The river was quiet at first, a broad strip of glass catching the sky.

  John sat where he had been before, on the flat rock near the bank, legs crossed, hands loose on his knees. One Kana rested to his right, the other to his left, both drawing small patterns in the dust with their toes. The water slid by in a slow, steady current, barely a sound beyond the soft lick of it against stone.

  For a while, everything held its breath.

  Then the surface changed.

  At first it was subtle: a faint tightening in the flow, a tiny swirl that shouldn’t have been there in such calm water. A few bubbles rose lazily, popping soundlessly. Kana on his left noticed first; her toes stilled. Her brow furrowed.

  “John,” she murmured.

  He was already watching. The current in front of them had begun to twist inward, a small circle widening, as if the river were exhaling from one point. More bubbles climbed, not randomly but in a pattern, almost rhythmic. The surface dimmed, reflecting less sky and more shadow.

  The two Kanas leaned closer to him without realizing, shoulders brushing his arms.

  The water swelled.

  It bulged upward, breaking the smooth plane, churning from within as if something pressed from the depths. Bubbles erupted in clusters now, the calm replaced by a restless, rolling turbulence. The sound grew—a low, wet rumble, like distant thunder trapped underwater.

  Then the surface split.

  A figure rose from the heart of the river, water cascading off broad shoulders and a tall frame. He stepped onto the shallows as though the current were solid, droplets running from grey skin that seemed untouched by the chill.

  He stood before them—a tall man, straight-backed, with smooth, stone-pale skin the color of river rock and eyes the color of fresh blood. His hair was dark and slicked back, water beading on it but never quite soaking in. Something in the cut of his jaw, in the cold composure of his gaze and especially in the color of his eyes and skin, snagged a memory in John’s mind: he looked like a younger, leaner echo of the emperor of Celestor.

  The air seemed to cool around him.

  Both Kanas tensed immediately. Their hands, moments ago loose, clenched into fists. John felt them draw closer, one on each side. Their blue eyes widened, the pupils narrowing, instincts flaring to the surface. They were young but still white weretigresses; their bodies understood danger even when the mind hadn’t named it yet.

  The grey man took a step onto the stones, the river calming behind him as if nothing had been disturbed. He lifted an arm and pointed—not at the twins, not at the trees, but directly at John.

  His voice, when he spoke, was calm and unhurried, carrying easily over the water.

  “I was sent to investigate the extermination of a race from mythological times,” he said, red eyes fixed on him. “And I felt a disturbance in time continuity while here.”

  John’s fingers tightened against his knees. His face didn’t change, but inside, something sank.

  “It is forbidden to alter time,” the stranger went on, as if reciting a law older than the jungle itself. “And I feel traces of time manipulation on you.” His gaze did not waver. “I will ask you to follow me.”

  He didn’t flare his aura. He didn’t bare teeth or call weapons or raise his voice. There was no overt threat in him—only a stillness so complete it made the hair on John’s arms prickle. Power, John had learned, did not always shout.

  The two Kanas reacted first.

  They half-rose from the rock, positioning themselves slightly in front of him, as if by instinct. Their shoulders squared, jaws clenched, silver hair catching the light like drawn blades. The fear in their faces didn’t make them step back; it made them brace.

  “Who are you?” snapped the Kana on his right, fear sharpening her tone.

  “What do you want with him?” demanded the one on his left.

  The grey man didn’t even glance at them. His focus stayed locked on John, as though the rest were background.

  “I have stated my purpose,” he replied. “I am an investigator of temporal violations. You are in possession of such a violation. You will come with me, so the matter can be examined.”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  John rose slowly.

  He didn’t flare power either—no blue sparks, no hints of scaled skin, nothing to betray dragon or tiger. He simply stood, the river at his back, the two Kanas to either side, and met the red gaze levelly.

  His mind ran through possibilities: fight, flee, talk. The stranger radiated the kind of calm that came from certainty, not arrogance. That was… concerning. If he was like the emperor had been—if he had any connection to whatever authority watched time—then a reckless move could doom more than himself.

  Behind his still face, calculation moved fast.

  He spoke without taking his eyes off the man. “Kana,” he said quietly. “Both of you.”

  They answered together. “We’re not leaving.”

  He exhaled through his nose. “Go back to the encampment.”

  “No,” right Kana said immediately, voice shaking but firm.

  “We’re not leaving you with him,” left Kana added, planting her feet.

  He looked between them, something like frustration and something like a muted, fierce affection flickering behind his eyes. “If this is about time, it’s my problem,” he said. “Not the tribe’s.”

