Erieri clutched the boom tightly, running the worn bristles over the floor repeatedly, as if swiping away every speck of dust could prevent what was coming. Nothing could prevent this future. Her past. She saw it creeping closer every day. Saw it in the way that Erie’s hand healed. She remembered that wound. She remembered this time.

And she didn’t remember this time either.

There was an unfamiliarity around the events she had already lived through once, which surprised her. The sensation was unlike when she had confronted herself on the plains. Here she recalled living through them generally. The details, however, she realized had been swept away with time. Her younger self had once said she didn’t remember, and Erieri did not.

Had they been swallowed by the darkness to come?

Erieri shook her head and furiously brushed the floor more listening to Tinarie and Erie chattering in the kitchen. They had began the preparations for the midday meal. The workers would be back soon enough. Those who plied their trade on the river, and those who plied their trade in the town. Any with no other home stayed at the boathouse.

Erieri had found them all fascinating as a child, hearing tells of different places so many nights. She had thought there could never be anything grander. Scoffing slightly, Erieri knew now how narrow her view had been back then. How much more she would see.

“I think that part’s been swept enough,” Tinarie said with amusement ringing clearly in her voice.

Erieri looked up from the broom and offered a hesitant smile. “I’m sure there’s another section I can attack then.” Lifting her broom, she glanced around the room but didn’t spot anywhere needing attention.

Tinarie put a hand on her shoulder. “I know you feel like you should pay for your board somehow, but…” Trailing off, she glanced at her daughter. “I wish your ethics would rub off on Erie.”

Erie harrumphed, crossing her arms.

Erieri gave a crooked smile as she looked at Tinarie. “I’m sure she’ll do much better than you hope.”

Tinarie ruffled Erie’s hair and turned away, going to fetch some item or another. “I’d love to see that day.”

Erieri pressed her lips into a tight, thin smile. She wanted to say that she wished that as well, but she couldn’t let the words out. She trapped them instead and returned the broom to the closet.

When she returned to the chamber, Tinarie was nowhere to be seen. Erie sat at a table, folding napkins into a neat pile. Erieri’s throat tightened as she looked at the girl swinging her legs with a doll in a blue dress laid beside her. “Where’s Tinarie ?”

Erie jerked her head sideways, motioning toward the doorway behind her. “Destern came with a delivery.”

Erieri’s stomach sank. Destern had come with a delivery. The napkins, the doll, the healing hand. Erieri tensed as she turned toward the doorway. No, it couldn’t be today.

All times must end, Cormac’s voice echoed in her head.

Erieri shook her head again, taking another step toward the doorway. No, he was wrong. All times did not need to end.

She was the guardian. She could rearrange times.

Moving toward the doorway, Erieri saw the wagon in the yard with the horses still yoked, sitting on the rise in the land. A rise common in this part of town where it sloped towards the river.

“Tinarie ,” Erieri called. She couldn’t see the woman yet, couldn’t see Destern.

“I’ll be right with you,” Tinarie called, waving her hand over the wagon, distractedly at Erieri. “Erie love, come and fetch this, would you?”

Erieri froze as her younger self needled past her in the doorway, skipping out into the yard toward their mother. “No, don’t go,” Erieri whispered. There was no strength behind her voice. Merely the lightest whisper, which not even a breeze could carry.

She stepped forward and saw Destern and Tinarie standing beside the wagon, arguing. Their words, though loud enough, did not reach Erieri’s mind. There was a buzz beating against her thoughts.

Erie, her younger self, clambered up on the back of the wagon, moving to retrieve some bushel of vegetables that the boathouse needed.

“That isn’t what we agreed on, Destern,” Tinarie said. She crossed her arms and scowled at the man. Erieri remembered those words.

“Agreed upon or not, it’s what I can do,” Destern stomped back up the side of the wagon and called over his shoulder, “Unless you’d like me to just take the lot and go.”

The next happened in such quick succession, even watching it from here, Erieri could not untwine the movements in her mind.

“Of course not,” Tinarie said as Destern smacked the nearer horse’s rump.

Tinarie should have known better, Erieri thought.

Destern had become increasingly angry, increasingly erratic. His nearly running them off the road had only been the first point. Talk of him and his temper had spread around town, moving from whispered rumors to quiet conversations.

After today, it would be declared loudly.

Unless Erieri acted.

She stepped forward as the horse reared, lurching backward. She heard the remembered crack as the wood splintered holding the wagon to the base. Erieri heard her younger self squill.

The wagon, broken free, rolled backwards quickly. Backwards, but not toward a road. Toward the river abutting the boathouse. The river so close allowing the boats to dock within the enclosure.

