Soot-stained winds bit at Alaric’s cheeks as he navigated the skeletal remains of what had once been the Sky-Market district. Rusting clockwork gears, long since ceased, loomed like ancient, forgotten gods against the perpetually overcast sky of Old Hearth. Here, amidst the crumbling spires and precariously leaning automatons, temporal echoes shimmered, faint distortions ripe for his touch. Today, seven such echoes had crossed his path. A trio of skittering chronal-beetles, their carapaces faintly out of sync with present reality, leaving faint afterimages as they scurried. A larger, more robust echo, a spectral dog-wolf whose snarl was a whisper of a past hunt. Each encounter left Alaric with a familiar, dangerous hum beneath his skin. He reached out, Chronoscrying fingers ghosting over the fading forms. A subtle twist, a careful recalibration of their immediate past, and the temporal distortion dissolved, its latent energies flowing into him. A rush, a cold electric thrill, momentarily sharpened his senses. It was a power that both sustained him and hinted at a precipice, a constant reminder of the delicate line he walked with reality. Soon, he knew, this particular wellspring would diminish. The weaker echoes offered less, their temporal residue barely a draught for his growing thirst. To truly strengthen his grasp on the past, he needed greater distortions, older, more potent remnants, found only in the deepest, most untouched forgotten places. *** Two of the smallest echoes, a shimmering street-rat whose whiskers flickered like dying gasps, and a sparrow-like temporal blur that flitted too erratically to properly stabilize, Alaric captured in a mesh bag. Their temporal signatures were too weak to reclaim, yet they held enough form to fetch a bounty. He secured them with careful knots, the thought of wasted potential a dull ache. City Watch’s Temporal Reclamation desk occupied a cavernous space beneath the Old Hearth’s primary Cog-Tower. Gears whirred behind a grimy counter. A chronometer-keeper, his spectacles perched precariously on a nose purpled by burst capillaries, squinted at Alaric. “Two, you say?” His voice rasped, the question edged with suspicion, as though Alaric had conjured them from thin air. Alaric nodded. “Undamaged. They’ll do for the Academy’s observation pens. Twenty-five Glimmer-Shards, as per regulation.” The keeper picked at a loose thread on his tunic. “Hmm, well… the sparrow-blurs are… notoriously difficult to classify. Perhaps twenty?” Alaric’s gaze sharpened, a faint, almost imperceptible temporal hum rising from his core. His quiet intensity, usually hidden, now pressed against the room. The keeper’s eyes darted away, a tremor running through his hand as he pushed the full sum of Glimmer-Shards across the counter. The coins clinked, cold and heavy. “Right. Here you go.” The man stammered, pulling his hand back as if burned. Earning these was a different kind of satisfaction than reclaiming temporal energy, a concrete triumph in a world of whispers. *** Back at The Cog & Kettle, Elara, the inn’s perpetually cheerful waitress, met him with a wide smile. “Alaric! Back from the gloom, I see. Another bowl of our finest broth, perhaps? A hunk of stale bread?” Alaric paused, the rough fabric of his coin-pouch warm against his palm. Usually, he chose the cheapest fare, a habit born of necessity and his solitary nature. But today, a strange impulse stirred. He wanted to understand the lure of luxury, the difference money could make beyond mere survival. “The most opulent meal you offer,” Alaric said, his voice softer than usual. “Something that takes time.” Elara’s eyes widened, her smile transforming into a grin of delight. “Oh, Alaric! You must have found a hoard! I’ll tell Chef Elias at once!” He hadn’t realized the inn’s most extravagant dish required nearly an hour of preparation. Yet, when the platters finally arrived, the aroma alone justified the wait. Freshly baked hearth-rolls, still warm, with a jar of glistening crimson jam. A plump Veridian clock-hen, roasted to a golden crisp, its skin crackling under the slightest touch. Ribs of smoked forge-boar, glazed with a dark, sweet sauce, crowned with bubbling, golden cheese. Alaric, accustomed to dry rations and thin broth, regarded the feast with a quiet wonder. Each bite was a revelation. The tender pull of the meat, the burst of fruit, the delicate crunch of the bread. He ate slowly at first, meticulously savoring each flavor, then with a growing hunger that surprised even himself. His movements, usually precise, became driven by a primal urge. Before he realized, the plates were empty, leaving only crumbs. He blinked, a faint dusting of cheese on his lips. “Was… was any of this taken while I wasn’t looking?” Elara chuckled, her voice warm. “Of course not, Alaric! But for a quiet scrivener, you certainly can eat! Chef Elias says it’s rare to see someone appreciate his grand meal so thoroughly.” Even the burly Chef Elias, a man usually confined to the steamy confines of his kitchen, emerged to nod his approval. Alaric finally understood the simple, profound joy of abundance. *** Three days blurred into a cycle of hunt and study. Alaric's Chronoscrying had grown sharper, more precise. He learned to track the faint, lingering temporal trails of Echo-Wraiths even when their physical distortions were beyond his immediate range. A fleeting shimmer on a cobble, a scent of ozone that hung for a moment too long—each was a clue, a thread to follow. He had stabilized nearly two dozen more echoes, earning a steady stream of Glimmer-Shards. Meanwhile, Kaelen Varr and his small crew, a band of former scrap-dealers who hunted raw temporal anomalies, seemed to be struggling. Their faces grew longer, their complaints about dwindling resources audible even from the common room. Kaelen’s men, Torvin and Garth, both burly and perpetually grim, cornered Alaric outside his room one evening. “Ey, scrivener!” Torvin’s voice rumbled, loud in the narrow hall. “Heard you’re finding all the easy pickings. Time to share, eh? Fellow anomaly hunters, we are.” Garth stepped closer, his shadow falling over Alaric. “That’s right. A few