The scent of ozone hung in the air, mingling with the smell of rusted mana conduits and cheap incense from a nearby shrine. Rayan Holt shuffled through the bustling lanes of Velmora's lower district, his satchel heavy with spare mechanical parts and borrowed books. His workday at the Gearloom Guild was over, but the dull throb in his legs wasn't just from walking.
It was from dread.
He always felt it, especially at the end of the day—the nagging voice in the back of his mind whispering, What if this is the last time? What if death was around the corner again?
Because it had come before.
And it would come again.
He didn't know how he knew that. Only that his life, ordinary as it appeared, wasn't normal. Not really.
But today wasn't about dying.
Today was about surviving.
Velmora was a strange mix of modern and arcane. The buildings glowed not with electric lights but with mana-crystals embedded in columns. Public transit carriages floated just inches off the ground, humming with mana turbines. Street performers flared minor spells for coin, while merchants shouted about the latest "blessed tech" from the Crystal Belt. Children ran by with light-thread toys—plasma shapes tied to strings—and old women prayed at celestial wells, drawing wisps of healing grace to ease their bones.
But Rayan? Rayan was a zero.
No aura. No spellcasting. No lineage. No gifts.
Just a twenty-year-old orphan with a knack for remembering things no one else believed had happened.
He passed a newsboard. Another report of unstable weather near the southern wards.
Cracked skies. That's what the newscasters called it.
"Mana storms," others said. "Nothing to worry about."
But Rayan had seen one once. Just a glimpse through a rooftop telescope—a rent in the clouds where stars bled blue, and something darker moved inside.
He hadn't told anyone.
No one believed him when he spoke of things others didn't see.
His apartment was small. A third-floor flat above a bakery that smelled like burned sugar and yeast. The walls were lined with handwritten notes, diagrams, and timelines. Not maps of the world, but his life. Dates of dreams. Moments of déjà vu. Memories of people who looked at him like strangers, though he knew them.
On the wall above his desk, a single sentence was etched in glowing ink:
"You have died three times."
He had no proof.
No medical record. No scars. But he remembered each death—with gut-chilling clarity.
The first time had been when he was fifteen.
A sickness no one could name. No healer could fix it. He remembered the fever, the coughing blood, the sound of rain on the hospital window. Then—
Darkness.
Then light.
And he was five years old again.
In the same orphanage, surrounded by familiar faces with no memory of him ever growing up.
He had thought it a dream.
Until he relived events he shouldn't have remembered.
The second time had been more dramatic.
An accident—a runaway mana-truck during a downtown festival. It slammed through the crowd, right into him. Pain. Silence. Regret.
Then—
Again, age five.
With memories intact.
From that moment, he began tracking everything. Patterns. Coincidences. Fixed events and altered ones. He kept to himself. Avoided danger. Lived quietly.
But no matter what he did, time still hunted him.
The third death came during a monster outbreak in the outer wards.
No warning. Just screams, alarms, and shadows rising from the sewers. Creatures no textbook ever described. No military report ever confirmed.
He had tried to run. He hadn't made it.
Reset.
Back to five.
Again.
So here he was. Version four of a life no one else remembered. Still powerless. Still pretending to be average.
Except something was changing.
He had dreams now—of silver flames and broken stars, of gears turning in blood and glass. Of his own reflection warping into someone else.
And sometimes, when he touched certain objects, he felt… something. A pressure. A pulse.
Not quite magic.
Not yet.
He flopped onto his mattress and pulled a blanket over himself, fully clothed. Sleep came slowly, but when it did, it hit hard.
In his dream, he stood on a cracked glass platform high above a sky with no stars.
Below him was an endless chasm, and within it writhed tendrils of silver light, reaching for him, whispering in voices not quite human.
One voice rose above the others.
You are bound.
By time. By death. By spark.
Unshaped. Unforged.
But not undone.
The tendrils surged, and the platform shattered.
He fell—
And woke gasping, drenched in sweat.
His eyes adjusted to the dim blue light of a mana-lamp.
He rubbed his arms, trying to slow his breathing.
Something buzzed faintly in his chest. A vibration, like a clockwork heart starting to tick.
He didn't understand it.
But he knew one thing.
I'm not crazy.
Something was happening.
And soon… he wouldn't be able to avoid it anymore.
The next morning, he received a summons from the Velmora Academy of Mana and Arcana.
A scholarship.
He hadn't even applied.
And there was no sender's name on the letter.