Meridian's oldest district unfolded before them like a forgotten memory — narrow alleys twisted upward, spiraling toward the towering silhouette of the Clock Spire.
Unlike the rest of the floating city, this area was silent.No footsteps.No ticking.
As if time itself avoided the place.
Lucienne held a lantern powered by captured star-shards. Its glow pushed away the haze swirling around them, revealing walls scrawled with faded inscriptions.
Nox brushed his fingers over one.
"It's a warning," he murmured. "About a Rift-Born."
Lucienne stiffened. "Only the Spirewardens used that term. This was once their sanctuary."
Nox frowned. "Who are they?"
"Were," Lucienne whispered. "Guardians of the hour that never existed."
They reached the immense doors of the Clock Spire — metal so old it looked like stone. The carvings depicted a giant hourglass splitting apart… sand drifting upward into constellations.
Nox's heart pounded in response.The mark on his hand glowed faintly.
Lucienne glanced at it. "Looks like the Spire knows you're here."
Nox inserted the Archivist's silver time-key.
A deep clank echoed through the ground.
The doors groaned open.
Inside, stairs twisted up the tower walls, illuminated by gears the size of houses — frozen mid-turn, like machinery caught in its own final breath.
Lucienne whispered, awe overtaking her sharpness:
"No one has stepped inside for a century."
Nox stepped onto the staircase… and the gears twitched.
The floor vibrated.
Then — a voice, layered and fractured, spilled from the shadows:
"You came back."
Nox froze.
A figure stood higher on the stairs. A young man in a Spirewarden coat — timeworn, but unmistakably real. His eyes glowed with a violet sheen.
Lucienne drew a breath. "Impossible… a temporal remnant with consciousness—"
The figure shook his head. "Not a remnant. A warden." He stepped closer. "I have been waiting for the one who carries the broken hour."
His gaze locked onto Nox.
"You, who once stood here before.""You, who chose the fracture.""You… who left us to collapse."
Nox's blood ran cold. "I've never been here."
The warden's expression twisted — grief and fury fused together.
"You were Kalo Renn," he said."You are Nox Altheon.""And you cannot escape either."
Nox's legs buckled. Lucienne grabbed his arm to steady him.
"What do you mean he chose—"
The tower shuddered violently, interrupting her.
The great gears lurched into motion.
Time, dormant for years, began to turn.
The warden raised a hand, desperate urgency breaking his composure.
"Listen carefully. The missing hour is awakening — and when it does, the world will remember what you erased."
Nox recoiled. "What I erased?"
The air around the warden cracked apart like shattered glass — fragments of timelines glitching through him.
His final words were a strangled plea:
"Do not climb higher. What lies above was never meant to return."
Then he disintegrated — swallowed by a temporal snap that left nothing behind.
Lucienne stared at the empty space, shaken. "Nox… what did you do?"
Nox shook his head helplessly.
"I don't know."
But the tower did.
The stairs ahead lit one by one, forming a path.Inviting him upward.Toward a truth waiting to strike.
Lucienne's voice trembled.
"Do we continue?"
Nox looked up into the spiraling dark — fear and need coiled tight in his chest.
"We have to," he whispered."Because the past isn't staying buried."
Hand gripping the railing, he ascended — the gears' awakening ticking in time with his racing pulse.
Tick.Tock.Tick—
Like a countdownto history's return.