The pull came suddenly, violent and absolute. One moment Jin Mu hovered above the roaring expanse of the Sea, fragments of selves clinging to his essence like barnacles to a drowned ship, and the next a hook lodged into the very core of his being. It yanked him upward with irresistible force, tearing him free from currents that begged him to sink again.
He fought it—at first. Not because he wished to stay, but because the act of leaving felt wrong. The Sea's whispers lingered, insistent: there is more, more, more. Each ripple promised another truth, another piece of himself scattered across the infinite. But the tether dragging him upward burned hotter than any temptation.
His vision blurred. The glimmer of Aurelius above, once a distant cocoon of nine dimensions, swelled rapidly until it swallowed his sight whole. The Sea fell away beneath him, its currents roaring like an ocean he'd never touch again—at least, not now.
Then, silence.
He woke with a gasp that tore the air from his chest.
Light blinded him. Not sunlight—the filtered glow of Aurelius' crystalline walls. His body ached, every nerve screaming in delayed protest. Sweat soaked his robes, and his throat felt as if he hadn't drawn a real breath in centuries.
"Finally."
The voice was sharp, cool, familiar. Jin forced his head to the side. Eleanor sat in a chair beside the bed, silver hair cascading like a frozen waterfall. Her arms were folded, her face carefully schooled into composure, but her eyes betrayed the faintest shadow of relief.
"You've been unconscious for two weeks." Her words carried no softness, only fact. "The physicians were convinced you might never wake. Sera argued otherwise, of course."
Sera's presence flickered from the far side of the room, her quieter warmth balancing Eleanor's blade-like poise. The younger sister's expression was not relief but concern, threaded with guilt—as though his state was somehow her fault.
Jin's brow furrowed. Two weeks? The Sea had not felt like time at all. Up and down, yes—movements that meant something—but sideways, forward, backward… none of that had existed. If he had been drifting for centuries or seconds, he could not have said.
Time as he knew it was meaningless there.
Yet here, in Aurelius, the world had continued.
He flexed his hands. His soul still burned faintly with the residue of the journey, the fragments of selves refusing to fade. Two weeks or two eternities, he had not returned empty.
"You look…" Eleanor hesitated, searching for the right word. "…changed."
Jin smirked faintly despite the ache in his bones. "That's one way to put it." His voice was rough, raw, like it had been dragged across stone.
Sera stepped forward, her hands clasped. "Do you remember anything? You were burning with fever, muttering things none of us understood. Father nearly forbade us from keeping you here."
He closed his eyes. The battlefield-self. The farmer-self. The broken-slave-self. Each memory pulsed faintly behind his lids, phantom pains and phantom joys that weren't his, yet were.
"I… dreamed," Jin said slowly. "Of things that weren't me. Or maybe were. I can't tell yet." He stopped there. The truth was heavier than they needed to hear, heavier than Aurelius itself. Half-truths, always.
Sera glanced at Eleanor, who gave the slightest nod. They would not press him now.
But Jin saw it—the flicker of curiosity, of suspicion. Eleanor was too sharp to let it go entirely.
He sat up, ignoring the pain that lanced through his spine. His body felt like a battlefield after the storm—wreckage, half-patched, but functional. That would do.
Two weeks lost. Two weeks where Aurelius had moved forward without him. He had no illusions about the city: its crystalline beauty was gilded steel, and its people sharpened daggers behind honeyed smiles. He couldn't afford to fall behind, not when this place was both sanctuary and cage.
Jin swung his legs over the bed, meeting Eleanor's gaze with steady fire. "I'm done resting."
Her lips curved—not a smile, not quite. Something colder. "Good. Then let's see if you can still stand."
He did. Painfully, but he did. And as he straightened, fragments of other selves whispered at the edge of his mind. The tyrant's ruthlessness. The farmer's patience. The slave's endurance. Twigs sprouting from branches, branches from trunk.
Two weeks lost—or two eternities gained.
Either way, Jin Mu was not the same man who had fallen into the Sea.
The door shut behind Eleanor with a soft click, leaving the chamber quiet. The lingering scent of her perfume—sharp, clean, like snow over steel—faded as her footsteps receded down the crystalline hall.
For the first time since waking, Jin Mu felt the tension ease from his shoulders. Eleanor's eyes always carried a weight that pinned him, as though she were perpetually assessing the measure of his soul. With her gone, the room seemed less suffocating.
Sera, however, remained. She stood near the window, her hands clasped in front of her, gaze turned outward to the glittering spires of Aurelius. The afternoon light caught in her hair, a softer silver than her sister's, more like starlight than ice.
When she finally spoke, her voice was gentler than Eleanor's could ever be. "You weren't just dreaming, were you?"
Jin stiffened. "What do you mean?"
"You muttered names," she said quietly, turning to him. "Strange things. Branches, paths, oceans of mirrors, people I've never heard of. And when I asked if you remembered… you lied."
Her words pierced deeper than he expected. Jin lowered his gaze, fingers curling against his knees. He had given them fragments, half-truths—but Sera had noticed. She had always noticed more than he was comfortable with.
She stepped closer, kneeling slightly so her eyes met his. There was no sharpness in her expression, no interrogation. Just earnestness, bright and unyielding.
"You can trust me, Jin," she whispered. "Please. Tell me what really happened."
For a moment, he warred with himself. The fragments of selves whispered again, some urging silence, others urging confession. But when he met Sera's eyes—wide, patient, unwavering—he exhaled.
"I wasn't dreaming," he admitted at last, voice low. "I left. My soul… it broke free. I fell into something greater than I've ever known. A sea that wasn't water, but time itself. Or… more than time. Every possibility, every self I could ever be. I saw them. Felt them. And when I came back, I brought pieces with me."
Her lips parted in awe, breath catching. "The Sea of Time… you really touched it?"
Jin nodded. His chest felt lighter, yet heavier all at once. To speak it aloud was a relief, but also a danger. Such truths weren't meant to be shared casually.
But Sera's hand brushed against his—tentative, trembling. "Thank you," she said softly. "For trusting me."
The silence stretched, not uncomfortable but charged, like the hush before a storm. Her cheeks flushed faintly, her eyes refusing to leave his. Jin tilted his head, confused by the sudden shift in her breathing, the nervous way she twisted her fingers together.
"Jin…" she began, voice hesitant. "There's something else I want to say. I—I don't know how long you'll stay in Aurelius, or what path you're walking, but these past months I've—"
A scream tore through the quiet, sharp and echoing from the lower streets. The crystalline walls carried it like a bell.
Sera jerked to her feet, face pale. Shouts followed—panic, anger, the unmistakable clamor of violence.
Jin blinked, the tension in the room shattered. "What was that?"
"The market," Sera gasped, rushing to the window. Smoke already curled faintly in the distance, people scattering like ants. "Something's happening—there's fighting!"
Jin rose unsteadily, instinct carrying him faster than reason. The fragments of selves stirred within, their voices sharpening in unison. Conflict was familiar. Conflict was something he understood.
Sera turned to him, torn between urgency and the words left unsaid. Her hand lingered in the air, almost reaching for him. Almost.
But Jin, dense as ever, missed it entirely. His focus was already narrowing to the scream, the smoke, the threat outside. Whatever she had tried to say slipped past him, lost to the chaos.
"Come on," he said, his voice steady but oblivious. "We'll find out what's going on."
And together, they ran toward the fire rising from Aurelius' heart.