The sun rose blood-red over the sea, casting fire across the white cliffs. The observatory had returned to its deceptive stillness. But silence was never safety.
Something had shifted.
Ishan hadn't spoken since the ring shattered. He sat at the edge of the south courtyard, knees drawn to his chest, staring at the clouds.
Amira watched from behind the glass window. Her breath fogged the surface, leaving half-moons on the pane. Her reflection looked older—frailer. The weight of choices and losses pulling her skin taut.
"He's seen something," she murmured.
Silas crossed his arms. "He's the key."
"No," she corrected. "He's a child."
"Then we have to protect him. No matter what."
In the infirmary, Greaves lay restrained. His eyes opened and closed in fevered intervals, muttering fragments of equations, Rayan's name, and—over and over—"Clockmaker."
They didn't know whether the amnesiac worked.
Silas placed an ocular scanner over Greaves' left eye. Neural mapping lit up in violent pulses—like lightning storms inside his mind.
"He's remembering something he shouldn't," Silas said grimly. "There's residual imprint from the ring. Maybe even a... partial bleed-through of memory from another timeline."
Amira's heart dropped. "You mean—he might remember things that never actually happened?"
"Or things that haven't happened yet."
That night, thunder cracked the sky.
Ishan bolted upright from bed, breath ragged. Sweat soaked his sheets. Amira was beside him in seconds.
"What did you see?" she asked gently.
He looked up, eyes wide with terror.
"There's a place where the sky is always burning. Rayan was there. But not your Rayan. Another one. Older. He said the only way to save her… was to die again."
Amira froze.
"Save who?"
"I don't know," Ishan whispered. "He wouldn't tell me. But he was building something. A second machine. Not like the one here. It wasn't for traveling. It was for… stopping time."
Over the next week, the observatory transformed.
Security was doubled.
The vault containing what remained of Rayan's notes was sealed behind biometric layers. All research on time manipulation was officially suspended.
But it didn't stop Silas from investigating quietly.
Late at night, in the west wing lab, he laid out fragments of what Greaves had left behind: a burned page here, a bent capacitor there.
A name was scrawled at the top of one page.
Chronostasis Engine.
Amira found Ishan in the greenhouse the following morning, tending to the rose beds.
"I didn't know you liked flowers," she said softly.
"They're quiet," he replied. "They listen without asking questions."
She smiled faintly. "That's rare."
Ishan gently touched a red bloom. "Do you think he regrets it? Your husband. Dying like that."
Amira's throat tightened. "He didn't mean to die. He just... stayed too long in a time that didn't want him."
"He should've told you."
"I would've stopped him."
"Exactly."
Amira paused. "You speak like someone older than ten."
Ishan tilted his head. "What if I am?"
She blinked. "What do you mean?"
But Ishan only smiled and went back to the roses.
That afternoon, a private message came through the encrypted channel.
It wasn't marked by a sender. No origin trace. No digital signature.
Just three lines.
"To stop the Clockmaker,the boy must never enter the chamber again.—R.L."
Amira's hands trembled.
R.L.
Rayan Lionheart.
Her husband.
Dead ten years.
She printed the message and placed it in a sealed envelope. Then she locked it in the vault beside his journals.
Silas barged into her office moments later.
"Amira," he said breathlessly. "We have a problem."
He tossed a small device onto the desk. It buzzed faintly—an implant chip, the kind used for location masking.
"It was embedded in Greaves' spine. Hidden. Military-grade encryption. Someone wanted to know everything that happened here."
"Who?" she asked.
"We traced one signal. It was bouncing off orbital satellites. One name kept showing up."
He leaned in.
"The Ministry of Temporal Research."
Amira's stomach dropped.
"That program was shut down ten years ago. After Rayan—"
"I know," Silas cut in. "But apparently, not everyone got the memo."
That evening, lightning split the sky once more.
In the deepest hour of night, Amira sat by Ishan's bed, watching him breathe.
He stirred.
She brushed a hand through his hair. "You need rest."
But he opened his eyes.
"They're coming," he whispered.
"Who?"
"The ones from the burning sky."
Somewhere, far from the observatory, in an underground base lit by flickering fluorescent lights, men and women in black uniforms watched feeds of Ishan sleeping.
A figure stood at the center of the room—tall, clad in gray, face hidden behind a mask of mirrored glass.
"Operation Retrieval will proceed in five days," the figure said. "The boy has seen too much."
A technician looked up.
"But sir… he's just a child."
"No," the figure replied coldly. "He's the last anchor point. The Clockmaker's eye."
They turned toward a glass tank humming in the corner of the lab.
Inside floated a severed arm—pale, unmoving.
Still wearing Rayan's wedding ring.
To be continue...