“Erie, my love!” Tinarie cried.

“No,” Erieri whispered. She stepped forward, raising her arm as if she would stop her mother from leaping onto the wagon, even as the woman moved.

Time flowed before her unraveling from the path Erieri recalled, rushing and screwmaing in her ears like a river overspilling its banks.

A moment flashed by. Hendat kneeling before her as he gazed intently into her eyes offering her his hand.

The moment vanished.

“No!” Yanking her hand back, Erieri pressed it against her chest and turned away.

She could change this moment. She could not change Tinarie and Erie’s fate. And Erieri’s fate.

She could not change her fate.

Jerking, she took a step back toward the boathouse.

A second.

She crossed the threshold and closed the door behind her.

Leaning against it, she covered her ears and did not hear Erieri’s shrill cry as Tinarie threw her to the side. Nor the splash as the wagon rolled into the river.

Opening her eyes, Erieri called to time again. The air broke in front of her, and the portal formed opening the path back to the nexus. Unable to get her legs to work in anything but a chaotic rhythm, she stepped through.

Hendat and Cormac fell silent as Erieri entered the plains. She knew they had been arguing. Doubted for them it had been more than a moment since her departure, but Erieri drew in a shaking breath and squeezed her eyes closed.

“I told you!” Hendat’s angry lecture was interrupted quickly.

Silence followed for a moment before Cormac spoke, “I’m sorry, Erieri.” His voice had softened with compassion. “I told you all times must end, including individuals.”

She felt a hand on her shoulder and opened her eyes. Cormac stood beside her, his eyes creased with sorrow. Erieri jerked her shoulder out from beneath his weight. “Her time has not ended for me. Not now.” She shook her head furiously. “I saw no end.”

Hendat drew in a deep breath as if he might speak but said nothing. Cormac remained equally silent as Erieri turned away from them and marched onto the Plains of Time holding desperately to the memory of Tinarie.

Standing on the bridge, Erieri gazed down into the water as her heart stilled. She drank in the scent of living earth, so different from the Plains of Time. Deeper, richer, it mingled with the scent of water. The soil here knew the touch of time and marched with it, not existing without it.

Erieri had traveled to other times as part of her guardianship. She’d even found Cormac in his original time, calling him into service. However, she’d never once considered returning to her time. Or this particular point in it.

She ran a hand over the stone railing on the bridge, the rough stone worn smooth. Even as the Guardian of Time, she could not begin to imagine the number of hands which had tun along it to have worn so. Too many souls.

Erieri felt their traces within the stone. Souls still plowing forward unheeding of time whispering about them, moving ever toward something or nothing. Souls who had lived their full measures of time and remained only as echoes of the past.

Echoes of the past.

All times must end.

Erieri snapped her eyes open. Trying to banish Hendat’s voice from her mind, she clenched her jaw against his words. His critique.

While Erieri had fought the end. Had beaten the end of time, she had not chosen the Allurers path. She had not attempted to steal time from other times. Erieri had refused to do such, even when that choice would have been easy. She had found her own path, one where she shared time with the Allurer and the Allurer shared time with her. They each feed the other’s time, keeping them afloat. Nourishing, not draining.

She threw her hands down to her sides and balled her fists. All times did not need to end.

“Promise I will be there soon,” a soft voice called from the nearby roadway. Erieri turned toward the voice as if she stood in the river, not above it. Her movement sluggish.

The woman strolled up the village walk. Held only by a net of thin braids, her light brown hair billowed like banners behind her in the morning breeze barely contained. The beginnings of wrinkles showed at the woman’s mouth. Badges not bought by rough years lived, but by joy she expressed freely.

Erieri stepped back, tucking her brown hair behind her ear. “Mother,” Erieir whispered. She longed to move closer. To see the hazel of the woman’s eyes one more time. But Erieri’s feet held her imprisoned on the bridge, and the woman turned away before she drew near.

“Eiri, my love,” the woman said to someone just out of sight. A young girl bounded up the road behind Erieri’s mother. Even with her hair bound the same, the girl’s hair escaped, sticking out in a dozen different directions. Wrapping a strand around her finger, she knew that hair would not be bound by any constraint.

A bandage wrapped about the girl’s left hand. Her cream skirts’ knees were stained brown with mud, but an infectious grin spread across her face. Which echoed across careerism. As she skipped reaching the woman’s side.

“Erie,” her mother’s nickname for them, her? Erieri shoved the thought aside. The younger her glanced over her shoulder, staring longingly for something left behind. “Are you sure we can’t bring him home?” Erie said.

