The Guardian gods

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A heavy silence followed, but Keles didn't break eye contact. "You are an omen of an end, yet at the same time, an omen of a new beginning. But sadly, not for your world, but for the world I come from."

She leaned forward on her throne, the shadows around her deepening as if drawn to her words. "We have no sixth-tier powerhouses in my world. But your death represents their coming, and at the same time, it represents a lesson, both for me and for my child, of the dangers that will come with them."

Kairos sank deeper into his throne, his body folding into the silence that stretched between them. Keles did not press, her gaze patient, waiting. At last, his voice broke the stillness.

"What does this yet-to-come young god want from me?"

Keles's lips curved into a knowing smile. "Your story."

For a heartbeat Kairos was still then his eyes widened, and from his chest burst something long forgotten: laughter. It rolled through the chamber, harsh and weathered, carrying the sound of centuries. "The young god is a nosy one," he said, shaking his head.

"Indeed he is," Keles replied warmly. "But in his own words, it is the truest send-off, and an honor."

Kairos's laughter dwindled into a faint smile, though his eyes carried an old shadow. "My story is nothing special. And surely you already know enough. You speak of the mages as though their secrets were children's tales."

"I, like my brother Vellok, came of age and awakened as a mage," Kairos began, his voice low, heavy with memory. "My talent was time. Vellok's was light. He was fortunate there was a mage of light who took him in, though even that came with consequences of its own."

He paused, his gaze distant. "The mages who took an interest in me… they had no knowledge, no guidance, no records to lean upon. In their own words, those with a gift for time were said to stand at their pinnacle by the time their talent was already noticed, so little could be studied, so little could be learned. I became their opportunity."

His face darkened, his jaw tightening. "Every curiosity they had hoarded over centuries, even millennia, was loosed upon me."

Kairos's hand rose slowly, fingers pressing against his temple as his voice faltered. His body gave a faint shudder, and for the first time the emperor looked not eternal, but broken. "My time with the mages was so terrible… so horrifying… that my mind itself rebelled. I pushed it all away, locked the memories deep until they blurred, until there was nothing left but fragments of screams and light."

A hollow silence filled the space. Kairos drew in a ragged breath. "And when I came to, I found myself like this my body… twisted into its current state."

Kairos's hand trembled against his temple as the memories began to claw their way back to the surface.

"They began with simple things," he whispered. "Clocks. Sand. Sunlight measured against shadow. They made me bend them, stretch them, stop them. At first, it was almost… harmless. They cheered like children whenever I succeeded, wrote their notes like excited scholars. But then"

His eyes unfocused, staring at something only he could see. "They grew greedy. They wanted to see how far the thread could stretch before it snapped."

Keles remained silent, her posture still, her eyes sharpened with quiet gravity.

"They forced me to slow my own heartbeat until I hovered at the edge of death. They caged animals, people, prisoners from different world… and made me drag their lives into stillness, then restart them. Do you know what it is like, Lady Keles, to hear the sound of a man screaming for weeks within a single breath? To watch him wither into old age in the space of a moment, then crumble into dust before your eyes?"

His voice cracked, and for an instant, the Emperor of Ages sounded like a boy.

"They carved me open," he continued hoarsely, "not with blades, but with moments. A cut that never closed because the wound was held in its first instant. Skin that never healed because they froze the flesh in the moment of tearing. And when they tired of my flesh, they pulled me from myself—"

His body shuddered violently, the memory searing through him. "They stretched me across days. I was awake in a thousand different yesterdays and tomorrows at once, every moment of me screaming, colliding, overlapping. I would watch my own hand decay while the other was still young. They… they turned me into an echo of myself, a broken chorus stretched across the river of time."

Silence pressed in again. The weight of his confession hung thick, like ash.

Kairos lowered his hand from his face at last, but his eyes were hollow, as though the words had scraped him bare. "This is why I do not speak of it. This is why I hide. For even now, I am not whole. I am still scattered, caught between the moments they tore me into."

Keles let the silence stretch, her presence steady as Kairos gathered himself. When he finally spoke, his voice was low.

"Their hunger for understanding turned sour," he murmured, picking up the thread. His gaze sank to the floor, as if the weight of memory pressed his head down. "Greed twisted into jealousy, then into disdain. 'How could a mere goblin be worthy of wielding such power?' Those were their words."

His jaw tightened. "And I, what could I do? I was a child in their hands, a specimen. I accepted it. Worse, I played along."

For a moment, his expression softened, a strange contradiction surfacing. "And yet… for all the torment, they never forgot their one true goal. You should know it well, Lady Keles "the shaping of a world's First Child."

His lips curved into something between a grimace and a smile. "It is almost laughable to admit, after everything they did. But their grand design… gave me something I had never known. For the first time, I felt seen. For the first time, I felt loved. Their words, their attention, their praise it became the light I clung to in the dark. So much so, I willingly overlooked the pain.

Kairos exhaled, bitter and heavy. "I fell into their game. I let them mold me. I adopted their values, believed in their vision. They painted me as the cornerstone of their future, the proof of their brilliance… and I" His voice broke, and he pressed his lips together. "I wanted so desperately for it to be true."

Kairos lifted his weary eyes to Keles. "You said you were born with power. Now imagine a mortal small, insignificant suddenly finding themselves with such strength. Then imagine being told, by the ones you most admire, what greatness you could achieve with it. I was a fool. I lost myself in their words… in my own power."

Keles leaned forward, her throne now less a seat of comfort and more a dais of judgment. "But all good things come to an end," she said softly. "Especially in your case."

Kairos did not flinch. Instead, he gave a bitter smile. "So… you knew of that too."

"Yes," Keles replied. "At first it was baffling watching you roam so freely within the mages' halls, when they held enough power to end worlds with a gesture. It was only later we understood why."

"Indeed." Kairos's smile faded into something heavier, his gaze far away. "The favor I basked in their praise, their guidance ended as suddenly as it began. In its place came whispers, cold commands, and the same fear I had known as a child caged in their shadow. The old dread returned, and with it, a resolve. I began to plan. To plot escape. For me. For my people. I thought at last I was outwitting them."

He exhaled, shoulders sagging as if the confession carried centuries of weight. "But when the day came, when we fled their gilded prison… I learned the cruelest truth of all." His voice cracked. "It was never escape. It was still their plan. Every step, every act of rebellion, every spark of hope, I had been moving along their design."

"That was the last straw for me, Lady Keles," Kairos said after a long silence.

"I lost every shred of pride I had in that moment. To realize that I, who wielded time itself, who plotted the grand escape of my people, was nothing more than a pawn… dancing on the strings of my masters. Every move, every hope, every triumph already foreseen, already permitted."

He lifted a trembling hand and pointed at his eyes. "Since that day, there has always been a number… etched at the edge of my vision. A percentage. Cold, merciless. It tells me how close or how far we are from fulfilling the mages' goal. Even as I sit before you now, speaking these words, it is there. Always there. Mocking me."