It is unknown why so much of Orard remains tenuously connected rather than fully divided like every other engaldria, but surveys of the Oriad have shown that in over sixty years none of the waterways have been expanding at the same rate as those elsewhere. While Reskas loses coast at a startling rate, Nusier and Garne remain almost exactly the same now as they were in my grandfather’s time.


    <hr>


    Jair, Eythron, Uqiar, and Lilin stood together to return to the past. Eythron protested against dragging his ward into this, but Jair wasn’t going to risk leaving anyone out of the loop.


    With how many of them Sekir had managed to take out this time, the more chances of someone surviving to report something they could use against the sorcerer in the future, the better. It certainly wouldn’t hurt anything to bring the beastkin along.


    After one more cursory attempt from Eythron to keep Uqiar safely out of the whole affair and not a potential target for Sekir’s vengeance, the four of them gathered around and took hold of Maelstrom.


    But now that the moment had arrived, he found himself frozen in indecision. None of the moments he wanted to return to were ones he’d experienced, so he couldn’t envision them properly.


    "We doing this, or am I just going to stand here with my hand bleeding all over your sword all day?"


    "I''m thinking." Jair mentally sorted through the various keypoints throughout the day that he could revert to. "I could go back to right before Sekir woke up and we started talking. That shouldn''t lose too much."


    Eythron shook his head. "Not far enough. By the time you found me, it''d been hours."


    "Hours." Jair hissed irritably. "The closest one I have from before that is when Lilin was drunk and ranting at that Irheshri girl in defence of her hat."


    "It''s a good hat," Lilin muttered. "I don''t care that it''s last season''s style. That doesn''t make it any less beautiful."


    "Farther," Eythron grunted.


    Jair frowned. "Really? How early did he start this time?"


    "People were leaving all afternoon, but having seen what happened they weren''t leaving nearly as voluntarily as it seemed. He must''ve ambushed them and stashed them somewhere else out of sight because I checked that courtyard a thousand times before the swordmaster came at me." His scowl deepened. "Let me get my hands on that man without his allies and I''ll show him who''s the superior blademaster."


    "None of that matters. We can revert again after. When did he get Raina?"


    Eythron pursed his lips and stared intently into space, searching his memory. "She and her father went upstairs with one of the staff right after you checked in the last time. I don''t remember seeing them since then."


    "You let them out of your sight for hours? I thought you were supposed to be guarding them!"


    "Lord Serin ordered me to stay. I stayed." Eythron shrugged. "It''s their house, not yours."


    "Why would Ajriol go off on his own at a time like this?" Jair growled softly in irritation. "He knew he was a target, he shouldn’t have let any house business interfere today of all days. Stubborn, prideful man."


    "Then take us back to then, we can ask him ourselves."


    Jair nodded and focused in on the time-memory of the last check in on Ajriol and Raina, holding the location-memory of the courtyard. It would be best not to suddenly appear in the middle of the party, to avoid causing more of a scene than necessary. The courtyard was a solid enough location to bring to mind almost without effort.


    Meliarn had other plans. His dungeon had been neglected too long.


    Golden light flashed through them as Jair activated Temporal Reversion.


    HERE! NOW! COME!


    The visualization faltered and his ability to recall the day blurred as Meliarn''s gates shone bright in his memory. Just as it had been interfering mid-darkflame, it interfered mid-reversion, and with a determined desperation that caught him fully unprepared.


    Time strained, doing its best to slip from his grasp. Temporal Reversion was stretched tight between Jair''s desire to go back and save everyone as immediately as possible and Meliarn''s firm recollection of the last moment he''d been within its reach.


    Not that far, don''t you dare.


    Too late. His concentration was already broken, and the reversion redirected. By accepting the dungeon into his soul, he’d forged an unblockable connection to everything else with direct access to his soul. To cut the dungeon off would be a longer and harder affair than could be accomplished in a few moments.


    They''d already fallen too far into the past, missed the moment Jair was aiming for. Even if he’d been positioned to sever Meliarn''s connection immediately, it would have been too late.


    Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    But the memory that Meliarn was using as a time-anchor was from a timeline that had already been overwritten, and it didn''t really understand how Temporal Reversion worked. It kept pulling back and back and back, searching for what could never be found, and shedding days like offcast skin as it dragged them all with it.


    No.


    Jair cut off Temporal Reversion, abruptly dropping them out of timefall.


    Days before they should have, Eythron emerged from Meliarn''s gate, Raina and Lilin on either side of Jair.


    Or, so it seemed. They all appeared mid-movement, but not continuing them as they fell into unbalanced heaps. Neither the point in the timeline they’d been taken from or brought to carried the necessary impetus for handling the transition with any grace.


    Eythron was the only one to catch his balance fully. Jair should have been ready for it as he was used to reversion, but he wasn''t used to the way Meliarn interfered with it.


    Before they even finished stumbling, Raina’s scream shook the air. She crumpled to her knees, face tight with abject horror and body trembling in helpless fear.