Tinarie knelt in front of Erie, placing her hand on her daughter’s forearm. “Hey, my love, what would we do with another kitten?” Erie pursed her lips unhappily at their mother. Tinarie sighed. “At the very least, we should let the kit ween from her mother a bit longer.”

Erie heaved a dramatically large sigh, ending with her crossed arms. “I suppose that would be good,” she said, scuffing the ground with the heal of her shoe.

Rising, Tinarie ruffled Erie’s hair. More strands escaped to rise at odd angles. Taking her hand, Tinarie turned and continued down the road. Erieri held her breath as the pair approached. Should she approach them? Or let them pass.

A clattering of hoofs sounded further up the road, and Erieri raised her gaze from Tinarie. At a corner above a wagon careened around the corner. The wood screeched as it bumped against the railing of the riverside. Jostling up the street toward Tinarie and Erie.

“Beware!” Erieri yelled, rushing toward the pair.

Tinarie spun, grabbing Erie into her arms as she twirled. Her mother hadn’t turned so far when she sighted the wagon that Erieri missed her expression. Her eyes widened and her hands tightened on Erie.

Erieri reached the pair before the wagon. She shoved against them with all her momentum, sending them flying and her bouncing in the opposite direction. The wagon raced between them before she could see where they landed.

Erieri struck against the railing leaning dangerously backward. The wagon’s side bumped into her as the horse’s path wavered again, drawing closer to the river. Already precariously perch, the blow sent Erieri over the edge. She squirrelled as she tumbled into the water.

Water filled her mouth when Erieri broke the surface. How long had she been in the plains to lose her instinct and breathe before hitting the water? Arms flailing, she wheeled about searching for which way the light came from, and which was just reflection.

Arms closed about her before she could decide. The strong grip tugged her, pulling her with surety and Erieri didn’t fight. Tinarie broke the surface gracefully next to Erieri who coughed, gagged, and spit water. Her mother’s grip holding her still, easing her in the direction of the shore.

Clambering on the low ledge below the roadway, Erieri’s met Tinarie’s gaze. “Are you alight?” Tinarie asked. Her hand lightly thumped Erieri’s back. She coughed more water up.

Erieri nodded, even if her voice had not returned yet. Raising hand, she pressed it against the stone wall. She wracked a few more coughs and sucked in a wheezing breath. “I’ll be fine,” Erieri said. Straightening, she glanced along the wall for a ladder. One was carved into the stone mere steps to her left.

She pushed herself up, and pain seared through her left hip. Erieri groaned with pain and nearly toppled back into the river. Tinarie grabbed her again, steadying her on the narrow ledge.

“No, you’re not fine,” Tinarie said, shaking her head. “What was Destern thinking?”

Erieri jerked in her mother’s grip at the name. Destern the Baker. Erieri hadn’t recognized him. How could she have forgotten what Destern looked like? He’d been a central figure of the village. They’d visited his shop daily. He’d been the one… Erieri banished that thought.

Wrapping her arm around Erieri, Tinarie rose slowly to her feet, helping Erieri up and the ladder. She stood below her, allowing Erieri to hobble up, but following close enough that she knew her mother would catch her if she faltered on the short ascent back to the roadway.

Erieri drew a deep breath, preparing to part from her mother. She turned toward the woman and inclined her head. “Thank you for the rescue,” Erieri said. Keeping her eyes lowered, she turned to move away.

Tinarie caught her arm. “No, it is I who must thank you for the rescue.” Her mother looked down at the girl who had appeared at her side. “If you hadn’t acted when you did, my Erie love and I would have been worse off.” She gripped the girl’s shoulder as she spoke.

“It was my honor.” Erieri turned again, pulling gently at Tinarie’s grip. The woman held firmly.

“A rescue you were injured in. You must allow me to have you examined, and least rest for the day.” Tinarie said. Erieri opened her mouth to protest, but Tinarie shook her head, cutting her off her protest as easily as she had Erie’s before. “It’s the least I must offer. I run the boathouse. You’ll be comfortable there and no burden.” She gestured up the road toward the main river.

Erieri paused. She knew every reason why she should not venture to the boathouse with Tinarie. She could just return to the Plains of Time. While wounds took time to heal, time was nothing there. Erieri would be better in moments if she just returned.

Her refusing Tinarie would be impolite, and more. Her upbringing tugged at her. As did longing.

Letting out a slow breath, Erieri assented. “It would be my honor to accept your assistance,” she said.

