“Maybe the cosmic order needs to learn that some things are more important than universal law.” Damian's voice carried unexpected conviction. “Maybe love is supposed to rewrite the rules sometimes.”
Cael looked toward him with an intensity Damian could feel. “You make me want to believe that change is possible. That love can rewrite even cosmic law.”
As he began to fade, his presence becoming translucent, the last thing Damian sensed was the lingering scent of winter and starlight.
That night, Damian's dreams were more vivid than any since childhood. He dreamed of Cael standing at the edge of a cosmic cliff, ancient robes whipping around his tall form, torn by celestial winds that carried the voices of dying stars.
“You make me want to fall,” dream-Cael said. “To choose mortality instead of the clean certainty of cosmic function.”
Dream-Damian reached up and touched Cael's face, feeling skin that was neither warm nor cold but something entirely other. The contact sent electricity through both of them, rewriting fundamental laws.
“Then fall,” dream-Damian whispered. “I'll catch you.”
Damian woke with tears on his cheeks and the phantom sensation of impossible touch. The candle beside his bed had burned down to nothing. The wooden talisman pulsed with faint warmth in the distance.
As dawn approached, Damian noticed something disturbing. The ivy covering his clinic's exterior wall was moving without wind, its leaves rustling like whispered conversation. Shadows lingered where morning light should have banished them.
Someone was watching. Had been watching. Would continue to watch.
Let them come,he thought.Let the universe itself object to what we're building. Some things are worth fighting for.
Chapter 12
Time Bleeds
Cael
Cael had been contemplating Damian's wooden talisman, feeling its warmth pulse against his palm like a captured heartbeat, when the cosmic call tore through him with violent urgency. The summons yanked him from the Threads like a fish dragged from deep water.
His borrowed form spasmed as reality reasserted its claim. The talisman fell from nerveless fingers, its carved spirals still warm from Damian's hand.
The target was clear before he fully materialized: Oris, the scarred young man who served as messenger for Damian's underground network. But this wasn't a natural death. This was murder, brutal and calculated.
Cael manifested in a narrow alley between crumbling tenements, his feet finding purchase on cobblestones slick with blood and rain. The body before him had been broken with methodical cruelty, limbs twisted at angles that spoke of deliberate torture.
Oris's soul clung desperately to his shattered form, fighting death with stubborn determination. When he saw Cael approaching, recognition flared in his spirit's eyes—not fear, but urgent purpose.
“Tell Damian I didn't betray him,” Oris's spirit said, his voice carrying clearly despite having no physical throat. “They wanted names, locations, everyone connected to the healing network. I gave them nothing.”
The words seared through Cael's consciousness. Here was a young man who had died protecting others, who used his final moments not to beg for more life but to ensure his sacrifice wouldn't be wasted.
“They broke my bones,” Oris continued, his spirit beginning to fray at the edges. “Carved symbols into my flesh. But I didn't tell them about the clinic, about the safe houses. Damian needs to know his secrets are still safe.”
Every instinct screamed at Cael to refuse this reaping, to break cosmic law and find some way to let Oris live. But the Threads convulsed around him, and the Eternal Accord demanded obedience with force that threatened to unmake him entirely.
Pain lanced through his being.
“I'm sorry,” Cael whispered, dropping to his knees beside Oris's fading spirit. “I'm so goddamn sorry.”
He had never apologized for a reaping before. But looking at Oris's brave spirit, thinking of how this death would devastate Damian, something essential broke inside him.
Crystalline tears that shouldn't have been possible began streaming down his face as he performed the reaping with shaking hands. Oris's soul dissipated with dignity, his final expression one of peace.
But as the reaping concluded, Cael noticed something that chilled him to his core. Burned into Oris's forehead was acomplex sigil that pulsed with stolen temporal energy. Someone had devoured parts of his essence while he still lived, feeding on his spiritual energy like a parasite.
This was beyond anything the Time Exchange officially sanctioned. This was cosmic blasphemy.
Cael manifested outside Damian's clinic still cloaked in shadows, his form wavering as he struggled with what came next. Through the walls, he could see Damian working with focused compassion—brow furrowed as he tended to a patient whose time-burns had festered.
