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The king signalled to the exhausted weavers. Several tried to cast runes directed at the small group of unwanted visitors, but nothing happened.
“We need time to recover,” one said to King Eldric.
King Eldric looked annoyed and then sighed. “I guess I’ll have to do it myself.”
Zaine looked at the fake runes on King Eldric’s skin and wondered if he was able to do anything.
“I have never harmed you, Uncle,” Guyan said calmly as she stepped closer to the king. “I am no threat. What you are doing is destroying our world.”
“I don’t do this because I want to,” Eldric replied firmly. “Your star-chart says you are a threat and it is my duty to make sure Zhan is safe.”
Zaine saw his mother’s face go pale as the king spoke; she had said almost identical words when she was banishing him into the Circle of Dreams back at Willow Castle. She had been doing it to save her own world and Maata. She did what she had to, even if it was banishing her own son.
She turned her head slowly to look at Zaine. Too slowly. King Eldric seemed to be deciding what runes to use to force them through the circle, and then he simply grabbed Trianna and dragged her towards the circle. Zaine knew that meant that the king’s runes were not strong enough to do anything.
Trianna stuck one foot out and tripped up the king, sending him stumbling forwards. Eldric fell and hit his head hard on the stony floor but grabbed Trianna’s foot and pulled her over as well. Both his and Trianna’s golden crowns fell to the ground. Trianna’s expression grew horrified as she watched the circle of runes get closer as the force of the fall rolled them across the floor. Sy and several other weavers rushed forward to help the king, but they were too late. Both the king and Trianna rolled into the circle and vanished.
For a few seconds there was total silence in the basin. Everyone was staring into the circle. The shadowy land of the dreamlink was still visible, and Zaine could see his mother standing next to the prone figure of King Eldric. She was looking back with a furious expression as if she could see them, but he knew she could not.
The ground in the basin began to shake and the weavers looked nervous.
“The starlink is getting weak. It will not hold for long,” Dom said, stepping closer to the circle. “We should go in and get Father.”
“And risk being stuck in the dreamlink forever?” Sy said with a snort. “Not likely.”
Within seconds, the vibrations grew so strong that the ground cracked under their feet. The crack ran right through the edge of the rune circle and, in the blink of an eye, the link was broken and both the dreamlink and the green-treed world vanished.
Zaine couldn’t help wondering if his mother had made it to the world they had seen before it broke free. Would she be stuck forever in a shadowy world of dreams with only King Eldric for company? He wasn’t sure she deserved any better, but he still hoped that she had made it to the green forest.
Vibrations under his feet brought his attention back to Zhan.
“Why is the ground still shaking?” Davyn asked.
Zaine looked at the floor of the basin. The crack had definitely broken the circle and set it free, so why hadn’t that stopped the shaking? The shaking seemed to be slowing down, and as he went to say so his voice sounded deeper and odd.
“Time!” Guyan said in a voice that sounded like that of an old man.
Zaine saw the terror on the faces of the weavers. They were still too exhausted to fix time again. He looked down at his arms. The runes were no darker. He would be no help either.
Sy turned, slowly, and began to run from the basin. He looked comical as he appeared to float in mid-air and then speed up. Other weavers, seeing that time was returning to normal, also decided that the basin was not a safe place to be. They began to run for the tunnel as well.
“Time is too fast,” Guyan said in a squeaky, hurried voice that slowed down right at the end.
“Now it’s slowing down again,” Zaine said. Time was now completely unstable. “What do we do?”
Guyan looked around the emptying basin, and her eyes fell on the two golden crowns on the ground. They were jumping up and down as the ground shook.
“There’s only one way to fix it,” she said, grabbing Zaine and dragging him across the basin. She picked up both of the crowns and held them up.
“You want to be queen?” Zaine was confused.
“My star-chart said time would stop if I am crowned. We need to stop time so we can find a way to fix it,” she replied quickly.
“But if you stop time, we’ll be frozen with it,” Zaine argued, even though he didn’t have a better solution.
“It’s the only chance we have. Every timeweaver and starweaver has been drained of power to the point that they won’t be any use for a day or more.” She shoved one of the crowns into his hands. “Put this on.”