Tinarie sighed with relief and, wrapping her arm around Erieri’s shoulder, she helped her up the street. Tinarie chattered as they slowly walked, speaking of the village, her gratitude, and nothing all at once. Through it all Erieri’s conscience pricked her.

The boathouse appeared at the river’s edge. Every reason why Erieri should return to the plains fled her mind the moment she saw the building. Hald sprawled over water and half over land, the boat house stood as a boarding for those coming arriving through either. Staring at the structure, Erieri knew she was home.

Hendat and Cormac had not ceased bickering in days. Nor had they given Erieri a moment’s peace. If she tried wandering off one direction across the ever-increasing expanse of the Planes of Time, they followed. In body and argument.

Their arguing no longer surprised Erieri. They had done nothing but since Cormac had returned to the planes. No, the surprise was their incessant need to stick with Erieri.

Whirling about she cried, “Enough!” The two paused for a moment and peered at her quizzically blinking. “Could you please take your argument elsewhere.”

They glanced at each other, shrugged, and turned back to Erieri. “No.”

Erieri took a step back at the unified flatness in their answer. She couldn’t recall them every agreeing so before. At least not so readily. And never so vehemently.

“No?” she repeated, recoiling from her shock. “No?”

“The last time we let you wander off–” Cormac began.

“That happened!” Hendat interrupted, gesturing at the thin glowing ribbon which trailed behind Erieri. A trickle of time, the thin strand connecting Erieri’s time to that of the Allurer. She hadn’t seen him in the weeks since they had saved each other’s time from the death clock. But the band connecting them had not dissipated.

The permeance had been the point.

Turning back to Hendat and Cormac, Erieri scoffed. “Would you prefer I have let our time die?”

Hendat stood silent, obviously without a good verbal response. He crossed his arms and glowered at her grumpily. “Harumph.” He made clear his displeasure though.

Cormac, as was his way, waited a bit more thoughtful in his response, allowing Hendat to express his annoyance first. After the last grumble faded from Hendat, Cormac spoke, “All times must end.”

Erieri’s mouth dropped open. All times must end? That had not been the answer she was expecting from either Hendat or Cormac.

Both had been, as she was, the Guardian of Time. Their very purpose was to guard and maintain the order of time within their sphere.

All times must end.

Erieri shook her head vigorously, backing from the sympathetic appraisals of the pair. “No! All times do not have to end.” She didn’t give either the time to protest her refusal. Instead, she spun on her heal and stomped deliberately across the plains, abandoning her random wandering to see what the area would bring. She strode purposely to the clock.

Her time’s clock, which stood at the center of the Plains of Time. Ticking away in its ever forward rhythm, it waited for Erieri.

“Erieri, what are you doing?” Hendat demanded behind her.

“Getting privacy!” she snarled. “And since you two won’t allow me that here…” Reaching out, she stretched her hand toward the clock. Her clock. Erieri was the guardian of time now. For all Hendat had proceeded her, and Cormac before him. Neither could mind their retirements and find some when else to be, but they did not command the clock. She did.

A sliver of light appeared at the base of the clock, extending halfway up its face. The sliver widened into an arched portal. Beyond the portal, Erieri saw a village. The streets were divided by a river running down the middle. A bridge curved gracefully over the waters.

Erieri’s heart ached at the sight. She hadn’t intended to summon that time. Hadn’t let herself even contemplate venturing there. All she had known was she wanted to go. However, staring at the village beyond, she could not think of a better time or place to be.

“That way lies pain.” Cormac said, quietly behind her. She turned back and found them at the edge of the clock area. Cormac had a hand on Hendat’s arm, restraining him from proceeding. Even if his dark glower said he wanted to pull Erieri back.

Cormac merely looked at her with his eyes slightly stretched. Not from the glare of light but concerned, she realized.

“All times are open to me,” Erieri said. “Even this one.”

“But not all times.” Cormac paused, closing his eyes tightly and breathing. Opening them again, he smiled at Erieri wanly. “All times are open to you, but that does not mean you should walk through all times.”

Hendat stepped forward, raising his hand and pointing the finger at the portal as to accuse her of some error. If he thought her so foolish, she could not fathom why he’d handed the guardianship to her. Before he spoke, Cormack restrained him again, yanking him back. The two men stared at each other.

Huffing, Hendat crossed his arm and turned aside. Erieri supposed that even though he looked the elder of the two, Cormac having been his predecessor still granted the man respect, for his role and his training.

Cormac turned back to her. “Not all time should be walked, but the choice is yours.”

Erieri stood still at the threshold of time. Cormac’s quiet and willingness to allow her the choice gave her pause.

Should she go?

Should she stay?

