Petra, 12,000 BCE.
In the desert below the red cliffs, a machine older than humanity pulsed beneath the sand. The First Clockmaker had once been flesh. Now he was fossil and code.
Damien arrived with Lyra, both wounded from the War That Wasn't. Their conflict had ended in mutual retreat—and a shared vision: return to the start.
The Clockmaker stirred, his body a patchwork of stone and silicon.
"You seek the Key of Now," he rasped.
"Yes," Damien said.
"Then you must become the last thing you fear."
Lyra reached out and touched the core embedded in the machine's chest.
Time didn't stop.
It listened.