The world trembled.
Two trees stood side by side—one, created by Ardalys, with branches intertwining golden and black streams of time, and another, new, born directly from the roots of the first. They were equal, yet different. They were reflections of a choice that had yet to be made.
Emiren felt the space around them tighten. All threads of reality, all currents of time had frozen in anticipation. Something had changed. Something that was never meant to happen.
— They cannot exist together, — Ardalys’s voice was quiet, almost reverent.
Emiren took a step forward, feeling the cold wind of time rushing through him.
— Why not?
Ardalys extended his hand, touching the bark of one of the trees.
— Because they contradict each other. These are two concepts of time, two different destinies. If they grow side by side, their roots will tear apart the very fabric of existence.
Deep beneath the ground, something shifted. A low, resounding hum, like the beating of a heart, pulsed through the space. The earth beneath their feet trembled.
The Garden had sensed the threat.
Emiren felt an unseen wave of reality crashing over them and realized—they were not alone.
From the shadows between the trees, figures emerged.
At first, they were blurred, like reflections in water, but with each beat of time, they took on sharper outlines. Tall figures, clad in garments woven from the very essence of Eternity. Their eyes glowed with blue light, their voices were silence itself.
— The Guardians, — Ardalys whispered.
Emiren felt his heart clench.
The Guardians of the Eternal Garden.
They appeared only when the boundaries of time had been broken so severely that Eternity itself could no longer ignore it. They were not judges; they were the hands of Reality itself.
One of the Guardians stepped forward.
Its voice was not a voice—it was the sound of a thousand events that had happened and had never happened, a whisper of moments that should never have been.
— The choice has been made. But the balance is broken.
Emiren tensed.
— What choice?
— Two trees cannot exist together. One must perish.
Ardalys clenched his fists.
— That’s a lie! Why must we live by rules imposed upon us?!
The Guardian did not answer. It raised its hand, and light began to rise from beneath the ground.
Emiren felt something shift.
Time began to distort.
The trees began to grow.
Their branches intertwined, searching for a harmony that did not exist. They were not fighting each other—they were struggling against reality itself, which could not accept their coexistence.
The golden leaves of one tree darkened, the dark leaves of the other began to glow. But this was not balance. This was a conflict that could not be resolved.
Emiren felt something within himself being torn in two.
He saw two possible futures:
— One where Ardalys’s tree was destroyed, and the Garden returned to its former state, but with a scar upon reality.
— Another where the new tree was lost, and the world changed forever, accepting a new concept of time.
But there was a third path.
One the Guardians had not foreseen.
Emiren gathered all his strength.
He remembered the music he had heard in the previous world, in the dark sky where golden symbols sang their song.
It was a song of possibilities.
And if he could not allow both trees to exist separately, he could make them one.
— I choose another path!
His voice echoed through the world, and reality itself trembled.
The Guardians raised their heads.
Ardalys looked at him in astonishment.
— What are you doing?!
But Emiren did not answer.
He extended his hands, and light poured from his palms, enveloping both trees.
The branches began to change.
They no longer struggled—they began to merge.
Golden and dark light intertwined, their energy becoming one.
The trees became a single entity.
The Guardians were silent.
Ardalys stood frozen.
And the world ceased to shake.
Silence.
Emiren fell to his knees, feeling his strength leaving him.
Before him stood one tree.
Not light. Not dark.
Its bark shimmered with silver, and its leaves reflected all the colors of time.
It did not belong to the Garden, nor to Ardalys.
It was the tree he had created.
A new beginning.
The Guardians bowed their heads.
Ardalys slowly approached and touched the bark.
— You broke the rules, — he whispered.
Emiren lifted his head.
— I made new ones.
The world around them began to change.
From the remnants of the old time, a new era was being born.
But what it would become—no one yet knew.