The journey to the northern mountains of Gilgit-Baltistan was silent and tense. The air around Zahra had changed — heavier, colder, as if time itself was hesitating to follow her. Arif sat beside her in the rattling jeep, flipping through the Guardian Book, now glowing faintly at the edges. It had led them here — to a temple no one remembered, buried beneath a glacier and erased from all maps.
Behind them, two other members of the Circle followed: Sister Leila, the water bearer from Morocco, and Harun, the windwatcher from Turkey. The Circle had thinned. More Marked Ones were rising around the globe, and Zahra felt the burden press deeper into her chest.
"Zahra," Arif said, pointing at a page. "It's called the Temple of Withered Time. It says here, 'Time folds here like silk in the hands of the Divine. The future may be seen. The past may bleed.'"
Zahra nodded, understanding the warning without needing explanation. She could already feel the fabric of reality trembling.
The jeep stopped at a clearing, the glacier glittering ahead under a cold sun. They had to walk the rest of the way. Zahra led the group forward, her staff glowing faintly with every step. Snow crunched beneath their feet, wind whispering forgotten names in their ears.
After hours of trekking, they reached it — a crescent-shaped wall of ice, inside which something ancient pulsed. Zahra touched the ice, and it melted instantly, revealing a hidden archway carved with symbols she recognized from the Guardian Book: the Eye, the Flame, and the Twin Serpents.
They stepped inside.
Inside the Temple
The walls shimmered as if made of liquid light. Time didn't flow naturally here — Zahra felt moments stretch and collapse all at once. Shadows from her past flickered in the corners: her mother smiling, her grandmother whispering duas, the night of the Gate's fall.
Then she heard it — the ticking.
Not mechanical, but organic, like the heartbeat of a dying god.
"Stay alert," Leila whispered. "This place tests the mind."
In the center of the temple, a massive sundial spun slowly, though no sunlight reached it. Beneath the dial, a staircase spiraled downward — into the earth, into something forgotten by the living.
Zahra led the descent.
The Broken Hour
At the bottom, they entered a room with twelve doors — each marked with a symbol of the Zodiac, and one unmarked door glowing with a pulsating, silvery light. The unmarked door called to Zahra.
Harun warned, "We must choose carefully. These are the Doors of Trial. Each opens to a version of the self — some truths, some lies."
Zahra stepped toward the glowing door.
Arif grabbed her wrist. "Wait. What if it breaks you?"
"I've already broken," she replied softly. "Now I need to understand what grew from those pieces."
The door opened without a sound.
The Truth Unfolds
Zahra stood alone in a field of mirrors, each one reflecting a different version of her: Zahra the surgeon, Zahra the orphan, Zahra the warrior, Zahra the shadow.
Then, from the mirrors, a figure stepped out — a woman cloaked in black, her face identical to Zahra's but with eyes like obsidian voids.
"I am the you that would choose power over healing," she said.
Zahra raised her staff. "I reject you."
"But I am you. Every moment you wished to destroy instead of save… I lived."
The dark Zahra lunged, and time shattered. Memories splintered — moments from her childhood, the deaths she couldn't stop, Arif's scream when the Gate opened. Zahra fell to her knees.
But then — a voice.
"You are light not because darkness never touched you, but because you never surrendered to it."
It was her grandmother's voice.
Zahra stood, and the light from her heart burst outward, dissolving the shadow.
The mirrors vanished.
She was alone — but whole.
Return to the Circle
She emerged from the door, sweating and trembling. The others looked relieved.
"You've passed the first test," Harun said. "But there's more. This temple holds a prophecy."
They moved into the central chamber.
On the ceiling, an ancient carving depicted twelve shadowed figures surrounding a burning woman with a silver staff — Zahra.
Leila read aloud from the inscriptions on the wall:
"When the Circle fades and the Marked multiply,
The Last Flame shall seek the Withered Time.
There she will learn the name of the Betrayer —
And the Eye shall bleed once more."
Zahra clenched her fists. "The Betrayer… someone inside the Circle?"
Before they could discuss further, the sundial above began to spin violently. The ground shook.
A voice echoed through the chamber — cold, feminine, mocking:
"You've found the temple. But you're too late. The hour has split. The Bone Collector marches. And one of your own is already mine."
The light dimmed.
Escape from the Temple
The temple began collapsing, walls folding in on themselves like cloth caught in fire. The group raced back up the spiral staircase. Ice shattered behind them. Time bent around their bodies — seconds stretched like hours, moments reversed and replayed.
Zahra saw flashes of the future — cities burning, children crying, a throne of bone rising over Lahore.
And one image that froze her soul: Mufti Rafiq kneeling before the Bone Collector.
No…
They burst out of the archway just as the temple vanished behind them, buried again by crashing glacier walls.
Breathing hard, Zahra looked at the others. "Did you see what I saw?"
Leila nodded. "If what we saw was true, we have more than just the Collector to fear."
"A traitor among us," Harun said grimly.
Zahra looked to the horizon.
The war had only begun.
And the Circle was cracking.