The thin ribbon of time connecting Erieri’s time to the Allurer’s drifted, crossing her vision. Hendat broke his gaze from her to glower at the ribbon. Their displeasure with her choice had not dissipated.

Erieri’s jaw tightened. If she stayed, she would surrender herself to their continuing expression of their opinions. Their disapproval.

No. She needed room. She needed to breathe.

Glancing over her shoulder, she looked again at the village. She needed that time. She didn’t glance at the men again. Erieri stepped over the threshold of time.

Erieri sat in the Plains of Time’s grasses. The blades had grown tall and waved languidly about her, obscuring her view of the horizon. Not that the plains generally contained much to observe. More since her guardianship. Neither the ruins nor hillock faded though her need for their presence had ended. Rather she hoped her need had ended.

The plains were gratefully quiet presently. Hendat and Cormac had ceased their endless bickering for the moment. How Hendat had survived his training beneath Cormac Erieri could not image. Now as retired Guardians the only time they didn’t argue was when they went their separate ways. Hendat had stalked off and Cormac remained nearby, likewise concealed within the grasses. Erieri knew without asking him, he’d sensed the same tension which held her motionless.

She didn’t know what she waited for. Nevertheless, the intense pressure of air choking her lungs echoed the air before a storm broke filled Erieri. Something approached, and Erieri, as the guardian of the time, needed to stand ready.

Well, sit anyway. Erieri didn’t know nor did it matter on the Plains of Time how long she’d waited. Long enough her legs had grown weary though. Her patience finally paid off.

The grass swirled about her, bent, and brushed against Erieri as if the still air had been drawn in by massive lungs. Such intense movement did not belong on the plains. Standing, she turned toward the wind and saw Cormac move likewise.

A new ridge marred the horizon, and along its length a clockface appeared. Not Erieri’s clock. As guardian that shoe would have recognized without hesitation no matter what form it took. Nor did the presence resemble when her time had tried to envelope another as the archer had claimed. This clock was something else.

Footsteps approached her, with unhurried heaviness. “Have you seen or heard of this before?” Erieri glanced at the man who seemed no older than herself and had arrived here by her actions. As odd as it felt asking Cormac, once she’d completed choosing him, his memories had merged with those of his time serving as Guardian of the plains. The guardian which had trained her trainer.

Cormac shook his head. “I’ve never seen it before.” He paused and scratched the underside of his chin. “Nor did my master speak of such a thing.”

Erieri shrugged and turned from Cormac. Her hands went to the weapons she carried, a bow gifted by the archer and the fragment of time sword Cormac had forged once before and lost. Hendat had told her the plains were a quiet service once. Except for the Allurer. Except for Hendat and Cormac’s return. Except for… Erieri tired of encountering every exception.

A third figure stood at the base of the clock. Not Hendat. He would never stand with quiet solemnity. He’d be pacing and muttering to himself. Erieri clutched her sword as the air changed yet again with her approach. The winds drew a grey sodden mist about the clock. The plains disappeared a few paces behind her. Only Cormac, the man near the clock, and the clock itself remained clear. The mist seeped into the clock turning whatever color it should have gleamed a dull grey as if the clock lay disconnected from her reality.

“Who are you and why have you brought this clock here?” Erieri demanded reaching calling distance with the man.

The man twisted to face her. He stared at Erieri with vaguely too long feature features and structure. One which mimicked what Erieri expected, but off. Not in the eyes though. Those gazed at Erieri with an intensity she had not felt since her earliest Guardian days.

Cormac stopped beside her, growling slightly. He saw the figure as well. Erieri’s vision doubled, and a woman appeared overlaid with the man. Commonality remained in their eyes and clothing though, gray with vest and pants varying in their femineity or masculinity. Still Erieri knew him. “Allurer,” Erieri slurred.

Anger rose in her, and her hand tightened on the hilt. The Allurer carried no weapon. He never had.

Nor had a Guardian before Erieri. Cormac had confirmed he’d lost the blade promptly after its forging. Yet, just as Erieri had marred the planes, she’d broken this tradition as well.

Raising his hands the Allurer spoke, “This is not my doing.” The voice slid over Erieri with a familiarity which wrapped about her as if that sound alone could grant her comfort. So few words, and still he pulled at her. The tones whispering for her to surrender her charge to protect to relax instead.

He hadn’t been inappropriately named.

Cormac snorted beside Erieri. “You’ve always lusted for our time. After trying to steal it so many times and ways do you expect any of us to believe you now?” Erieri heard the bitterness in Cormac’s voice. She’d yet to tease tales of his encounters with the Allurer from him. Hendat had been similarly recalcitrant. Someday, she’d get them both to speak.

