The next morning, Kaelun was quiet. Too quiet.
Lira sat alone beneath the old moonroot tree at the village's edge, where time always seemed to pass slower. Birds chirped in rhythmic loops, repeating their songs like broken records. Even the shadows moved oddly here, stretching and snapping back like a heartbeat. Her aura was still pulsing—blue and gold. Unstable.
Her mother's words echoed again: He was an Eternal Monarch.
She didn't know what that meant—not really. Only that no one was supposed to know. Not the village. Not the elders. Not even the other clans. To them, the Monarchs were gone. Forgotten. Legends sealed away.
So why was she feeling this now? Why here? Why her?
She clenched her fists. The night before had awakened something—but she couldn't repeat it. She tried to slow the fall of a leaf. Failed. Tried again. The leaf hit the ground. Her power flickered, then fizzled. She bit her lip, frustrated. It was like holding onto fog. Every time she reached for it—it vanished.
"Still struggling?"
Lira flinched. She turned to see Eron, her sparring partner. Chronarch-trained. A year older. All sharp smiles and sharper jabs.
"You're not supposed to sneak up on a time mage," she muttered.
"You're barely a time mage," he smirked. "More like a sparkler with a broken clock."
She glared but said nothing. Eron sat beside her anyway.
"You healed that kid last night."
Lira nodded.
"They're talking," he said. "Some think you're dangerous. Others think you're..."Blessed?" Lira offered, voice hollow.
"Or cursed," he muttered. "Depends who you ask."
Then the wind shifted. And with it, something else—an aura foreign to Kaelun. Raw. Fractured. Old.
A group of scouts rode in from the valley pass, their flags marked not with a clan sigil, but the neutral crest of the Outer Border Watch. At the center of the group walked a boy—no, a young man—bound in strange silence. His cloak was patched and travel-worn. His boots were clearly of mortal realm make. His silver hair fell in a mess over his eyes, which were downcast and tired.
Lira stepped forward, cautious. The air around him felt off… like time couldn't decide how fast to flow.
An elder dismounted and spoke. "Found him wandering the Scorchmire Ridge. Said he came from the Southern Outlands—born and raised by an old couple near Ash Hollow."
"Ash Hollow?" Eron blinked. "That's across the Mortal Divide. No one from there crosses through the Veil."
The elder nodded gravely. "They didn't. Not until now."
Lira stared at the boy. "Who is he?"
The elder reached into her satchel and held up a pendant—cracked, ancient, glowing faintly. Only a single word was carved into its center.
Kael.
"That's all he remembers," she said. "Just his first name. He was found nearly seven years ago. Alone. Barely alive, washed up near the Wraith Coast. The couple who found him—simple farmers—raised him as their own. Said he'd sometimes wake screaming, muttering things about time breaking… about stars shattering."
Eron frowned. "He doesn't remember anything else?"
"No. No family, no history. Just visions of places that no longer exist."
"What about the blade?" Lira asked suddenly. "Aunnex. Did he have it?"
The elder's expression darkened. "No. Nothing of the sort. Just the pendant and scars no human weapon could have made."
Eron stepped closer, scanning Kael. "Aunnex is a myth. A story they tell to scare off relic hunters."
"Or hide something greater," the elder said.
Kael finally raised his head.
For a moment, Lira felt like the wind pulled inward. Like time bent around his gaze. His golden eyes met hers—eyes too deep for someone with no past.
"…Do I know you?" Kael asked, voice quiet. Vulnerable.
Lira hesitated, breath caught between wonder and fear. "…Not yet."
The elder stepped forward. "We'll keep him at the central quarter. Under watch. Don't speak of this to the villagers—not yet. The Seers are uneasy."
As the group turned to leave, Kael staggered slightly. Eron reached out instinctively to steady him—and froze.
His eyes dropped to Kael's right forearm, where the torn edge of his sleeve had slipped down.
There, faintly glowing beneath the skin, was a mark.
A symbol.
Three interwoven rings forming a triangle around a central spiral—simple, but ancient. Time-worn. Etched into flesh not by ink or blade, but something older.
"Wait… what is that?" Eron muttered, pulling back the sleeve further.
The closest elder, Maera—keeper of the village's Old Scrolls—glanced over idly… and then gasped.
The color drained from her face.
She stepped back, her hand trembling.
"No… It can't be," she whispered.
"What?" Eron asked. "You recognize it?"
She didn't answer. Her eyes were locked on the mark, her lips moving silently in a prayer long forgotten.
Without another word, Maera turned and hurried off—cloak billowing behind her like a shadow fleeing the sun.
Later that night, beneath the whispering stones of the Temple Archives, Maera met with her closest friend—Elder Venn, keeper of forbidden histories.
"I saw it," she said, voice low, strained. "The symbol."
Venn looked up from his scrolls. "What symbol?"
She paused, eyes wild. "The Crest of the Eternal Monarchs."
Venn dropped his pen.
"That line was wiped out in the Fracture War… erased from all records."
Maera stepped back, shaking her head. "Then explain why it's burned into the arm of a boy from the mortal realm… who fell out of nowhere with no history or past to tell ."
Silence.
Only the slow drip of water from the temple ceiling.
Then, Maera whispered—more to herself than to Venn:
"He doesn't remember what he is. But the world will."
And above them, buried deep in the temple's sealed chamber, the old relics stirred.
One, in particular, pulsed faintly in the dark.
A shard of a weapon long thought lost…
Aunnex.