    Lilin jumped to her feet and ran to her, then pulled up short when Raina scrambled back, sword raised.


    "Stay back! Stay away!" She slashed out wildly with Tempest. Not using her trained and practiced forms, just sheer blind panic.


    "Hold, stop." Jair caught Lilin''s arm, feeling her own abrupt adrenaline at the unexpected reaction. "Let me."


    Lilin nodded and fell back, teary-eyed. "What''s wrong? What happened?"


    "I don''t know." Jair knelt down in front of her, making himself small and nonthreatening. "Raina, it''s me, Jair. You remember me?" His voice stayed low and calm, trying to keep her from panicking worse. That he had no idea how this happened mattered nothing. He could solve that later. Right now, the moment demanded his attention.


    She was twitching and flinching away from every movement, staring and pointing Tempest first at Eythron, then Lilin, then Jair himself.


    It was nearly ten minutes before she calmed down enough to speak, and even then she continued to whip out Tempest at the slightest provocation.


    "What''s wrong, Rai? Did something happen?"


    "I don''t know, it was... there was..." She was still gasping for breath, shaking. Unable to calm down.


    "Is it alright if I sit by you?"


    "Y-y-you..." Quick pants of breath, then a quick jerk of a nod. She let Tempest drop to her side, still in hand, but no longer raised ready to strike.


    Jair lowered himself to the stand and scooted over beside her. "Is this about Meliarn, or did you have something more than--"


    She shook her head, eyes glazed with tears as she glanced at him, then away. "I was-- I..." her voice went very faint. "I think I was dead."


    "You were."


    "And I kept-- I couldn''t--" She turned and clung to his arm, burying her face in his shoulder. "I was so helpless. That''s all I could think. All I knew. I''d failed. My father, my house, your friends. I let them all die. I''m only an apprentice, I don''t even have functional imprints yet. There''s nothing I could do. Even if I were able to try again and again and again, it would never be enough."


    Jair shifted so he could hug her properly, and sat holding her while she let out all the pent-up emotion from her ordeal. "It''s alright," he murmured. "I''m here. You''re not alone. You don''t have to try it all over and over by yourself. You never will."


    But what actually happened? He''d lost control of the reversion and ended up... two or three days earlier, at a guess. Nothing particular was going on at that time. Shopping, planning.


    Yet from everything Raina said and how she was acting since the reversion, it seemed almost as if she''d been brought back from her farthest forward point despite having died far from Jair''s reach. She could recall up to the moment of her death. Perhaps beyond, though that part was less certain. Being dead and also soul-aware was a strange thing, not commonplace. Even he, with more research than most whole engaldria combined, could only linger a few moments after dying before the cohesion of his self started to unravel.


    Tempest''s black abyss of a blade lay forgotten beside her, with no sign of the normal constellations that drifted within its depths. Somehow, that seemed like a bad omen. If he took Maelstrom''s chaotic storm of countless powers and colors and forms was a reflection of Jair''s own tumultuous existence, for Raina''s soulsword to have become dark and empty felt ominous.


    "Did you see who did any of it?" he asked once she''d calmed somewhat. "Solaria?"


    "It was all a blur. I... I thought it was some of the staff, but I guess they were impostors. I don''t remember. It was all so fast and then I had no way to really remember it properly. I was dead..."


    "Try not to think on it too long. You''re alive now and I won''t let you out of my sight again. You won''t have to go through that again if I have anything to do about it. I swear."


    "Thank you." She pressed a quick kiss against his cheek, then promptly fell asleep in his lap, thoroughly exhausted by the emotional gamut.


    Jair waited a few minutes to see if she would wake, then summoned Maelstrom and stared down into it. "You kept her from fully dying, didn''t you?"


    Faint sparkles started at the handle then swirled down to the tip, where they lingered, rotating impatiently before darting down to the tip again.


    "I don''t know if I should thank you or curse you. It doesn''t seem to have been pleasant." Jair sighed as the glowing sparks swirled faster. "I know. It''s unfair to shelter her forever. If she''s our equal, she deserves the chance to face the reality of this war even if it''s painful and awful. She can leave if it''s too much, but that''s her choice. Not ours."


    He carefully leaned over without disturbing the sleeping Raina and tapped Maelstrom''s tip against the flat of Tempest.


    Myriad sparks of light flowed down it, mostly gold and various hues of green, blue and pink, with white and silver now and then.


    By the time Raina woke and Jair dismissed Maelstrom, the constellations within her blade had returned, dimmer and seemingly more distant, but present. But if he wasn’t wrong, on closer examination, there was one other change. A slender line of gold threaded around the grip.


    Out of curiosity, he examined the blade again, and for the first time since its bizarre awakening, something had changed. It shouldn’t have surprised him, but it still did.


    ─ Tempest


    ─ Type: Soulsword


    ─ Rank: Uncommon


    ─ Abilities: Temporal Rebirth


    ─ Class Requirement: Mageblade


    We hunger.


    ─ Bound to Maelstrom & Raina Serin


    <hr>