Erieri shoved the thoughts away and refocused on the Allurer. His features had softened, deepened. The impression he gave spoke of sorrow, but Cormac was right. The Allurer used every tactic to gain his desire. Her eyes twitched as she allowed her concern to twist into rage.

“This is not my doing.” The Allurer said, turning away before Erieri could speak. When he continued, he spoke sop softly Erieri would not have heard him if she’d spoken. Or Cormac had stirred the grass. “But I know this.” If she’d thought his expression sorrowful, his voice would make a statue weep.

“Then tell us what it is,” Erieri demanded. The Allurer turned back, glancing at her sword. Erieri forced herself to release her grip on the weapon.

“It is the end of time” the Allurer said.

Erieri looked from him to the clock. Looked as it cut into the ground and felt the rightness of the Allurer’s words. Time was ending. But this couldn’t end her time, could it?

Glancing at Cormack, he shrugged at Erieri before moving past her and the Allurer. He paused at the base of the hillock. Grasping a handful of dirt, he allowed it to drop to the ground in a poofing billow, and the clockface there. Too dry for the plains.

Erieri joined him and reached to press her fingertips against the clock’s glass face. “I would not,” the Allurer said. Erieri turned and scowled at him. If he didn’t want her to, then she certainly should. Turning away, she touched the glass and cold seeped into her. Erieri cried out and fell to her knees.

“What have you done?” Cormac thundered. His voice sounded strange in her ears. Quieter. He grasped her arms pulling her up to sitting from the ground. She felt the pressure, but not the warmth of his skin. Whatever heat her body contained the clock drew toward itself.

“I did nothing.”

“Erieri! Erieri!” Cormac’s hands tightened on her, shifting her, but the clock held her gaze. “What have you done?” Cormac demanded again.

“I have done nothing,” the Allurer said. His voice sounded dim as if daisy fluff stuffed her ears. Erieri heard the distant thud of a footstep behind her. Heard Cormac growl. The muffled words barely reached her. “I have done nothing, but I have seen this,” the Allurer said.

“Then how do we stop it?”

An empty chuckle, and the Allurer spoke again, “I saw this. I did not stop this. I cannot stop this. Only she can.”

“How? You claimed you failed. How can you know she can?” Cormac’s hands tightened on her, and she felt his panic. He held her closer as if to lend her strength, but nothing reached her.

“Because I am here to aid her.”

“Aid her?” Cormac scoffed. “More likely twist this to your advantage.”

“No, I am only here to help–”

“Liar!”

“Let him.” Erieri’s voice ground within her throat, as if the words struggled to creep through thickening glaciers which sealed her voice within. An Ice the Allurer never carried.

Cormac remained still a moment before the pressure of his hands released her arms. Another hand with just too long fingers touched the back of her head, soft and light.

Erieri felt the Allurer enter her mind.

Her mind tensed, ready to refute the Allurer’s touch. Ready to believe the touch vial after the unknown time he’d haunted their plains attempting to destroy them. The touch was not.

Her presence beat equally against his, neither dominating nor reminding her of nothing more than dirt and river water mixing into a slurry. Unexpected. She decided the word was Unexpected. But not. Unpleasant.

The Allurer moved within her mind. His presence slid about her, sliding but never connecting. The male version of him she’d known entered her mind, as did the woman Cormac saw, and more. More versions of the Allurer, male and female. Erieri knew the faces he’d worn were both his and not.

Gasping, she pulled back from him as realization of his familiarity struck her. He knew where to strike them because he was a guardian himself. As quickly as Erieri gained the realization, his mind slid about her and formed into the man she’d known. They stood on an open, unending plain. Here, though, the colors surrounding them had been stolen leaving behind nothing but grey.

“None of that,” the Allurer growled. His clothing thickened, turning into armor and covered every bit of him. Every bit but his head. He held the helm in his hand and stared at her, leaving the barest trace of connection between them.

“I thought you meant to help me.” Erieri wrapped her arms about herself. Her own clothes remained the same ones she’d worn on the planes. Familiar to her life before becoming Guardian. Before becoming Hendat’s apprentice.

“I said I would aid. I did not say I would surrender everything to you.” Erieri sniffed, realizing she had invaded his mind. She’d ploughed through his thoughts, grasping, learning, taking all he’d been.

He had not done the same.

She took a step back and shook her head. “I did not mean too.”

“I know. If you had, we both would have lost.”

“Both lost?” Erieri asked.

The Allurer shrugged. “How did my presence feel to you?”

“Like thick riverbed clay?”