  “That’s exactly why we’re not going,” Kana shot back. “I’m not letting some… river-ghost drag you away alone.”

  The other Kana nodded sharply. “Last time you made a choice alone, you rewrote the world and almost died. We’re done sitting in camp waiting to hear you vanished.”

  For a heartbeat, John closed his eyes. Their words hit too close to truths he didn’t want to look at.

  When he opened them again, his expression had settled into something even calmer. The decision, at least for now, was made.

  “All right,” he said softly. “You stay. But back up. If things go wrong, you run.”

  Neither of them liked it, but they saw the line in his posture that meant he wouldn’t bend further. They exchanged a quick look and, almost as one, took a few steps backward, moving up the bank until they stood a short distance behind him—close enough to remain, far enough that they weren’t between him and the stranger.

  They were still scared. He could hear it in their breathing, see it in the tight set of their mouths. But they stayed.

  John turned fully toward the grey man now, the river murmuring at his back, two young weretigresses standing like twin sentries just beyond his shoulders.

  “I haven’t agreed to go,” he said, voice even. “You’re going to have to explain more than that.”

  The grey man did not look surprised by John’s refusal to immediately comply.

  If anything, there was a faint sense in his posture that he had anticipated it. He let a brief silence stretch, the river murmuring quietly behind him, the air heavy with the Kanas’ tense breathing.

  When he spoke again, his tone remained level, almost detached. “Normally,” he said, “we would punish you for your transgression.”

  He took a single step closer onto the rocks, water dripping in slow beads from the hem of his garments. His red eyes did not leave John’s.

  “You manipulated time,” he went on, as if listing items on a ledger. “Exterminated a sentient race. These are serious crimes.”

  Behind John, both Kanas stiffened. The word exterminated lodged like a stone in the air. They looked at each other—at him—seeing not the furious boy who had avenged them, but the way someone from outside might name what he had done.

  John’s expression didn’t change. Inside, something twisted.

  “But,” the grey man continued, and the word fell with the weight of a turning page, “the black tigers you exterminated were affiliated with the enemy, and war is upon us.”

  The jungle seemed to lean in at that. Enemy. War. Words from a larger world.

  “The time manipulations did not create too many ripples,” the man concluded. “So if you cooperate, you might avoid imprisonment.”

  Avoid imprisonment. As if this were a negotiation, not a sentence.

  John felt the answer sit wrong in his bones. The way the man spoke—impersonal, measured, almost as if reading from rules he didn’t fully own—made the whole thing feel off-balance.

  He narrowed his eyes slightly. “Who are you?” he asked.

  The reply was immediate. “My name is not important.”

  The Kanas exchanged a glance. John didn’t look away.

  “What are you?” he asked next.

  For the first time, the grey man’s gaze shifted—not away from John, but upward, as if consulting a sky that wasn’t there. “That is also not important,” he said.

  The river kept whispering around his feet, unbothered by the absurdity.

  John’s jaw ticked once. “Are you a demi-god?” he asked.

  That landed.

  The grey man’s composure didn’t crack, but something behind his eyes flickered—surprise, brief and quickly leashed. His lips parted as if he meant to ask how John knew the term, then pressed together again. Whatever questions he had, he swallowed them.

  John watched that small reaction carefully. “You are, are you not?” he said. “I once met one of your kind.”

  The grey man studied his face, as if weighing the texture of those words, the resonance of truth or falsehood in them. After a heartbeat, he gave a slow nod.

  “I do not sense lies in your words,” he said. “Yes. I am born from a divine and a mortal parent.”

  He paused then, head tilting almost imperceptibly, red eyes narrowing as they ran over John more intently—across his brow, his chest, the quiet places where power pooled when dormant. The scrutiny had a different flavor now, less like a guard checking a prisoner, more like a scholar finding an unexpected note in a familiar text.

  “You also bear divine blood,” he said at last.

  Both Kanas sucked in a breath. Their eyes snapped to John, searching his profile for confirmation he did not give.

  “This would explain why you had the power to disrupt time,” the demi-god added.

  John’s thoughts snapped inward. Divine blood. His mind jumped immediately to the ichor—the liquid divinity he had consumed, otherworldly tasting and burning and impossible to forget. The way it had seared through his veins, rewriting what he was. The grey man wasn’t guessing; he was sensing it, the residue of gods lingering in John’s body like a faint, inexhaustible light.

  So that’s what he felt, John realized. Not just time, but what fueled it.

  Outwardly, he remained stoic. He didn’t confirm. He didn’t deny.

  He simply met the demi-god’s gaze, dragon and ichor and timelines all coiled behind a thirteen-year-old’s eyes, and said nothing—for now.