The Guardian’s Echo

The North Star: Soren

The estate was now a bigger beacon than it ever had been before. It wouldn’t just be the shadows now. Every temporal predator in Aethelgard now knew the Ashendor heir had come home. The clock had settled back into its rhythmic tick, but the air felt different now. There was a frailty to the atmosphere that hadn’t existed before.

There was a chill that had nothing to do with the draft in the ruined house. I moved to the window. The spidery shadows had receded further back, but I didn’t trust them. A movement near the old stables caught my attention. A figure, completely shrouded in black moved, then froze, then moved again. It was jerky and unnatural, much like the remnant from yesterday, yet at the same time, it was different. This wasn’t just a projection.

“Penny, stay here,” I warned, drawing my sword before I’d even left the room. I charged into the courtyard where the figure still was. In the space between us, the air seemed to shimmer and distort, and I was reminded of the figure from the inn.

As I closed the distance, a grey light started to flare out from me, coating my blade in a dull, metallic sheen. I swung, but I didn’t hit flesh. The figure didn’t even try to parry the blade, it just flickered as my sword sliced through it. A numbing shock of cold ran through my arm.

Up close, the figure had no face. There was just a void where a head should be, framed by a hood that seemed made of darkness itself. It emitted a sound like a low-frequency vibration that I felt in my teeth.

Suddenly, the figure’s head snapped up, as if it were looking past me. I could barely afford a glance over my shoulder, keeping my sword held in a defensive position. Despite my warning, Penny had left the workshop, and now stood on the steps of the manor.

The hum intensified, becoming a screech that scraped against my eardrums. Penny’s presence seemed to be a magnet, drawing the figure’s attention to her, and forgetting me entirely. As much as I wanted her to run, to lock herself back inside, the military strategist in me immediately noticed how the figure’s form started to solidify. The air around it was stabilizing.

“Penny, stay back!” I yelled, even as I took advantage of the moment, and struck again. This time, the steel connected with a sickening crack. The figure bled a viscous, silver liquid that reminded me of mercury.

The figure fell, but it wasn’t alone. More shimmering figures materialized in the courtyard. The statues on the edge of the courtyard’s garden began to weep the same silver liquid from their blank eyes. We were being encircled. The figures ignored me though as they moved in a coordinated, slow-motion pincer movement toward Penny.

I sheathed my sword and ran up the steps, knocking a couple of the figures over in the process. I grabbed Penny around the waist and hauled her back inside. I slammed the massive, heavy oak doors shut, and slid the heavy iron bolt into place. The doors thudded, the sound echoing like it was being hit by a battering ram. The thuds were followed by hundreds of tiny scratching sounds, like nails scraping against the wood.

I was breathing hard. My gauntlets were stained with the silver blood of the figure I’d slain. Penny looked at the door, her hand resting on her pockets over the key. “It’s not just a home,” she breathed. “It’s a weapon.”

She started moving suddenly, heading for a darkened door. “Penny, what are you doing?” I asked, though I was already following her before the words left my mouth.

“The caves,” she whispered, her eyes glowing with a sudden, intense lavender light. “Soren, the house has a basement, and it leads to the Silver Run.”

Before she could reach the door, another voice filled the room. It didn’t come from a Temporal Remnant or a Chronos Trap this time. It was a voice lost in time, drifting through the walls. It wasn’t loud either, it was like a whisper working its way directly into our minds.

It had a melodic, crystalline quality, but there was a faint, rhythmic ticking to each syllable. “You’ve played your part well, little bird,” the voice said. “You wound the clock and brought the beat back to a heart that stopped two hundred years ago.”

As the voice spoke, the lavender light in Penny’s skin began to pulse in time with the words. She started moving back to the center of the Great Hall. I stepped in front of her, my hands on her shoulders to stop her.

“Show yourself!” I called out to the empty air, while I created a static field around Penny to protect her from the voice.

The voice laughed, sounding like broken glass. “General… you are a relic of a timeline that shouldn’t exist. You’re guarding a grave, and calling it a kingdom. Penny… this isn’t destruction, but healing. We can go back, we can make sure Rosariel never has to leave. Your father will grow up here in the Highlands, where you belong.”

“Penny, don’t listen to her,” I begged, not even trying to hide the desperation in my voice. “She’s not talking about a rewind. She’s talking about deletion. Anya won’t exist. The world that you know won’t exist.”

Penny finally looked at me. The blank expression on her face finally started to shift into something more aware. Her brows pulled together, the light returned to her eyes. She understood the cost of the lie being offered to her now.

The scratching on the doors intensified as the silver liquid began to seep through the cracks in the wood. The house wasn’t a sanctuary anymore. If it ever really had been.