“Silica then. You felt like water to me. Quick, fleeting, strong,” the Allurer said. He turned away. “Water and silica mixed becomes clay and undistinguishable. Do they not?” He turned away and started striding through the non-plains.

Erieri pressed her lips tightly. Silica and water may combine into a beautiful clay, but eventually it hardened when the water evaporated. What did he not tell her?

Whatever didn’t matter at the moment. Presently what mattered was stopping this time ending hers. Erieri recalled enough of his thoughts to see him standing before his own time’s clock. That had been the memory which caused her to realize what he was. No had been.

Erieri was equally certain he no longer acted like a guardian. He had stood before his own clock and nearby the death clock had glowed. That had killed his guardianship.

That would not be her times fate. Nor Erieri’s She dashed after him. “Where are we going?

“To the Center of Time.”

“The center? Don’t you mean the beginning of time?” Erieri grinned trying to turn solemnity to humor and thereby lesson and her nerves.

The Allurer shook his head. “The beginning of time? Foolish nonsense. Time does not begin. It is.”

“If time does not begin and just is, how can it end?” Erieri asked.

The Allurer’s step hesitated a moment. “It does not end, but that would have been hard to explain there.” The clearing changed ahead. Still grey, a pool appeared suddenly. Above it uncountable circles glowed at varying heights. Though most soared high above the waters as if they’d escape the pool. “But not so hard here.”

Erieri crept forward, her steps light and careful as if expecting something to notice her if she moved too rapidly. Lines stretched from the circles about the pool, drawing from its depths. Erieri scowled shaking her head. No, the pool drew from the circles. The pool glowed darkly and joined them all.

“Time does not end,” The Allurer said. “Time returns to the center. There it is wrung through it until what was is no more. What may be becomes.” The Allurer stopped next to her and glowered at the waters. Erieri gasped, looking at the lines attached to the circles. Those were times, clockfaces. Looking into the pool, she saw more clocks glowing within. No, on the other side. The pool bore no depth in itself.

“Times begun. Times end. All of it occurs here.” Erieri said. The pool glowed dimly, grey. “The end of time,” she said.

The Allurer nodded. “The Center of Time.”

Erieri watched time trickle toward the pool. Disquiet settled over her, and she knew not even a guardian should see this place. But what of a chooser? The thoughts tickled her brain, and she shrugged it away. She could tease that thought out that later. Assuming she had one.

Assuming she could return. Erieri could not say how she’d gotten here beyond the Allurer had brought her with the promise of aid.

“We’re here. Now what?” She grabbed his arm jerking him about. “And how did you know to get here?”

He turned and pointed his finger pointing toward the water. Or she’d thought it the water at first, but peering as he continued not moving saw one circle nearly to the water’s surface. Dim. Nearly as dim as the end of time itself. Time flowed from it, each ripple pulling the clock closer to the center in movement she could see. Movement every clock shared. She watched the other clocks see the slightest pull on each. Each drawn ever toward the center. But the one he indicated lay nearly at the center. The end. Moving faster to its demise.

The Allurer’s time.

“All right,” Erieri licked her lips. “I suppose that answers that question, but what do we do now?”

The Allurer pointed turned to point at a circle lowering from the rest. Slowly, barely perceptibly, but lowering. Erieri did not need to ponder what clock that was. Her own time.

“You must shore up your time.” He turned to her. “The sooner you do, the easier the task will be.”

Erieri scrunched her brow confused. “Shore up time. How do you shore up time?” Erieri said. “Time is.” She turned toward him and saw solemnity in his expression and understood. “You’re not here to help me with this task.”

“No, I am not,” the Allurer said.

“Bringing me here was the aid you promised. Bringing me because you knew the way here.”

The Allurer nodded, saying nothing.

Erieri turned from him and looked at the clocks. The myriad of faces all connected through the Center of Time. A final realization tugged at her consciousness, persistent no matter how much she did not wish to entertain it.

The second hand on her clock moved, and a tremble sounded throughout the area. Time rippled between her clock and the center, pulling her clock lower. She did not have the time to hesitate.

“You mean for me to become like you. You mean for me to rob other times to save my own.” Erieri turned back to the Allurer, and still he said nothing. Instead, he took his helmet and placed it upon his head.

The certainty of the knowledge faded slightly as if it had become long ago learned, a concept she had grasped once and left long dormant. A concept he had given her. A concept he now returned to himself. Erieri turned from the Allurer back to the Center of Time and the other times there.

