caught in his throat.
"I erased him…" he whispered. "I erased who he was."
Back at the battlefield…
Kael placed his hand on Lira's shoulder. "You saved her, Lira. Even if she didn't live. Even if you died doing it. You made a choice."
Lira didn't respond. Instead, she pulled out her relic blade and turned to face him.
"I'm sorry, Kael," she said. "But this is where I leave you."
"What? No—wait—Lira!"
She sliced the air open.
A time fissure ripped reality apart like silk.
"I'm going back," she said. "To the moment before she ran out. I'm cutting that second right out of time."
Kael shook his head violently. "You'll unravel! You'll split your soul across timelines!"
Lira smiled softly, tears in her eyes.
"Better than living in a world where she dies."
She stepped through.
And vanished.
In the silence that followed, Kael dropped to his knees.
Aelira appeared behind him, ghostlike.
"You can't save everyone," she said.
He didn't look at her.
"You told me the Prime Clock could fix everything."
She knelt beside him, voice calm, almost maternal.
"No. I told you it resets everything. There's a difference."
He turned to her, eyes filled with rage and heartbreak.
"Then what the hell am I fighting for?"
She touched his face gently.
"For the people who remember."
In the void beyond time, Lira walked through fractured seconds, bleeding from the edges of her own soul. Each second she cut to get closer to her sister pulled more of her apart.
And still… she walked.