The Fire Kingdom's army stretched across the Ashen Pass like a river of molten iron, their banners screaming phoenixes, their war machines belching smoke. At their head rode the Fire King himself—Hafa's father—a titan in crimson armor, his beard braided with the bones of mixed-born rebels.
Tucan stood atop the Timeless Kingdom's highest spire, the wind tearing at his robes. Below, the Four Clans gathered, still trembling from his lesson. Let them tremble, he thought. Let them all burn.
"Your Eternity," Lady Veyra said, her voice stripped of its earlier defiance. "The clans are ready to march. Your strategy—"
"I have no strategy," Tucan interrupted. "Only consequences."
He stepped off the spire.
And fell upward.
The Storm of Ages
Time unraveled as Tucan descended upon the Fire Kingdom's army. Soldiers pointed, laughed—until the air rippled.
The first wave of cavalry charged. Tucan raised a hand.
They turned to dust mid-gallop.
Horses collapsed into skeletons. Swords rusted to flakes. Men screamed as their armor fused to aging flesh, their bodies withering to husks in seconds. The Fire King's laughter died.
"Face me, coward!" the Fire King bellowed, hefting a hammer wreathed in flames. "Or do you only slaughter peasants?"
Tucan landed before him, his eyes twin voids. "You called me a god. Let me show you how gods bleed."
He snapped his fingers.
The Fire King's armor turned to ash.
The King of Cinders
The Fire King staggered, naked but for his fury. "You think this frightens me? I am fire incarnate!"
Flames erupted from his hands, hotter than a forge—but Tucan walked through them, unburned.
"Fire dies," Tucan said. "Time consumes."
He gripped the Fire King's wrist. The man's skin blistered, wrinkled, sloughed off. Muscle turned to rot. Bone to powder.
"Wait—!" the Fire King choked.
"You didn't wait," Tucan hissed. "When you burned my mother. When you dared."
The Fire King's remaining eye bulged. " My choise is nothing "
Tucan's grip tightened. " everything. "
The Fire King crumbled, his last breath a curse.
The Cost,
The Timeless Kingdom's army arrived to find only ruins. The Ashen Pass was now the Bleached Pass, a desert of dust and silence. The clans stared at Tucan, their faces etched with terror.
General Kael fell to one knee. "Your Eternity… it's over."
"No," Tucan said, staring at his hands. Silver blood dripped from his palms—his first wound in a century. "It's just begun."
Behind him, the clans whispered. Lady Veyra clutched her empty scrolls. Lira's hood hid a smile.
Interlude: The Edge of Eternity
Hafa stood in a temple of frozen time, her fingers brushing a mural of Tucan's past. The scene showed him as a child, weeping over his mother's body. A shadow loomed behind him—not the Fire King, but a figure with Tucan's face, older, crueler.
"A time loop," she whispered. "You've been fighting yourself all along."
The mural shifted. The older Tucan whispered to the boy, "Accept the curse. Become the god. They'll never hurt you again."