Chapter 4: The Shadow of the Spire
268 Words
They ran across the chiming dunes, but the melody of the sand had turned into a funeral dirge. Kalu led the way, his knowledge of the glass-flats keeping them from falling into the deepening fissures of the Bleed. Behind them, Valen moved like a whirlwind of steel, his broken blade somehow cutting through the misty forms of the Echoes.
"We can't go to the Palace!" Kalu shouted over the howling wind. "The Priestess has the Solar Guard. They’ll execute us before we even reach the gates!"
"They won't see us," Kaelia said, her amber eye twitching. The two timelines were overlapping so heavily now that she could see paths where the air was thin and the light was broken. "I can see the gaps. I can see where the time is softest."
She veered left, leading them toward a canyon of jagged crystal that led to the palace’s lower aqueducts. As they entered the shadows of the canyon, the temperature plummeted. The Glow-Silk on Kaelia’s tunic dimmed to a ghostly violet.
Valen caught up to them, his breath coming in ragged gasps. "The crown... it's getting heavier, isn't it?"
Kaelia looked down. The silver circlet was no longer just metal; it was beginning to pulse with a dark, rhythmic heart. "It’s feeding," she whispered. "It’s drinking the 'now' to pay for the 'then.'"
"Then we have to hurry," Valen said, his eyes softening for a fleeting second as he looked at her. "In my world, you died trying to stop this. I won't let the song end the same way twice."
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