“Me?” he asked, looking at the crown and then at Guyan.
“The star-chart also said that a starweaver and I would unpick time.” She looked at him for a few seconds, and when he didn’t respond she said irritably, “That’s you.”
Her last words were slower and deeper. This was it. They either stopped time on purpose or watched the world of Zhan shake apart.
He raised an arm to put on the crown at the same time that Guyan did. His arm felt heavy and the crown even heavier. As he lowered it onto his head, he felt it touch his hair and the sluggishness vanished from his arm.
He looked quickly at Guyan. She, too, had her crown on her head and seemed to be moving normally. Time hadn’t stopped after all! As Zaine felt the hope drain from him, he went to take the crown off.
“Don’t!” Guyan ordered, grabbing hold of his arm to stop him. “Look around.”
Zaine lowered his arm and turned to look at the basin. He blinked – he couldn’t believe what his eyes told him. Everyone was frozen in mid-stride. Everyone except Guyan and him.
He glanced nervously down at his arms as he felt a warm glow running down from the crown. The runes on his skin were getting darker. In the space of two heartbeats, every rune was so dark that he could barely tell what colour his skin was.
“Now are we supposed to unpick time according to your star-chart?” Zaine asked with a raised eyebrow. It was real – it was happening – but he still had trouble accepting it.
“We?” Guyan sadly held up her palm; the black cross was still there. “I can’t do anything with this on my palm.”
Zaine peered more closely at her palm. Time had frozen the sands in mid-motion above the basin, and the light filtering through the sand was heavily tinged with red. As the light struck Guyan’s hand, it seemed to reflect off parts of the cross.
“Runes,” he said with a grin at Guyan. “I see runes.”
“You do?” she said, peering at her hand but obviously not seeing them. “Can you undo them?”
Zaine nodded, his attention already focused on the runes and on working out what order they had been done in. He knew he would have to do them in reverse order. Slowly, knowing that – for once – he had as much time as he needed, he began to trace the runes on her palm.
Guyan held her hand very still, but from the way her feet twitched her hand was very sensitive and ticklish. Zaine traced the final rune but did not let her hand go. They both leaned in close, staring at the cross and grinning as it began to fade. Guyan jumped up and down as the last traces of the cross faded from sight.
“Careful or your crown will fall off,” Zaine warned. “I can’t do anything alone – your reading said so.”
Guyan settled down, but didn’t stop grinning. “I have no idea how we’re supposed to unpick time.”
Zaine felt weary all of a sudden. He glanced around the basin and then sat down on the ground. It wouldn’t matter if he had a rest. Guyan sat down next to him as he thought out aloud. “Well, I don’t think we can go backwards in time. If we did that, then none of this would have happened yet.”
He got up and paced around the basin, having to walk around his father, frozen in mid-stride towards where his son had been at the time.
“You can’t change the past,” Guyan added as he came back closer.
“And there really is no such thing as tomorrow,” Zaine said, trying not to think too hard about what he was saying so that he could see where his thoughts were leading.
“Tomorrow never comes.” Guyan agreed, toying with a loose thread on her tunic and tugging it so that it frayed even more.
“So, now is all there is,” Zaine said, turning to the rune-covered girl.
“How does that help?” By the slightly dazed look on her face, Zaine could see that Guyan was struggling with the concept of time. He took hold of the hanging thread on her tunic and held it out so that it was tight.
“This has frayed, right?” He waited for her to nod in agreement. “We can’t change that – it is the past. But, we can do this.” He pulled the thread sharply and it snapped off right at the edge of her green tunic.
“Now it is as if it never frayed,” Guyan said, but she was still frowning. “So we break time?”
“We’ve already done that when we put the crowns on. Now we fix all the things that damaged time in the first place and caused it to fray like your tunic. When time restarts, it will be as if none of it happened. If we don’t repeat the same mistakes, it won’t break again.”
Guyan looked at Zaine for a long moment and slowly began to nod. “Yes, that sounds like it should work.”
“We might as well try,” Zaine said. “Things couldn’t be much worse than they already are.”
“What damaged time?” Guyan said thoughtfully. “I guess it started when the timeweavers stopped tending the starlinks.”
“So we fix the circles,” Zaine suggested.