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There was no strike, no blow—just a brutal rending that started in his chest and spread outward.

Skye staggered, clawing at his ribs as though he could keep the halves from splitting.

He gasped, but the air wouldn’t come.

It was impossible to breathe through the raw, jagged agony that tore clean through him.

His vision fractured. The world lurched sideways as his knees buckled, and that place where she had lived—he felt it go.

Everything in him howled with the jagged, hollow scream of being unmade.

Skye opened his mouth to echo it—

“What the shit?”

Skye came to slowly to find Kato leaning over him. He must’ve blacked out. It was the only explanation he could come up with for how he ended up sprawled on Ivain’s study floor.

“Hey, c’mon now. I know the damsel has been spirited off yet again, but this is no time to lose your shit.”

If only it were that simple. Skye felt gutted—split wide open, jagged edges scraping in the wind. His body couldn’t make sense of it, couldn’t even begin to grasp what had been lost.

“Skye.” Ivain’s face was a mask of concern. “ Say something .”

But Skye’s mouth gaped, trying to form the words, trying to remember how.

The bond… It was…

“She’s gone,” he gasped. “The bond—it’s… gone.”

Before it had just been flashes—Taly was far away, but she’d still been pushing through images, as many as she could.

He’d seen red dirt and heaps of scrap. The ranks of an undead army.

Kato paled. “This isn’t the time to fuck around.”

Skye shoved him off. “I’m not fucking with you!” he all but snarled.

As if the panic of coming back to find everyone in the house spelled and Taly gone hadn’t already been eating him alive, now… now she was truly gone.

As in gone gone—as in possibly dead.

“No,” Ivain said, his voice tight with forced calm. “That doesn’t mean…” But he couldn’t finish.

The world drained of color and sound. Skye heard the worried voices of Ivain and Kato around him, but he was numb to it.

His vision blurred with tears as all those grand plans they’d been hastily putting together—to gather troops, to march on the Aion Gate and take her back—faded into impossibility.

He couldn’t breathe around the pain—around the yawning, gaping hole in his soul .

Dead.

The finality of it clawed at him.

He’d tried so hard, done everything, held back nothing , and yet still he’d ended up here.

“No…” His fists clenched. He’d made this mistake before.

Don’t count Taly out until there’s a body—that was now rule number one.

Skye swayed as he rose, grasping at anything nearby for support. His legs trembled as if they might collapse at any moment. “I’m going after her.”

“Going in without a plan is a death sentence,” Ivain countered. “The fact of the matter still stands—we’re outnumbered and outmatched. Aneirin’s forces don’t die, don’t tire; they don’t stop fighting when injured.”

All points they’d already argued at length.

“I don’t care,” Skye gritted out, forcing himself to push through the ache .

“Don’t be stupid.” Kato grabbed his arm, but Skye pushed him off.

“Get out of my way,” he growled.

But Kato reached for him again, this time grabbing both shoulders. “Even if she’s still alive, you’re in no shape to help her right now. You’ll just get yourself killed.”

“Oh, like you care.”

“Fuck you, you little runt.”

They grappled, arms and limbs tangling. Now was the wrong time for Kato to suddenly decide he gave a damn. Taly was gone, and right now—

“Well, isn’t this a pickle,” a familiar voice said.

Immediately, everyone in the room went still.

All eyes turned to where Cori lounged behind Ivain’s desk, boots propped up in front of her.

“Well, I guess that solves that problem.” Kato let his grip slip, and Skye shoved him away. “Wait, why does she look different?”

Skye made the introductions. “Kato, Cori. Cori, Kato. She’s the annoying time-traveling version of Taly that drops in every so often to make shit more confusing.”

“Hello,” she said with a smile and a wave.

Kato pointed. “So, that’s not Taly.”

“No,” Skye said.

“But it looks like Taly.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re sure it’s not Taly?”

“Oh, my Shards,” Cori grumbled, rubbing the bridge of her nose. “That one is way more stupid than I remember.”

Kato blinked, rooted to the spot.

“And you’re right about one thing, Ivain,” she went on. “Aneirin is expecting you. If you go off half-cocked, well… you won’t die. But you also won’t be successful.” She swung her feet off the desk and rose. “That’s where I come in. I’m going to make sure you go off fully cocked.”

