Chapter 0

  The temple had no entrance or exit. Or at least, not in the way the profane understood movement. There were no doors, only a carved descent of black stone, a narrow slope coated in dust and dampness, as if the air itself clung to every surface. The rock seemed eroded not by time but by something older, something inevitable. A spiraling wound in the living mountain that led to the very heart of the Conclave of Time.

  He descended with the other thirteen members. The torches flickered with their passing, casting light that trembled across the carvings. They did not walk, they followed the invisible trace of their own steps, an echo of the cycles before this one. Each time they descended, the same circular hall awaited them. It was a place that had never been built but uncovered; a chamber carved by human hands, though its proportions and silence obeyed a geometry beyond them.

  The vault of black stone rose above their heads like a dome of living shadow, breathing with the rhythm of the trapped air. There were no artificial lights, no screens or projectors. Only the faint blue glow of inscriptions etched into the walls. Texts only they could read. Words that burned with the quiet force of overlapping eras, written centuries ago by human tools. It was a sacred site, but not one meant for gods.

  At the center, a shallow bowl of polished bronze held water that reflected the wavering light, folding and refolding it in ripples that seemed to twist upon themselves. It wasn’t magic, only the illusion of fire and smoke, the intended effect of ritual.

  Incense smoldered in copper braziers, spiraling upward in heavy coils that merged with the darkness. The smoke was thick, nearly tangible, infused with herbs meant to dull the surface mind and awaken the sense of belonging to something larger. On the walls, the shadows of the Conclave stretched across ancient symbols, carved by generations long vanished. They were not mere inscriptions but living fragments of history, preserved in stone, a language of the founders.

  They had gathered here before.

  They would gather again.

  They were gathering now.

  The chamber was perfectly circular, without a single corner to disturb the flow of air. Akrtrup stood at the center, his bald head catching the torchlight, his features cut deep by age. A man in his fifties, built not by strength but by endurance, his presence the stillness around which the ritual revolved. His head was bowed over the bronze bowl that held the ever-changing reflection of fate. The leader of the Conclave looked at no one, his eyes fixed on the dark water where the firelight writhed in incomprehensible patterns. What he saw was not the surface, but what lay within it, an act of faith, not sight.

  He raised a hand, and the murmurs ceased.

  “The cycle approaches its breaking point,” he said, his voice solemn, carrying not his own will but that of something vaster, absolute. “It has repeated so many times that resistance is no longer part of its nature. Time is everything.”

  A tremor passed through the hall. The water in the bowl rippled as though the stone beneath them had moved, yet it was only the mind searching for meaning.

  Time had made its decision.

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  Rheda understood perfectly. She had seen the line of events reach its fracture, and now they were walking directly upon it. There was no return. No deviation.

  “Every moment is an echo of itself,” Akrtrup continued, his voice resonant and low. “What has been will be. What will be has already been.”

  Rheda lowered her head in silent acceptance, feeling her thoughts scatter between the immediate and the unbidden.

  He was there, in the half-light.

  Sitting against the wall, head bowed, not a man seeking understanding, but one enduring the weight of destiny.

  Soro.

  Her chest filled with a devotion that burned like sacred fire. He was the chosen one, though he did not yet understand it. Not yet.

  Rheda had seen him before.

  She had seen him after.

  Her hand trembled. When she lowered it, she felt the tacky warmth of blood between her fingers.

  No.

  Not now.

  Or perhaps yes.

  Everything was happening at once.

  The ritual continued. The others followed, though Rheda felt herself split, each fragment of her being occupying a different point in the cycle.

  She looked to the walls, to the symbols containing histories never told. How many times had they stood here? How many more must they endure?

  Akrtrup lifted the bowl, and the reflection twisted. The firelight within the water formed shapes that the human eye could not hold.

  Rheda saw the fall. She saw the rebirth. She saw blood seeping between the cracks in the stone. She saw the single, eternal instant when everything stopped.

  She drew a breath, trying to hold to the present. But what was the present, if not an echo reverberating through the hollow of what had already happened?

  No. She had been here before. She had spoken these same prayers. She had felt the cold lingering on her spine, the pressure in her chest.

  But she was also before the ritual.

  And after it.

  Her skin tingled, as though her body were about to dissolve into scattered fragments of memory.

  Akrtrup let fall a single drop of water onto the stone, and the sound struck Rheda’s mind like a distant thunderclap.

  The others raised their hands, chanting in the language of the ancients, a tongue that belonged to no single age but all of them.

  Rheda mouthed the words, unsure if she was praying or remembering.

  She looked to her left. The hall was empty.

  No.

  Not now.

  She blinked hard.

  The thirteen members of the Conclave stood again, hands lifted, invoking the inevitable.

  She closed her eyes, waiting for her perception to steady. When she opened them, Soro was still there: silent, unmoved, untouched by the weight of transcendence.

  Akrtrup was watching her now. He had seen it too, yet said nothing.

  The prayer ended, and the echo of their voices lingered, suspended in the air like drifting ash.

  The cycle continued.

  A final thought struck Rheda like a painful revelation: what if this instant was nothing but an anticipated memory, something that had not yet occurred but was already defined? What difference existed between remembering and foreseeing, when time was only a wheel that never ceased turning?

  The answer hovered in her mind like smoke from the incense, intangible, impossible to grasp.

  She looked again at Soro. He remained seated, silent, unaware of the inevitability before him.

  Rheda wondered if he would ever understand what they already knew. Or perhaps ignorance was his only mercy.

  The ceremony at last drew to a close. They left in silence, climbing the spiral of black stone. The cold air outside greeted them like an exhalation. The temple did not vanish when they emerged; it remained, buried beneath the mountain, waiting.

  And as Rheda ascended the steps, she knew with a devastating certainty that she would walk them again.

  Over and over.

  For the temple had no entrance or exit.

  Only infinite cycles, repeating through all eternity.