Those times hovered strong, buoyed by the time they held. Time and time to spare. She could siphon from them miniscule amounts. Amounts they would not notice. A practice which bought her time and would make her the same as the Allurer. Trapped. Trapped and always searching for more time causing other times to tumble sooner to the center. All would end and begin anew alone.

There was no answer there.

Shaking her head, she turned back toward the Allurer. “I cannot do that.”

“Then your time is doomed.” His voice echoed within his helm, and the Allurer turned back to his own time. “I failed to act sooner myself. If I had acted, so little time would have been needed… now so much.” Erieri understood his desperation. His time was ending. And yet.

Her gaze moved back over the clock faces. Brilliant, beautiful. Each reflected a different hue, a different reality. Which one belonged to the archer, her nameless friend? Could she risk taking her time? Robbing from one who had helped repair the damage Erieri had caused by her own self bending and twisting time. Looping it so that her past, present and future selves might coalesce at once to see, understand, and pass judgement.

And all clocks were bound by threads to the center. Threads which drew them down. Each Alone in their shared fate.

The word shared caught in Erieri’s mind, and she spun toward the Allurer. Alone, and yet she was not alone. The Allurer had invaded her plains, her time, trying to draw out some for herself. His presence there echoed with every guardian before him.

Alone and not.

He’d meant her time to keep his aloft.

Could his time do the same for her?

Erieri licked her lips and folded her arms tightly looking at the Allurer. “I have an idea,” she said. The Allurer turned from his contemplation of the waters to face her again. She could feel his eyes move within the slit of his shadowed helm.

Erieri pointed at her clock still hovering high in the air. “Go there,” she said simply.

The Allurer shook his head. “Why? Do you feel guilt for my time’s death and wish to offer up yours now?”

Silence stretched between them. Brief or long, Erieri could not say and knew did not matter here. “In a manner, yes.” Erieri shrugged and looked back toward the center. At his time and at hers. “Do either of us have time to argue?”

The Allurer chuckled softly. “Not what I expected, Guardian.” His words echoed harshly. Removing his helm, the Allurer grinned at Erieri. “Though I will accept your donation.”

“Then let us do this.”

The Allurer stepped back, his armor changing again. Wind spread from the back of his suit, sharp and metal. They screamed twisting, no beating the air with enough force to lift him from the ground.

Erieri watched him sail upward before turning her back on the Allurer. She moved to the edge of the center and walked out. Her feet didn’t sink into the water. She strode across the pool to where the Allurers time sank.

Erieri was convinced that her idea was mad. Convinced that she damned her time all the faster. And the Allurer? He had nothing to lose from her attempt. If she were right, even slightly right, this bought him more time. Every inch of the Gaurdian within her screamed against the idea. But she was desperate.

They were both desperate, and Erieri did not wish to become like him. This was at least a different path.

Reaching out, she touched the flow stretching from his center. Like water sliding into silica at a rivers bank, she felt herself connected to his time.

It yanked her forward. Power lashed about her shoulders and pulled her in. Erieri cried out, a cry which echoed angrily above her.

She halted with her face a mere breath from his clock. Straightening, Erieri turned and looked back to the sky. The Allurer hovered beside her clock. He had placed his hand upon it, and she saw new lines forming. A line to his time, and a line to hers. Each a thread but a trickle of time. Each feeding new time into the other as the other siphoned off in exchange.

Neither fell further as they stood staring in silence. The Allurer’s rose slightly, buoyed by her time. Neither dependent on the center alone anymore.

A slow grin crossed the Allurer’s face, and he nodded to her. The Center of Time faded from her vision.

“How could you let the Allurer near to her?” She heard Hendet bellow loudly.

“Do you think I saw another choice?” Cormac said in angry defense.

“So, you granted her approval?”

Erieri opened her eyes in time to see Cormac, gestured toward the clock. The clock wavered even as she glanced at it, dimming as if unneeded.

But not disappearing.

“She needs approval from neither of you,” Erieri said. Rising, she dusted grass and dirt from her knees.

Cormac and Hendat turned toward her, their mouths both opening to argue with her. Both stopped staring behind Erieri.

She twisted, but the Allurer was gone. Mostly. A light shone behind her following as she turned. A trial of light.

“What’s that?” Hendat demanded.

Erieri didn’t bother to look at him. She didn’t want to see their expressions or care about what they thought of her choice. She’d become something neither merely guardian nor chooser. Those roles only concerned themselves with their own time for all she’d chosen this fate.

She shrugged. “It’s a trickle of time.” And time was but both she and the Allurer had needed, and what they’d found. Erieri left the oddly silent pair and marched across the plain. She didn’t know how much time she had, but, however long, she’d guard.