Kato opened his mouth—she shut him down with a look.

“How do we get her back?” Ivain said gruffly.

Cori merely reached into a tailored black overcoat and produced an amulet. It spun on its chain as she held it out, catching the light.

“Everyone always assumes it’s the big things that shape history.

The grand battles, the earth-shattering decisions, the moments that scream their importance.

The sacrifices,” she added with a pointed look at Skye.

“Don’t get me wrong—break the world, and it will change the shape of it.

But they always discount the small ripples.

The little, everyday things that, given enough time, accumulate.

Something as simple as being in the right place at the right time. ”

She placed the amulet on the map of riftways laid out on Ivain’s desk. A hyaline sun cradled the center stone. It was the same symbol etched into the waves two miles north of the Aion Gate.

Skye’s breath caught at the realization. He looked up to find Cori watching him.

“You wanted to know what made that key so important?” she said. “Why I spent the better part of a decade bargaining for it?”

He saw it now.

They had a direct line to the Aion Gate—to where Taly had been taken. The access point was even inside the city, unlocked with one of the keys Taly had taken from Aneirin that night inside the antiquities shop.

Cori nodded, a small smile playing on her mouth.

“Aneirin has assembled his army. He’s ready to march.

You’ll never succeed by attacking from the front.

But if you send a small force ahead, through here.

” She pointed at an area of the map north of the Gate.

“He only has a token force guarding his rear.”

She tapped another point closer to the water. “If you look around here, you may or may not find a few… helpful items to send you on your way. Power units are already loaded. All you need to do is step right in.”

They had a path. They had a plan. They had hope.

Skye could scarcely believe it considering five minutes ago they had nothing.

Cori stepped back, the air shimmering around her like golden heat waves rising from stone. “Now go,” she said. “And by that, I do mean go . You’re already behind schedule.”

The shimmer deepened, her form blurring at the edges as she faded.

“Wait!” Skye called after her. “Is that it? You’re not going to give us any details? No last-minute tips?”

“I already handed you the plan and the way in. You can figure out the rest yourselves.” Her voice was distant and echoing now, as though carried on a breeze from somewhere far away.

“The fate of the entire Primary Timeline is riding on this, boys. There’s been a lot of good people working. Don’t fuck it up.”

The golden light pulsed once, then vanished entirely. Her magic ebbed, and Skye knew—she was gone.

Kato snorted into the silence. “Hell of a pep talk.”

Skye dragged a hand through his hair. “Yeah, it’s never been her strong suit.”

Ivain huffed a laugh, picking up the key and inspecting its edges like it might still hum with her magic. “Believe me, by that one’s standards, that was practically sparkling.”

Taly awoke for the second time that day not knowing where she was, her mind swimming in a haze of confusion and unfamiliar sensations.

She was back in the tent, laid out on the same velvet-lined cot, this time with much more care. Someone had dressed her in a gown woven from starlight and gossamer. It fell around her in white, floating waves as she rose to sit.

Jewels adorned her wrists and neck. There was a crown on her head. She could feel the weight of it.

Why? Taly thought.

To her surprise, something answered.

A vessel of divine power should be properly adorned , the goddess crooned into her head. You are the bridge between worlds now . Even that brute knows to pay his respects.

“Thank the Shards, you’re awake,” Aimee said, jumping up from the cot beside her. It was déjà vu all over again. “You screamed so much, and your body was writhing. I was so afraid.”

Taly felt weightless, detached. As if her very essence had been plucked from her body, ground into a fine dust, and cast adrift in the vastness of the cosmos.

She registered vaguely the hand that Aimee held between hers, that she kissed, pressing her brow to it. She experienced it all from somewhere far away.

“Thank you,” Aimee said tearfully. “Thank you, thank you, thank you for saving him.”

Taly didn’t remember giving the command to rise. She tried to reach out, to reclaim herself, but it was like grasping at smoke.

Her limbs moved of their own accord, guided by an unseen force.

She pushed past Aimee. Approached a gilded mirror. There was… something wrong with her eyes.

