MR_Crystal

Unknown Time
A Crown of Ash. A Thief of Seconds. A Love That Shattered Time.
Betrayed by his brother and burned alive on his coronation day, Kael awakens with a curse masquerading as a gift: the power to steal time itself. Now a fugitive in his ruined kingdom, he can rewind wounds, shrink enemies to dust, and bend moments to his will—but every stolen second scars his body and devours his soul.

His vengeance is absolute. His enemies are legion. Yet the deeper Kael hunts, the more he unravels:

The brother who lit his pyre is blood-bound to a cult older than time.

The fiancée who betrayed him sacrificed her love to save a sister who was already dead.

And the mentor who raised him? A time-warped monster who calls Kael’s agony “a masterpiece.”

But when Kael discovers a girl with his lost lover’s face—a living weapon forged by his enemies—he faces an impossible choice: destroy her to erase his past… or let her live and risk a future where love becomes his final weakness.

In a world where every heartbeat is a currency and every lie is etched in flames, Kael must decide if he’ll crown himself king of the ashes—or burn time itself to save the one soul he couldn’t steal.

UNKNOWN TIME

Young Kael knelt, fingers brushing grass that recoiled from Young Lira's shadow. Her steps left charred petals in her wake, though her smile stayed soft, her hands clean. The others—Nyx's rebels, a handful of hybrids, even a gray-eyed child who'd fought in the storm—wandered the field, dazed. No one remembered the cathedral, the Seed, or the blood. Only fragments: a mother's voice, a rose's thorn, a name (Kael) that made their heads ache.

"It's like a dream," Young Lira said, crouching beside him. Her shadow stretched too long, too dark, even at noon. "But wrong."

A breeze carried the scent of rot.

They found the first corpse at dusk—a rebel, half-buried in the soil, her skin threaded with gold veins. Nyx's dagger lay beside her, rusted to dust.

"This wasn't here yesterday," Young Kael said.

Young Lira's shadow rippled. "Yes, it was," it whispered—a voice only she heard.

The child hybrid, Tessa, screamed. Her hands clawed at her eyes, now glowing violet. "He's in the ground! The Guardian!"

The soil gave way to a skeletal hand, then a face—Older Kael's face, preserved perfectly, a golden Seed shard embedded in his chest.

Young Lira staggered. "We have to burn it."

Her shadow laughed. "Burn him, and you burn us.*"

That night, whispers woke Young Kael.

Young Lira stood at the burial site, her shadow pooling into the earth. The Seed shard glowed in her palm, its roots snaking toward Older Kael's corpse.

Her eyes flashed cobalt. "He's not gone. The meadow… it's alive."

The ground trembled. Flowers wilted as Older Kael's hand twitched, gold veins stitching his flesh.

Tessa's scream split the air. Across the field, rebels convulsed, their veins alight with familiar corruption. Nyx's ghostly voice echoed from their lips: "You didn't think it'd be that easy, did you?"

Young Lira's shadow swelled, shaping into Lyra's smirking form. "The Seed isn't a thing. It's a cycle." She pressed Young Lira's hand to Older Kael's chest. "Finish it."

Chapter 35: The Whispering Meadow