The desert wasn't made of sand anymore.
It was made of time dust — the remains of broken hours, glimmering faintly under the dying sun.
Eryndor Valein walked alone across it, cloak fluttering behind him. He was taller now, his shoulders lean, his eyes a deeper gray. The soft boy from the slums was gone — what remained was someone quieter, sharper, harder to look at for too long.
He was eighteen.
And the world had aged four hundred years in four.
---
The Flow fracture had torn the Chronoverse apart.
Some cities ran too fast — people burned through decades overnight.
Others froze mid-motion, their streets locked in endless twilight.
Only the central zones of the Ecliptic Order still moved in rhythm, their balance kept by machines that drained more and more lives each day.
They called the rest of the world the Ashlands.
Eryndor called it home.
---
A lone clock tower stood crooked on the horizon, its face half-melted.
He passed beneath it, brushing a hand across the stone. It pulsed faintly — the echo of time still trapped inside.
He closed his eyes and listened.
The Flow hummed beneath everything, faint and fragmented. Some places screamed; some whispered. He could hear it all.
That was his curse.
---
Four years of running had taught him to hide his mark.
A strip of black cloth wrapped around his wrist, sealing the endless glow beneath. But even covered, it bled through sometimes — the faint shimmer of infinity that marked him as the boy who broke time.
Everywhere he went, the Order's posters still hung on broken walls:
> WANTED: Temporal Anomaly.
Codename: The Infinite.
Bounty: 10,000 Years.
He'd once laughed at that.
Now he didn't.
Ten thousand years could feed an entire district.
---
By midday, he reached a ruin — what had once been a Flow Station.
Pipes lay scattered like ribs, leaking faint blue mist. A cracked emblem of the Ecliptic Order still glimmered faintly on the wall.
He stepped inside, scanning for movement. Nothing. Only dust, and the soft hum of dead machines.
He needed shelter.
The Ashlands' nights weren't kind — when the Flow reversed, even the air could age you.
He dropped his pack, sat against the wall, and closed his eyes.
For a moment, he tried not to remember.
But memory had a way of bending time too.
---
He saw Kael's grin — that last flash of light in the tunnel.
He saw his mother's still hands.
He heard the bells ringing backward.
Eryndor opened his eyes.
The world flickered — half a second ahead, then behind.
He steadied his breathing until it settled.
He'd learned to anchor himself.
Four years of discipline, meditation, and fear.
Because when his emotions slipped, so did reality.
---
A sudden sound broke the quiet.
Footsteps — soft, careful.
Eryndor didn't move. He listened.
The steps grew closer, crunching faintly over glass.
He whispered a command under his breath.
The air shimmered — Time Lock — freezing the sound in place.
He rose silently, pulling the cloth from his wrist. The mark glowed faintly in the dark.
Then he saw them — three figures in Ecliptic armor, moving in slow motion through the Time Lock field. Their eyes burned faintly blue.
Trackers.
---
He let the lock fade. Time snapped back into motion.
The lead soldier raised a scanner. "We've found the anomaly's trace—"
Eryndor moved.
One second, he was standing still.
The next, he was behind them.
His hand brushed the leader's neck — a soft flash of gold — and the man froze mid-breath, collapsing without a sound.
The others turned.
"Subject located! Initiate—"
They didn't finish.
Eryndor's mark flared.
The Flow around them bent like glass in heat, twisting their voices, stretching seconds into ribbons. When it ended, the soldiers were gone — reduced to drifting motes of blue sand.
He stood still for a long time, breathing hard.
---
"Three more years," he murmured.
"That's how long they've been chasing me."
He crouched beside the dust, touching one of the fallen helmets.
The visor flickered faintly, replaying the soldier's last sight — a flash of infinity, reflected in gray eyes.
He sighed and shut it off.
He hadn't wanted to kill them.
He never did.
But the Flow always took more than it gave.
---
As night fell, the air grew cold.
He lit a small fire from crushed chrono-ore — blue flame that didn't burn but shimmered, keeping the Flow around him stable.
For the first time in weeks, he let himself rest.
He looked up at the stars — or what remained of them. Some constellations moved too fast now; others stayed frozen.
Somewhere among them, a faint trail of gold shimmered — like an hourglass spilling across the heavens.
He wondered if Kael was in that dust now.
"Still watching, huh?" he whispered.
The fire flickered in answer, as if the Flow itself exhaled.
---
He drifted to sleep slowly.
Dreams came in fragments — voices, faces, flashes of places he'd never been.
And then one image lingered, sharp and clear:
A girl standing beneath a cracked clock, her wrist glowing faintly red — not blue like the Order's, not gold like his.
Red — the color of bloodtime, a mark no one should have.
When she turned, he saw her eyes — and something in his chest stirred.
Then the dream shattered.
---
Eryndor woke with a start, breath fogging in the cold air.
The fire had gone out. The stars were still.
He stared at his hand. The ∞ mark was pulsing again — fast this time.
He didn't know who she was.
But the Flow did.
Somewhere in the broken world, someone else had just disturbed time.
He stood, slinging his pack over his shoulder. The desert wind howled through the ruins, carrying faint echoes of ticking clocks.
"Guess I'm not the only one anymore," he muttered.
And as he walked into the endless horizon of glowing dust, the Flow began to stir — like a heartbeat waiting for its next note.
To be continued...