Glimmer-Shards to keep us fed.” Alaric met their gaze, his own eyes holding a calm, unnerving stillness. A low hum, almost imperceptible, emanated from his core. He twisted his wrist, a subtle temporal pulse rippling outwards. Torvin stumbled, his footing momentarily shifting into a fraction of a second earlier, making him trip over his own feet. Garth, sensing the odd displacement, reeled back, losing his balance as if the floor beneath him had momentarily vanished. Both men tumbled down the rickety stairs, their curses echoing through the inn. Alaric closed his door, his heart thrumming, the use of his gift a constant, dangerous temptation. Kaelen Varr appeared at Alaric’s door a short while later, his face contorted in an apology. “Alaric, I am truly sorry. My men are fools. This will not happen again. I’ll see to it.” He wrung his hands, his usual rough bravado replaced by genuine distress. “Are you in a difficult position?” Alaric asked, observing Kaelen’s downcast eyes, the weary slump of his shoulders. Kaelen hesitated, then nodded. “Aye. Things are tight. Too many hunters, not enough solid anomalies. This city… it’s been scoured.” He explained their history, how they’d given up scavenging to chase whispers of temporal power, how hard it was for common folk to make a living from such dangerous work. How two years of constant struggle had yielded little beyond survival. It brought a strange clarity to Alaric, the often-disdainful view of anomaly hunters by the city officials now making more sense. A life of desperate gambles. “Honestly, we’ll be out of Glimmer-Shards for rent in a few days. Don’t worry, though, we’re not asking for charity from a quiet lad like you.” Kaelen sighed, rubbing his temples. “After the trouble my men caused, it would be shameless.” Alaric reached into his pouch, pulling out ten Glimmer-Shards. He held them out. “Here.” Kaelen stared, dumbfounded. “Why? What for?” “You invited me to share your table when I first arrived,” Alaric replied, the memory of Kaelen’s rough kindness still clear. “Consider it repayment for that generosity. The trouble your men caused… that was already dealt with.” His knuckles still ached from the Chronoscrying pulse. Kaelen’s brows furrowed. “Still, I can’t just…” “If you feel compelled to repay it,” Alaric interjected, “then share information. Tell me what you know of other cities, other hunting grounds, anything useful.” Alaric knew the general lay of Veridia, the major power centers, but the nuanced details of regional dangers, hidden passages, and specific temporal hotbeds were largely unknown to him, guarded tightly by the Arcane Cartels. Kaelen’s face brightened. “That, I can do!” He spent the next hour sketching a rough map on a parchment scrap, marking the treacherous ‘Shifting Wastes’ that separated city-states, the locations of old chronal ruins, and even some of the more infamous temporal anomalies. He warned Alaric of territories controlled by powerful arcane families who permitted no wanderers. But one detail ignited a spark within Alaric that outshone any physical gain. “You said… a library? In Lumina?” Alaric’s voice was barely a whisper, his breath catching. “Aye, the Lumina Athenaeum. A thousand tomes, they say,” Kaelen nodded, a faint wistfulness in his tone. “Never been inside, myself. Only chronomancers are allowed beyond the gates.” Alaric had learned to read from his mentor, but the texts he’d studied were few, sacred fragments guarded with his life. The very concept of a thousand books, a repository of vast, forgotten knowledge, was intoxicating. He felt a deep, almost painful yearning. More than power, more than money, he desired understanding. He wanted to know the true nature of this vast, peculiar world. His plan to leave Old Hearth now had a destination. “Is this information worth enough?” Alaric asked, his eyes gleaming. “More than enough, Alaric. Truly.” *** The following afternoon, during what was meant to be his final hunt in the collapsing industrial sectors of Old Hearth, Alaric found Torvin, one of Kaelen’s men. Torvin clutched his side, blood staining his patched tunic, a ragged gasp catching in his throat. His eyes, already glazing over, struggled to focus on Alaric. “What happened?” Alaric knelt, feeling the chill of impending temporal dissolution around the man. “A rabbit… flicker-maw… monster…” Torvin choked, his finger weakly pointing past Alaric. Alaric turned. There, partially hidden by the debris of a collapsed wall, lay Kaelen. His eyes were wide, fixed on nothing, a look of profound disbelief etched onto his features. Near him, Garth lay in a gruesome heap, his body torn asunder. The air here was thick with raw temporal distortion, a sickly sweet scent of ozone and something akin to scorched earth. Then, from the shadows, emerged the creature. A rabbit the size of a city-cat, its fur a shifting, iridescent grey. Its incisors, long and curved, pulsed with faint chronal energy, seeming to phase in and out of existence. Its hind legs were grotesquely muscular, leaving flickering after-images as it moved, like a temporal echo moving through its own past. Blood dripped from its jaws. The Flicker-Maw turned its unnervingly calm, crimson eyes towards Alaric. It coiled, a tense spring of temporal power. With a sudden burst, it launched itself forward, a blur faster than thought. “Ugh!” Alaric barely reacted, throwing himself to the side. The Flicker-Maw, unable to stop its terrifying momentum, shot past him, slamming into a rusted iron support beam. With a sharp *crack*, the beam didn’t just bend; it sliced cleanly in half, its molecular bonds seemingly undone by the creature’s teeth. The top half crashed to the ground, kicking up dust and the smell of old iron. Alaric stared. This was no ordinary temporal echo. This was a direct, violent rupture in reality itself. He had to act. He focused, drawing on the latent chronological energy within him. A small, jagged shard of stone, loose from the ground, began to hum, vibrating, its recent past echoing with the force of its original quarry impact. Alaric twisted his hand, forcing its echo to manifest with lethal intent.

A Flicker in the Ember