Sarkhan went home to find dragons, crossed twelve centuries and returned to a present that had never made him.

The Unwritten past

Sarkhan emerged 1,280 years earlier, when dragons still contested Tarkir and the five khans fought for survival.

The passage carried Sarkhan into an age the Temur called the Unwritten, a future vision reversed into his present experience. Dragons filled the storms and young versions of the clans had not yet won their defining war. The world he had idealised was not peaceful; people lived beneath constant predation and every alliance remained vulnerable.

Ugin and Nicol Bolas were drawing toward a confrontation whose outcome Sarkhan already knew. He could not overpower Bolas or explain the entire future to people trying to survive the day. His advantage was narrower: memory of where Ugin would fall, knowledge of hedrons and the willingness to act after the apparent battle had ended.

The journey reframed Sarkhan’s obsession. Living dragons were magnificent, but magnificence did not make them benevolent. Saving Ugin might preserve creatures he loved and also intensify the war consuming the clans. He proceeded without knowing the full result because the vanished future had offered no second attempt.

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