Chapter 8 THE CLOCKMASTERS CURSE

Here it is - your thirtieth dialogue scene, *"The Clockmaster's Curse." * Now this brings things up a notch, adding time travel, legacy, and a curse that started *before Saiha was even born. * It's dark, enigmatic, and establishes the tone for the next arc of the story.

🕰️ Cut: Observatory Basement – Curse of the Clockmaster

\[Setting:]

Beneath the academy's eastern observatory, locked for 300 years, is a chamber. Starlight and ancient magic power gears that burn through the walls. This is the spot where The Clockmaster, the first and only royal time-binder, cursed the bloodline of Saiha, whom unbeknownst, is part of.

*\[Saiha and Adrah go down the spiral stairs. Each footstep resounds like a ticking heart. In the middle: an enormous bronze clock, stopped at 13:13.] *

SAIHA:

(whispers)

"This clock ... it's older than the city. Why is it here?"

ADRAH:

(reading an inscription)

"'Time gives power to those who follow it...and crushes those that would change it.' "

SAIHA:

(sarcastic)

"Great. I've essentially been bitch-slapping time since day one."

\[*There's a sudden click as the clock jumps forward one second\*. Into the gears, a form coalesces – part man, part monstrosity – **The Clockmaster. \[ His voice is like steel scraping against bone.\] **

CLOCKMASTER:

"Thou wearest the blood of traitors and transported tamperers.

The damnation started with the revolt of your ancestor -

And it isn't over till your heart quits."

SAIHA:

(stiffens)

"You you cursed my entire line because they tried to run from fate?

CLOCKMASTER:

"I damn them for trying to change it.

Time is sacred. It does not tolerate edits."

ADRAH:

(steps forward)

"He's not rewriting anything. He's trying to *survive it. * That's not a sin - it's an instinct."

CLOCKMASTER:

(gears turning in anger)

"Instinct? He fell in love on instinct.

It was instinct which made him shrink from the throne.

If that happens *instinct will *unmake the wheel of time. *"

**\[The clock begins to split open, showing countless ghostly copies of.