The Threads of Fate

Chapter 14

The morning bell tolled, its deep resonance shaking Kian from his thoughts. He hadn't slept—hadn't even tried. Lian still dozed fitfully beside him, his small face pinched with dreams Kian could only guess at.

*"I saw her die."*

The words clung to him like a curse.

A soft knock at the door.

Jin Yue stood in the hallway, arms crossed, her usual sharpness dulled by shadows under her eyes. She hadn't slept either.

"Elder Zhao wants you," she said, voice low. "Now."

Kian glanced back at Lian. "I can't leave him."

"You don't have a choice." Her gaze flicked to the sleeping boy, something unreadable flashing in her eyes. "I'll stay with him."

Kian hesitated.

Jin Yue scowled. "What, you don't trust me?"

"It's not that." He exhaled. "He had a nightmare. About… you."

Her breath hitched, just for a second. Then she straightened, jaw set. "Then I'll make sure he wakes up to see I'm still breathing."

Kian wanted to argue, but the monastery bell rang again—insistent, impatient. He gave a stiff nod and stepped out, but not before casting one last look at Lian.

*What if he remembers more? What if he wakes up screaming?*

But Jin Yue was already moving past him, settling cross-legged beside the cot with her sword across her lap. A silent sentinel.

She didn't look at Kian as she muttered, "Go."

**The Council's Judgment**

The High Council chamber was cold.

Elder Zhao sat at the center of the semicircle of stone-faced elders, his fingers steepled. To his right, Master Yuen—ancient and withered—watched Kian with milky, unblinking eyes. To his left, Elder Mei tapped her nails against the arm of her chair, the sound like a ticking clock.

"Explain," Elder Zhao said.

No greeting. No preamble.

Kian clenched his fists. "The Fractured wasn't just an enemy. He was… a version of me. From another time."

A ripple of murmurs. Elder Mei's tapping stopped.

Master Yuen leaned forward. "A temporal echo."

Kian nodded. "The Shard showed me. He tried to change the past, and it broke him."

Elder Zhao's expression darkened. "And the child?"

"The Shard… remade him." Kian chose his words carefully. "Gave him a second chance."

"A second chance to *what*?" Elder Mei snapped. "To become the Fractured again?"

"No." Kian met her gaze. "To choose differently."

Silence.

Then—

"The boy is a danger." Elder Zhao's voice was final. "He cannot stay."

Kian's blood turned to ice. "You can't send him away."

"We *can*," Elder Zhao said. "And we will."

Master Yuen held up a gnarled hand. "The Shard intervened for a reason. To discard its choice is to defy time itself."

"And to keep him is to risk annihilation," Elder Mei countered. "What if his presence unravels our timeline?"

Kian's pulse roared in his ears. They were talking about Lian like he was a thing—a problem to be disposed of. Not a person. Not a *child*.

"He's just a kid," Kian said, voice rough. "He didn't ask for this."

Elder Zhao's eyes narrowed. "And neither did we."

**The Secret in the Scrolls**

Kian stormed out of the chamber, his chest burning. They hadn't decided yet—Master Yuen had called for a recess, a chance to consult the ancient texts—but he knew how this would end.

Elder Zhao would win.

And Lian would be cast out.

*Or worse.*

He needed answers. Needed to understand *why* the Shard had saved Lian—why it had brought him here.

The monastery archives were a labyrinth of dust and parchment, but Kian had spent enough time here training with Master Liangu to know where to look. He shoved aside scrolls on temporal theory, on paradoxes, on the legends of the Chrono Shard—

And then he found it.

A single, crumbling scroll, its edges blackened as if it had been rescued from a fire. The title was faded, but legible:

*"On the Nature of Fractured Souls."*

Kian's hands shook as he unrolled it.

The text was ancient, half of it eaten by time, but one passage stood out like a beacon:

*"When a Fractured is redeemed, the timeline does not simply correct—it heals. The soul, once split, becomes whole anew. Such an event is rare, for it requires not the destruction of the Fractured, but its* ***integration*** *..."*

Kian's breath caught.

*Integration.*

Not erasing Lian. Not sending him away.

*Becoming whole.*

But how?

The scroll offered no answers. Only a warning:

*"Beware the weight of dual souls. One vessel was not meant to carry two."*

**The Choice, Again**

Kian didn't return to his room.

Instead, he climbed to the monastery's highest balcony, where the wind howled and the sky stretched endlessly. The Chrono Shard pulsed against his chest, warm and alive.

*"One vessel was not meant to carry two."*

Did that mean what he thought it did?

That Lian couldn't stay separate forever?

That one day, he and Kian would have to…

*Merge?*

The thought made him sick. Lian was a child. He deserved his own life, his own future—not to be absorbed like some lost fragment.

But the alternative was losing him entirely.

"You look like you're trying to set the sky on fire with your mind."

Jin Yue's voice.

Kian turned. She stood in the archway, Lian clinging to her hand. The boy's eyes were red-rimmed, his free arm wrapped around himself like he was holding his own pieces together.

Kian knelt. "Hey. You okay?"

Lian nodded, but his lower lip trembled. *"They don't want me here."*

Jin Yue's grip on his hand tightened. "They're scared. That's all."

Kian met her gaze over Lian's head. *How much does he know?*

She shook her head slightly. *Not enough.*

Kian exhaled. "Lian, listen to me. No one's sending you away. I promise."

The boy swallowed hard. *"But the elders—"*

"I won't let them."

Lian stared at him, searching for the lie. Then, in a whisper: *"What if I disappear anyway?"*

The question hung in the air, heavier than the Shard around Kian's neck.

Because it wasn't just about the elders.

It was about time itself.

Kian pulled Lian into a hug, his voice raw with a vow he didn't know how to keep:

"I won't let that happen either."