17, 447 A.R. (future timeline)Cindralith's Western District, once home, now forgotten ground.
The air tasted like dust and old memories.
Rei stood at the edge of the abandoned street, hands buried in his coat pockets, the faint hum of Veir conduits beneath the cobblestones pulsing like a heartbeat beneath his feet.This was the place he'd avoided for years, the western quarter of Cindralith, where the city's forgotten lived and its ghosts refused to die.
And somewhere in the middle of those ghosts had once stood the Ashborne home.
He swallowed hard, forcing his breathing steady.The scent of rust and smoke still lingered here even after five years. That acrid tang that never quite went away.
They said it was an accident. Faulty conduit lines. Electrical surge. Fire spread too fast to save anyone.
But Rei remembered standing outside that house, that night, the flicker of light that wasn't fire, the hum that didn't sound like crackling wood.And most of all, the silhouette on the rooftop, watching the blaze without moving.A man in a dark coat.The same one who had stabbed him years later.
Darius walked beside him, the weight of a blade visible under his worn cloak. He'd insisted on coming. "You can't just stroll into restricted ruins alone," he'd said.Now, even he seemed unnerved.
"Feels wrong," Darius muttered, scanning the empty windows. "Like the street's holding its breath."
"It always was," Rei replied quietly. "Even before it burned."
They reached what had once been number 46, Ashborne Residence.Now it was nothing but a collapsed skeleton of charred beams and fractured stone, fenced off with rusted metal and thin Order-issued seals that still glowed faintly with Veir resonance.A faded sign read:
PROPERTY OF THE ETERNAL ORDER. ENTRY RESTRICTED UNDER ARTICLE 19.
Darius frowned. "Why's the Order still guarding this place after five years? Fire site should've been cleared long ago."
Rei's jaw tightened. "Because it wasn't a fire."He stepped closer, kneeling by the remnants of the gate. The faint shimmer of energy danced over his fingertips, a containment field, weak but active. "They sealed it. Not to protect anyone. To keep people out."
"You think they did this?"
"I think they covered it." He glanced up at the emblem etched into the seal, an eye surrounded by concentric circles. "That's a Temporal Containment sigil."
Darius blinked. "Meaning…?"
"Meaning someone used high-tier Veir during the incident. Enough to distort time flow in the area." He looked up, eyes narrowing. "And the Order didn't clean it because they're still studying it."
The realization hit like a cold wave.His family hadn't just died. They'd become data.
The crunch of boots on gravel broke the silence.
Rei and Darius turned. Three men in silver-black coats were approaching from the alley—Eternal Order guards, their badges gleaming under the fading light. The one in front had pale gray eyes, sharp as a blade.Rei recognized him instantly.
Agent Castor Vey.The same man who'd monitored Mira's awakening. The one whose gaze could cut through lies.
"Unauthorized civilians in a restricted perimeter," Vey said calmly, his tone devoid of emotion. "Identify yourselves."
Rei stepped forward before Darius could intervene. "Rei Ashborne. This was my family's home."
A flicker of something, recognition?, crossed Vey's face, but it vanished as quickly as it came."The Ashborne site is sealed under Temporal Containment Protocol. You have no clearance to be here."
"What happened here?" Rei demanded. "There was no investigation, no burial, no records. Why did the Order seal it?"
"That information is classified."Vey's voice didn't rise, but it carried authority like a blade at the throat. "Leave. Now."
Rei clenched his fists. "You're hiding something."
The guard behind Vey shifted uneasily. Vey didn't blink. "We're preserving something. There's a difference."
The phrase twisted in Rei's gut. Preserving what? Evidence? Anomalies? His family's remains?
When he didn't move, Vey sighed and turned slightly, lowering his tone so only Rei could hear."I understand your grief. But some answers are worse than ignorance. Walk away before you find one you can't live with."
Rei froze.
The calmness in Vey's eyes wasn't cruelty. It was pity.And that made it worse.
Darius tugged his sleeve. "Come on. Let's go."
Rei hesitated one second longer, then turned away.As they walked, he whispered, almost to himself:
"Even when given a second chance… I can't even uncover why they died."
The street swallowed his words, echoing them back as a hollow whisper.
They walked in silence for blocks, the city's neon glow bleeding through the cracks in the clouds.When they finally stopped at a small overlook above the industrial district, Rei sat on a stone ledge, staring at the city lights.
Darius leaned on the railing beside him. "You're thinking about them again."
"I never stopped." Rei rubbed his temples. "In the future, I thought power would fix everything. If I could just change the past, I'd undo it all. But even here, in the timeline where they still live, I can't even find the truth."
"Power doesn't rewrite grief," Darius said quietly. "It just gives it more ways to hurt you."
Rei didn't answer. His eyes were distant, hollow, reflecting the golden lights below.
For the first time since coming back, he felt truly powerless again.Not because he lacked strength, but because truth itself had been erased.
As night fell, a cold wind swept through the streets, carrying the faint scent of burnt ozone.
Rei looked back once toward the west, where the faint shimmer of the Order's containment barrier still glowed behind the fog.The ruined house stood silent, defiant, and buried under secrets.
He whispered to no one:
"I'll find out what you buried. Even if I have to tear time apart to do it."
And far behind him, in the shadows of the ruined district, one of the Order's surveillance drones tilted its metallic head slightly,recording, logging, transmitting.
A red line of text blinked on its display:
ANOMALY RECONFIRMED – SUBJECT: R. ASHBORNE. STATUS: OBSERVED.