Time had always been the quietest liar.
It told people that it moved forward — that every sunrise meant progress, that every sunset marked the end of something that would never return. But Arin Solis had long learned that time didn't move at all.
It only waited.
He sat at the edge of the shattered wall, the ruins of the once-glorious Citadel burning around him. The scent of smoke was sharp and metallic, mingled with the ozone sting that followed resonance storms. The world beyond the horizon flickered like a dying flame — colors tearing apart, shadows splitting into fragments that bled light instead of casting it.
His hand tightened around the pocket watch in his palm.
It was an heirloom — gold-laced, carved with the crest of his house: a rising sun bisected by a single circle. It had stopped ticking days ago, the second hand frozen at the moment the Resonance tore through the skies.
When time forgot to move.
The silence that followed the storm was wrong. Not peaceful — just hollow.
It was the kind of silence that felt aware of itself.
Arin tilted his head back, watching the sky ripple. The constellations were fractured, like glass under pressure. The moon shimmered twice — one reflection delayed by a heartbeat. He whispered, "Is this what happens when fate runs out of ink?"
No answer came.
Only the wind — soft, tired, ancient.
Behind him, the ground was littered with broken armor and faint glimmers of energy. His squad was gone. His commander was gone. And yet, the battlefield hadn't moved past this moment. Every ember hung suspended, every droplet of blood mid-fall, every sound caught between one breath and the next.
A single second stretched into eternity.
Arin lowered his gaze to the horizon again. Somewhere, beyond the distortions of light and air, he could see the faint shape of a tower — half-standing, half-forgotten. The last known remnant of the Chrona Core. The scholars had spoken of it like myth: the origin of every resonance, the pulse of existence itself. They said whoever reached its center could see the architecture of reality — and if their will was strong enough, even rewrite it.
He didn't believe that anymore.
He didn't believe much of anything anymore.
Still, his feet moved — almost against his will — across the fractured ground. The dust beneath him didn't crunch. It whispered, as if the world was afraid to disturb its own stillness.
He stopped when he reached a crack in the earth. Beneath it, a strange glow pulsed — not red, not blue, but a color language couldn't hold. Like the memory of a hue that had never existed.
Arin crouched and touched the edge of the light. It didn't burn. It hummed.
The resonance threads responded.
A shiver crawled up his arm, into his chest. The air around him vibrated as faint images flickered before his eyes — blurred figures, laughter, warmth, the shape of a home he had never seen but somehow recognized.
And then… a voice.
Soft. Distant.
Like someone speaking through the fabric of sleep.
> "You shouldn't be here."
Arin froze.
The voice was female — gentle, but carrying the kind of sadness that didn't come from pain, but from knowing. The kind of tone that remembered what it was like to lose before losing even began.
He turned sharply, scanning the air. "Who's there?"
> "No one. Not yet."
The light flared.
The ground shattered.
And the moment broke open.
He was falling before he realized it — through clouds of memory, through echoes of voices calling names that weren't his. Through flashes of sunlight on blades, of hands reaching out, of eyes that looked at him like they already knew him.
Then everything went dark.
Not the kind of darkness that swallowed light — the kind that listened.
---
When he opened his eyes, the world was alive again.
Not the smoldering ruin he'd left behind — no, this was something else entirely. The air was rich with color. The sun was gentler. The wind carried laughter and music and the distant rhythm of a world still learning to breathe.
He sat up slowly, the pocket watch still in his hand. It ticked again.
"...What in—"
The sound of hoofbeats cut through his thought.
A patrol of knights emerged from the forest line — their armor gleaming, their banners bright. The insignia struck him first — a golden sun wrapped in a perfect circle.
The crest of House Solis.
His crest.
His family's.
But that was impossible.
The captain reined his horse in sharply. "Identify yourself!"
Arin opened his mouth, but no sound came. His throat felt dry. His thoughts tangled.
"I—I'm… Arin."
The captain frowned. "Arin what?"
Arin hesitated. He couldn't lie. Not here. Not when the truth itself seemed to pulse under his skin. "Solis."
The silence that followed was heavy.
The knights exchanged glances, uneasy. One of them — younger, broad-shouldered, with windswept hair — stepped forward. "Solis?" he repeated, disbelief etched into his tone. "That's my family name."
Arin looked up, eyes locking onto the man's face.
And for a moment, the world stopped again.
He knew that face.
Not from any portrait or memory, but from the mirror.
Because the man standing before him… looked like him.
Not identical — but undeniably related. The same gaze, the same stubborn line in the jaw. The same warmth buried beneath cautious confidence.
> "Who are you?" the man asked.
Arin swallowed hard, voice barely steady. "Maybe… someone who took the wrong turn in time."
The knights whispered. The captain stiffened.
But before anyone could speak again, another voice — soft and sure — called from behind them.
> "Nalen, that's enough."
The crowd parted.
A young woman stepped forward, her armor polished, her eyes bright as dawnlight reflected on water. She carried herself with calm grace — not authority, but presence. Her expression softened when she saw Arin.
Something in his chest tightened.
> "You're hurt," she said, kneeling beside him. "Your resonance is unstable."
He didn't know what to say.
Her touch was gentle, her voice steady, but the warmth it carried was familiar. Like the echo of a lullaby he had forgotten in another life.
> "I'm fine," he murmured.
> "You're not," she said, smiling faintly. "You shouldn't lie to people who can see through time."
He blinked. "And who might you be?"
> "Alina Veyra," she said. "Knight of the Solis Order."
The name hit him like a wave.
He almost forgot how to breathe.
Nalen Solis.
Alina Veyra.
Both eighteen.
Both standing before him.
His parents.
Before they ever became his parents.
And the clock in his hand began ticking faster.
---
That night, as he sat by the campfire, the stars burned brighter than he'd ever seen. Nalen laughed with the other knights. Alina hummed softly as she tended to the wounded.
And Arin, staring into the flames, whispered to the silence:
> "I wasn't supposed to be here."
But somewhere deep within the world's rhythm, a voice — the same one from before — answered softly:
> "Maybe you always were."
The wind shifted. The fire flickered.
And for the first time, Arin felt it —
not the stillness of broken time…
but the heartbeat of something beginning again.
---