Usually a molten steely gray, they’d become… fractured. Marred by web-like cracks of gold that spread through the irises.

Her lips smiled, but they were not her own. Her hands caressed her face and body. They straightened the sunburst crown—the same one from the cistern. Taly didn’t know how it had come to be here, but here it was, waiting for her.

Then those lips turned down as her fingers brushed across the collar around her neck.

Aneirin scoffed, pausing inside the entrance to the tent. When Taly looked at him, it was still Aiden’s face, but it flickered with all the faces that came before it. Old and young, beautiful and ugly, too many to count.

“Did you truly think I was just going to unleash you into the world?” He tsked his tongue. “Come now, Lachesis. You’re smarter than that.”

“Husband—”

But he was across the room in an eyeblink. A grip like iron closed around her throat. “You lost the right to call me that the moment you invited Tenebros into your bed.”

Like a fist, his power strangled the goddess. Forced her back down so that Taly could rise.

“Be seen and not heard,” Aneirin hissed. “That was your curse, for corrupting the powers of creation, and you will bear it.”

Taly came back into her body with a gasp, as if surfacing after spending a lifetime underwater. Her skin felt too tight, and there was a tension that buzzed beneath it, an energy that bled into the air around her, thick and heavy.

The collar around her neck was a cold weight. A barrier to the enormity of the goddess’ power. But Taly could still feel her there, like the hum of an earthquake beneath her feet.

“There now,” he said. “How are we feeling? In the future, I would appreciate it if you could keep the hag in check.”

Shakily, Aimee rose to her feet. “Taly did what you asked. Now get out of him.”

Aneirin laughed. “Sorry, but no . Though, if it really bothers you, I can use you as leverage for this next part.” He snapped his fingers. “Bring her.”

Two guards clad in dark robes stepped forward, seizing her. Aimee screamed as she was carried off.

Aneirin said to Taly, “It’s time to go to work now.”

Taly nodded and followed. She knew exactly what came next.

She knew everything, including that it was pointless to fight at this juncture. Her mind flicked through all the infinite possibilities as she was led out of the tent like some prized pet.

For attached to the collar was a leash that Aneirin waved to the jeering masses like a trophy.

“Hail, the new Queen of Ages!” he declared to a ripple of mocking laughter that rolled through the ranks.

Taly could feel the goddess’ anger bristle. Their lack of respect had been noted—and would be corrected in time. Thus, it was foretold.

The Aion Gate loomed over the landscape. He thrust her in front of it. In the shadow of the towering dimensional gate, the air crackled with an electric anticipation.

It recognized her. The Gate knew this power inside her, and it welcomed her like an old friend.

“Open it,” Aneirin demanded. “I will not ask twice.”

To make his point, the guards dragged Aimee in front of her.

Open it now, or she dies—the message was clear.

Tears streaked Aimee’s cheeks above the gag in her mouth. I’m sorry, her eyes said. I’m so sorry.

The collar around Taly’s neck was removed. The effect was immediate. The air around her ignited, golden light flaring as the full force of the Time Shard’s power surged through her veins like molten ore.

It roared through her, branding her insides, smelting flesh from spirit.

It filled her to the edges of herself, poured into every empty place, every forgotten scar.

And when it had no other place to go, when she could hold no more—it erupted, a blinding cascade of brilliance that swallowed the field.

From her back, wings of pure aether unfurled, an uncontainable spill of power. Shimmering arcs, each strand of energy was alive, weaving and dancing like sunlight shattered across still water.

She was not just Taly anymore. She was Time reborn.

And as the goddess’ presence swelled, a tidal wave threatening to sweep her soul out to sea, a sudden, sharp pain tightened in Taly’s back. It bit into her like a claw, fierce and grounding.

Ivain was right. It did help. The sting of the thorns tethered her, just enough to bring her back to herself.

For now, at least, she had control.

The full might of the Time Shard flowed through her as she stood before the Aion Gate, a winged figure draped in light and shadow. Ancient machinery hummed, alive with power.

She reached out to touch the smooth crystal surface. The glowing stone gave, pressing inward.

Energy surged. Time bent around her.

And the Aion Gate finally opened.