The concept of "impossible" had undergone significant revision in the past eight days.

  Emre thought about this as he stared at the ziggurat—the impossible ziggurat, in an impossible place, at an impossible time. Eight days ago, impossible meant a software bug that couldn't be reproduced. Impossible meant a structural calculation that exceeded known parameters. Impossible meant things that didn't happen.

  Now impossible meant standing in a past that shouldn't exist, watching an army that had been dust for millennia, carrying a figurine that apparently served as a time-travel device.

  He laughed.

  It was not a healthy laugh. Maya looked at him with concern. Kaelen looked at him with the expression of someone who had seen many people break and recognized the early signs.

  "Are you okay?" Maya asked.

  "No," Emre said. "No, I am very much not okay. But that's irrelevant. Being okay is irrelevant. Finding Sulley is the only thing that matters, and if that requires accepting that time travel is real, then I accept it. Fully. Completely. Without reservation."

  Kaelen raised an eyebrow. "That's... remarkably adaptable."

  "Adaptability is a survival trait. Now tell me everything you know about this place. This time. What's happening here?"

  Kaelen looked back at the ziggurat, at the army, at the impossible structure rising from the plain. When he spoke, his voice was distant, as if reciting from a history learned long ago and never forgotten.

  "The First Echo War. Three thousand years ago, by Nexus reckoning. The Mando had just discovered their power—the ability to bind souls, to weave them into tools and weapons, to tap into the echoes of dead gods. They thought they were saving the world. They thought they were ushering in a new age of peace and prosperity."

  "They were wrong," Maya said. It wasn't a question.

  "They were always wrong. The power corrupted them. They started taking—not just willing participants, but anyone with strong soul-echoes. Anyone who could be used. The other nations rose against them. The war lasted a century. Millions died." He pointed at the army. "That's the final battle. The Siege of Alacah?yük. The Mando's last stand."

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Emre's mind was racing. "And the figurine? The Aya Figurine?"

  "Aya was there. The original Aya—not your Sulley, but the goddess herself, in her last incarnation before she faded. She tried to stop the war. Tried to broker peace. The Mando captured her, tried to use her power, and..." He trailed off.

  "And?"

  "And something went wrong. The records are unclear. But the result was catastrophic. The Mando were defeated. Alacah?yük was destroyed. Aya vanished—died, or ascended, or something in between. And the God Butchers, who had been dormant for eons, began to stir."

  Emre looked at the figurine in his hand. It was warm again, pulsing with that steady rhythm, but it felt different now. Heavier. More present.

  "The figurine is from this time," he said slowly. "It was made here, wasn't it?"

  "Yes. One of seven Echo Objects, created to contain fragments of Aya's power after her... disappearance. They were scattered across worlds and times, hidden where no one could find them. Or so the Mando believed."

  "But someone found them. Arin Velsar—whoever he really is—he found them. He used them to draw people like Sulley. People who could resonate with Aya's echo."

  Kaelen nodded. "That's the theory. I never had proof. But now—" He gestured at their surroundings. "Now we're standing in the middle of it. Literally. At the moment when everything changed."

  Maya had been quiet, staring at the army. Now she turned to face them, and her expression was troubled.

  "If we're in the past," she said slowly, "then we can change things. We can warn them. We can stop the war, stop the Mando from capturing Aya, stop—"

  "No." Kaelen's voice was sharp. "Absolutely not. You don't understand how time works here. The Nexus doesn't follow your world's rules. The past isn't fixed—it's alive. It reacts. Changes ripple forward in ways you can't predict. You could make things worse. You could erase your own existence. You could—"

  He stopped.

  The ground was shaking.

  Not violently—just a subtle tremor, barely perceptible. But Emre felt it, and he saw Kaelen feel it, and he saw the color drain from the former Mando's face.

  "No," Kaelen whispered. "No, no, no—"

  "What?" Maya demanded. "What is it?"

  "The God Butchers. They're here. In this time. They've always been here." He grabbed Emre's arm, his grip desperate. "The deeps didn't just send us back. It summoned them. We're the bait."

  The shaking grew stronger.

  And in the distance, the sky began to tear.

  ---

  It was like Berlin. Like Istanbul. But worse.

  The tear was larger—massive, spanning the entire horizon. The purple light was deeper, more intense. And the shapes that emerged from it were not the tentative reaching things Emre had seen before. They were coming through. Full forms, vast and terrible, descending toward the plain where the army stood.

  Toward the ziggurat.

  Toward them.

  The army saw it. Emre could hear screams, faint and distant, carried on the wind. Could see figures scattering, formations breaking, thousands of soldiers suddenly remembering that they were mortal.

  But some didn't run. Some stood their ground. And from the ziggurat's peak, a light began to rise.

  Golden. Warm. Familiar.

  Sulley.

  No—not Sulley. But the same light. The same presence. Aya, in her last incarnation, preparing to face the God Butchers with whatever power she had left.

  Emre started running.

  "Emre!" Maya's voice behind him. "Emre, what are you doing?"

  He didn't answer. He couldn't answer. He only knew that the light was there, and Sulley was connected to it, and if he could reach it—if he could understand it—maybe he could save her. Maybe he could save everyone.

  The ground shook harder. The tear widened. The shapes descended.

  And Emre ran toward a goddess he had never met, carrying an artifact that had traveled three thousand years to be here, at this moment, for this purpose.

  The figurine blazed in his hand.

  And for the first time, he understood what it wanted him to do.