The next morning, Nathan’s scouts returned with news. A Confederate patrol had been seen two miles east, moving toward the village. They carried heavy artillery. The war was about to crash into their fragile peace again.

Nathan gathered his officers near the map spread over a crate. “We can’t fight them head-on,” he said. “We’ll move to the ridge and make a stand there. It’ll buy us time to evacuate the wounded.”

Emily listened, standing near the wagon. The men were exhausted, low on ammunition, and the wounded couldn’t travel fast. She knew what that meant. Some wouldn’t survive the retreat.

When Nathan turned to her, his voice softened. “You’ll go with Thomas and the injured. I’ll hold the line.”

“No,” she said firmly. “I stay. You’ll need help when they start falling.”

His jaw tightened. “I won’t risk you.”

“You don’t get to decide that.”

For a moment, neither spoke. Then he nodded slowly. “Fine. But stay near the wagons. If the line breaks, you run. That’s an order.”

She almost smiled. “You know I never listen to orders.”

By afternoon, smoke rose in the distance. The rumble of artillery grew louder. Emily helped Thomas load bandages, water, and what little medicine they had left. When the first cannonball struck the far ridge, the ground shook. Soldiers shouted, horses screamed, and chaos unfolded again.

She moved through the wounded as bullets whistled overhead. Her hands worked automatically—tie, press, move, repeat. She didn’t look up until she heard Nathan’s voice calling for reinforcements. He was on the hill, sword drawn, surrounded by smoke.

Without thinking, she grabbed her bag and ran toward him.

The battle raged in brutal rhythm. Men fell, the air thick with dust and gunpowder. Emily reached Nathan just as he was pulling a wounded soldier to safety. “I told you to stay back!” he yelled, but she ignored him, tearing her sleeve to make a bandage.

A cannon exploded nearby, throwing them both to the ground. Her ears rang. The world tilted. When she opened her eyes, she saw the key glowing again—bright and steady this time. The light spread across the battlefield, cutting through the smoke.

Nathan stared in disbelief. “Emily—what’s happening?”

She didn’t know. The ground beneath them pulsed, and time itself seemed to shiver. The wounded soldier they’d been trying to save gasped as his bleeding stopped, the torn flesh closing before their eyes. Soldiers nearby froze, watching in awe and terror.

Then, as suddenly as it began, the light faded. The world went still.

Emily fell to her knees, trembling. Nathan caught her before she hit the ground. “You can’t keep doing this,” he said. “Whatever that thing is, it’s taking from you.”

She shook her head weakly. “It’s not taking. It’s connecting. I can feel… everything. Every life, every heartbeat.”

He held her close. “Then stop before it breaks you.”

She met his eyes, tears mixing with dirt on her cheeks. “Maybe breaking me is the only way to open the gate.”

Nathan’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Then what happens to you?”

“I don’t know.”

The cannon fire resumed in the distance, but for a moment, neither of them moved. The world felt suspended between one breath and the next.

When the smoke cleared, the Confederates were retreating. The men cheered, but Emily couldn’t feel triumph. The glow around her heart was fading, replaced by exhaustion so deep it hurt to breathe.

Nathan carried her back to camp, refusing to let her walk. The soldiers stepped aside, silent and reverent. They had seen something beyond war that day, something none of them could name.

As Nathan laid her down near the fire, she reached for his hand. “If this key was meant to heal,” she whispered, “then maybe healing time itself is what it wants.”

He squeezed her hand. “Then we’ll heal it together.”

The night fell quiet again, but in the burned fields beyond, faint circles of light shimmered like ghosts—reminders that time itself was no longer stable, and that Emily’s fight had just begun.