Shadows Upon Time

Three times they refused him, and when they had refused a third time, he demanded that instead he be given a gift from within. No mere body in space, but a wave crashing across the universe, rippling where she struck the present moment again and again, collapsing into one certain past from the infinite, uncertain futures. Power is no freedom—unless the man who exercises that power is a monster, and even then, he is free only for a time, for no man is free from consequence. Half the city had come to see the Halfmortal made mortal at last.