Problems with time. Chapter 5.

Chapter Five.

 

The Rip in Time.

 

Calizone drew a slow, deliberate breath.

She was running out of comfortable explanations.

She sat back in her chair, her fingers steepled, her eyes half‑closed. The cottage was quiet, the forest outside remained profoundly uneasy, and her thoughts were finally beginning to settle into a shape she recognised.

Magic operated on strict, unyielding laws. A spell cast for a year and a day dissolved the moment its time was up. A spell that turned a greedy mayor into a pig crumbled the instant its condition was met. A spell that locked the Wraiths within their frozen mountains fell silent the moment the last grain of its allotted time ran out.

Magic insisted on endings.

Calizone’s eyes opened slowly into dark, icy points.

“Something has reached its end,” she murmured into the quiet room. “And it cannot finish.”

She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the heavy oak table. A spell, a massive, ancient spell, cast long ago by someone careless, impatient, or desperate. A spell that should have dissolved cleanly when its allotted time ran out.

Instead of ending, it had stuck.

And a stuck spell did not simply sit quietly. It spun. It twisted. It dragged at the weave of reality like a growing whirlpool, pulling in everything nearby: seconds, minutes, hours, distance, sunlight, shadows, staircases, palace heralds, forest roads, even the falling of the night itself.

Calizone rubbed her temples, feeling the dull ache of a cosmic strain. “A spell trying to die,” she said softly. “But unable to.”

That was far worse than a spell cast badly. Worse than a spell cast with malice. Worse than a spell cast by a foolish apprentice. A dying spell was dangerous. A dying spell was unpredictable. If it thrashed hard enough against the weave, it could tear the realm apart.

She closed her eyes again, tracing the timeline of the Dark Forest.

“Someone cast something,” she whispered. “Long ago. Something anchored. Something immense. And now it is trying to end… but it cannot.”

Which meant she could begin to narrow down the possibilities.

A year ago?

Impossible. She was the only witch in the kingdom capable of casting big magic now, and she had not done so. She had avoided grand enchantments for years, having learned the hard way that large spells were unforgiving and greedy.

A hundred years ago?

Possible. She could check the diary from that era. The Witch of the Dark Forest at that time had been competent enough, though competence never guaranteed caution. A spell cast carelessly a century ago might well be reaching its final day now.

A thousand years ago?

Also possible. The diaries from that era were right here on her shelf, cracked, yellowed, and written by witches long turned to dust. Some of them had been exceptionally powerful. Some had been foolish. A few had been both.

Even longer ago?

That would take her right back to the beginning. To Azaz.

Calizone’s fingers stilled.

Azaz’s diary was not on the shelf. Azaz’s diary was not anywhere in the cottage.

Azaz was still alive, after a fashion, locked away in a dragon‑skin casket in the far‑distant Dragon Islands, suspended outside of time altogether and preserved by magic older than kingdoms. Her diary had never been left behind; if it existed at all, it was sealed in the vault with her, completely unreachable.

Calizone drew a long, shallow breath. “If the spell is older than a thousand years… it must be hers.”

Azaz had been the first Witch of the Dark Forest. Azaz had been powerful beyond measure. Azaz had cast the foundational spells that shaped the very boundaries of the realm.

If one of Azaz’s grand spells had reached its final day and could not die, the consequences would be catastrophic.

“A hundred years,” Calizone said softly. “A thousand years. Or Azaz.”

She looked at the diaries spread around her. She would have to search them all to be certain.

Calizone began with the volume from a century past. Its leather cover was soft and dark, written in the neat, methodical hand of Witch Vanya. Vanya had been a meticulous woman, far more concerned with herb yields and moon phases than grand enchantments, but she had recorded every spark of magic she ever wove.

Calizone flipped through the yellowed pages, her sharp eyes scanning the faded ink.

Year of the White Frost: Binding spell on the bog‑sprites (dissolved cleanly after seven years).

Year of the Iron Sun: Warding cast over the eastern boundary (expired at the turn of the decade).

Page after page, every spell Vanya had ever cast was accounted for, each carrying a clear, precise condition for its own end. Vanya had been far too cautious to leave a loose thread hanging in the wind.

Calizone set the book aside with a soft sigh and reached for the thicker, dustier tome from a thousand years past, the writings of Witch Morvath.

Morvath had been anything but cautious.

The handwriting inside was wild, jagged, and aggressive. Morvath had relished big magic. She had bound wild winter storms to her will, altered the courses of underground rivers, and once turned an entire mountain pass into solid glass to stop an invading army. Calizone read through the frantic script, tracing the complex runes with a fingertip.

Yet even Morvath’s arrogance had submitted to natural law. Her glass mountain had shattered on the exact hour of the hundredth winter solstice, just as her spell had dictated. Her river bindings had loosened harmlessly when the mountain snows melted.

“Nothing,” Calizone whispered, closing Morvath’s heavy diary with a dull thud. “Every thread cut. Every loop closed.”

She looked up at the empty space on her shelf where Azaz’s records should have been.

Azaz, who lay entombed in her dragon‑skin casket out of time. Azaz, who had laid the foundation of every major warding, boundary, and rule of magic in this forest.

If Azaz had cast a spell meant to last until a specific condition was met, and that spell was now trying to expire while its creator was locked away outside of time itself, the magic had no caster to return to. It had no living mind to receive the ending. It would sit there trapped in its final heartbeat, thrashing against reality because the witch who wrote its end was technically not present in the world to dissolve it.

Or perhaps the physical object the spell was anchored to no longer existed, a tree long rotted, a stone shattered, a landmark buried, leaving the magic stranded without a release point.

Calizone’s eyes narrowed.

“You left a key in a lock,” she said aloud to the quiet room, “and then allowed yourself to be carried out of the house.”

A year and a day.

A hundred years and a day.

A thousand years and a day.

Magic always insisted on that final breath. Without it, a spell could not die. It would cling to the world, desperate and furious, spinning like a whirlpool and dragging in seconds, distance, and light.

A dying spell with no breath to die on.

Calizone stood up slowly, her dark cloak wrapping around her like a living shadow.

If a spell of Azaz was trying to die, it had been anchored somewhere in the Dark Forest where her power had been absolute. And if it could not finish on its own, Calizone would either have to complete its terms or break the anchor by force.

She walked to the cottage door and pulled it open, stepping out into the cool morning air. High above in the oak branches, the rooks shifted restlessly, watching her with dark, intelligent eyes.

“Ready the path,” Calizone called up to them softly. “We are going hunting for the First Witch’s anchors.”

She stepped down from the threshold. The forest air felt dangerously thin, stretched like spun glass, as though a single harsh word might shatter it.

“Anchors,” she murmured, setting her jaw. “Places she touched. Places she bound. Places she changed.”

The rooks took wing together, circling overhead in a wide, black arc, uneasy, but obedient.

Calizone lifted her chin and set off into the deep trees.

She would find the anchor.

She would find the dying spell.

She would give it its final breath, or break it by force.

Either way, the world would stop tearing.