Андрей Сопельник – Universe Aeternov. Book two. The Shadow that Remembers the Light (страница 8)

She froze.

“I think, – Alina said softly, – that she’s not an enemy. She’s me… if no one loved me. If I just destroy her, I will destroy a part of myself. And I don’t want to kill. I want to heal.

There was silence in the classroom. Even the wind had stopped rustling in the overturned trees.

The teacher smiled.

“You’ve already passed the first exam,” she said. – Welcome to the School of Bright Paths.

5. TRAINING IN THE “GARDEN OF SILENCE”.

One night, Alina was training in the Garden of Silence, a place where time slowed down tenfold.

She practiced moving to any point in the galaxy using only the rhythm of her own heart.

But instead of distant stars… I found myself in 1978, on Budennovsky Street.

Young Andrey was standing there at the construction site, looking at the darkness ahead.

“Do you… see me?” “What is it?” she whispered.

– No, – he replied without turning around. “But I feel… that someone believes in me.” And that’s enough.

Alina began to cry.

And for the first time, she truly realized that

her strength wasn’t in a unique code.

Her strength lies in faith.

Chapter 7. The seventh. THE PULSE OF TIME

“You don’t control time.

You’re asking him… as long as you save someone.”

1. THE FIRST LESSON: SILENCE TO THE PULSE.

Alina stood in the “Hall Without Time” – a circular space where the clock did not tick, the sand did not crumble, and breathing slowed down almost to a complete stop.

In front of her is the Master of Chronos, a gray – haired man in a cloak of shadows and stars. His eyes were empty, just like before the beginning of time.

– Do you think you came here to learn how to travel? “What is it?” he asked without turning around.

“No, – Alina replied. – I came to learn how to listen.

The master smiled for the first time in three hundred years.

“Then sit down.” “And shut up,” he said. “Not for a minute. Not for an hour. And until it speaks to you on its own.

Alina closed her eyes, sank to the floor of the frozen Sand of Time, and waited.

2. THE VOICE OF TIME

The hours passed. But not the days.

First – the emptiness.

Then – the noise in my head: fears, fragments of phrases, echoes of the Chrono-Shadow:

“You’re a mistake. You shouldn’t be here.”

Alina almost gave up.

But she remembered her father’s voice:

“Even a broken clock shows the correct time twice a day.”

And then she stopped listening to herself.

And I started listening to the world.

First, a distant thud. Like a heart.

Then the rhythm. Deeper than breathing. Wider than galaxies.

It was the pulse of time.

Not mechanical.

Not linear.

Alive.

He was singing. He was crying. He was laughing. He was screaming.

“That’s how you are… – she whispered. “You’re… alive.”

And at that moment, the Sand beneath her trembled.

3. THE FIRST MOVE: NOT INTO THE PAST, BUT INTO THE PAIN.

The Master of Chronos opened his eyes.

“You heard a pulse,” he said. – Now – ask for it.

– Ask for… what? – asked Alina, confused.

– Ask time to stop. But not for myself,” the Master replied. “For someone who’s not ready to die yet.”

He led her to the Hall of Broken Moments, a place where temporary wounds were kept.: the seconds when someone leaves too early, and time doesn’t have time to say goodbye.

Alina saw an image of a boy falling from a roof in Rostov. The year is 2007.

He’s screaming. But the scream is drowned out by the noise of the city.

“You can save him,” the Master said. “But not by force. You have to step in at his last second… and give him a chance.

Alina did not “jerk” around. She asked for it.

– Please… – she whispered against his pulse. “Give him another moment.” Let him feel loved. Let him know that he is not alone.

She stretched out her hand, not in space, but in rhythm.

And time slowed down.

Not before the bus stop. But so much so that the boy managed to see a boy with white hair and galaxy – like eyes standing on the balcony of a neighboring house… and smiling at him.

That was enough.

He didn’t snap. He grabbed the ledge.

Time passed on.

But a new branch branched off from it.

4. RULES OF CHRONOMAGIC