She is still out there, somewhere. You might catch a glimpse of her if you look closely at an old photograph—a figure in the background who shouldn't be there, wearing a crown that doesn't quite reflect the light. Or you might feel her presence in a moment of déjà vu, that strange sense that you have lived this second before.
At least, that's what they told her.
“I can hold the edges for a while,” Batzorig whispered. “But I am old. I am tired. And the threads are slipping.” time lord
She was a strange child, even by the standards of a world falling apart. She never forgot anything—not a glance, not a breath, not the exact position of dust motes in a sunbeam. She could predict the future, but only in fragments: a cup that would break, a bird that would fall from the sky, the precise moment a stranger would sneeze. More unsettling was her relationship with the past. She would sometimes stare at empty rooms and weep, explaining later, “Someone was just there. Someone who died a hundred years ago. They looked so lonely.”
She put them on.
Batzorig placed the inverted hourglass in her hands. The sand began to flow downward—normally, properly—and the Tower shuddered. When Elara looked up, Batzorig was gone. In his place was a crown of rusted gears and a cloak woven from the shadows of eclipses.
And in the eye of that storm, a child was born. She is still out there, somewhere
The only candidate was Elara.