As the boots sank into the softened earth, and the wind gently caressed his hair, Sol stood before the lone cottage.

  "This place..." Marguerite's eyes took in the view with awe, and her bewildered tone was still soft. Afraid she could break the moment. Granny Lethea's house; he had called it, and she assumed it to be an ordinary rundown home.

  The worn yet stubborn house sat like a shrine in the vast grass field, like a sentinel of memory frozen in place, in time. It's walls were weathered and the shattered windows staring blankly like eyes that had witnessed centuries. His gaze drifted past the cottage, to the two simple graves in the distance. They were small, overgrown with wildflowers, yet undeniably present where they had intended to be. Sol's voice dropped to a reverent murmur as he greeted them.

  "We meet again, Finn... I am back..."

  The wind shifted, stirring the emerald sea and carrying with it the faint scent of earth and old wood. As if Finnian was responding to his greeting. Sol pushed the door open letting its hinges groan in protest. Inside, dust motes danced in the stray beams of moonlight, carpeting the room in silver. He could almost feel the echoes of the life that had been lived here: the warmth of a fireplace, the hum over quiet afternoon tea, evening laughter long faded. But the boy feared stepping inside.

  It was strange to think this had once been normal, a livable home before the loops of time had worn it down. Before 'Old Solthar' had been destroyed countless years ago. Before he had realized that Granny Lethea, the woman who had seemed so real in his memories, had never existed in this current reality.

  How strange it was, that he was living memories of the past.

  "This was the place I used to spend my days at," Sol said, almost to himself, though his eyes scanned the broken porch and sagging roof as if trying to reconstruct a memory long lost. "Granny Lethea's house…" he repeated.

  Marguerite hesitated, sensing the impossible. She did not want to say it was impossible to the boy before him who spoke of impossible things, but there was not a hint of a lie on his face. She pursed her lips before she could say something to shatter the serenity of the moment.

  "I know," Sol whispered, as if reading her thoughts. "I think I had a very long dream here. As if, I do not remember what I was before."

  "Wait," Marguerite said, placing a hand lightly on his arm. "You're looking for something, right?"

  "I think I am." Sol turned toward her, "Though, I don't know why I asked you to come here with me." His chest tightened, the weight of unspoken questions weighing it down, ones that wished to be spoken aloud.. "I feel a tug here, as I have always had, as if this house always answers to me."

  Each time I visit… I encounter something different… equally strange.

  Marguerite gazed at the interior, still remaining by the door, where nothing was left in the wake of ruins.

  "The place is old, older just like the ruins we have encountered. Yes, certain strange locations are littered all over Solthar,” she began, “It’s not strange, to me atleast. But there is nothing you would find in a rotting cottage.”

  There was a pause. “I have learned to revive non-living things, it has been a part of what I was taught. I can try to rewind time here. It will take a while, and I'm not sure if it'll work—I have never done so before, not on this scale…"

  "Why?" He interrupted.

  "I'm a guide, after all. I did say I would lead you." Marguerite scoffed, a small, knowing smile curling her lips despite the mean tone. Her eyes glinted with something akin to patience, as if she had always known this moment would come, and had waited.

  Sol swallowed and stepped closer to the threshold, feeling the faint pulse of memory under his fingers. The house seemed to breathe, a rhythm caught somewhere between past and present. Whatever had been lost, or hidden, here waited, and for the first time, he felt certain that he might finally find it.

  The wind rose again, tugging at the grass and at his resolve. Sol inhaled, steeling himself. Together, he and Marguerite would try to uncover the secret the cottage had held for so long.

  He drew in a steady breath.

  "Very well, Miss Witch. Do guide me."

  As they stood on the grass once more, Marguerite closed her eyes and drew a slow, steadying breath. “Then let’s hope this works,” she commented. Then, the air around them thickened if it were sentient, reaching for everywhere all at once, and the edges of the cottage seemed to blur, as if the house itself were now holding its breath.

  She let her grimoire float in the air before her, and its pages began to flip of their own accord, faster and faster, with each chant of Marguerite's spell. Her dress fluttered with purple flickers, ornaments on her hat glowed faintly with pulses of energy.

  Sol watched, as the runes and symbols sketched themselves in spectral ink across the air. Dust swirled around them like violet haze, a contrast to the otherwise dullness of reality, and the faint scent of ozone filled the field.

  Marguerite's hands trembled. Veins throbbed at her temples, her brow drawn tight with effort. "It resists," she hissed through her teeth. "The house... and time itself. Something does not wish to be disturbed. But why?"

  The pages finally stopped, one in particular fluttering open and glowing brighter than the rest. Her eyes widened as she read aloud, voice trembling.

  "There is a presence holding this house together..." But Marguerite would not give in to anything, whether it was a Sun's Disciple or a God. The witch immediately summoned her staff, gemstones glowing at the edge, and she began a chant.

  "O Kronos, I call upon you!" She lifted it. Her summoning circle glowed beneath her again in response, and the grimoire flipped over to a new, blank page and the magic began writing. "To let the veil of time be torn. To let what lingers be unveiled."

  Sol tilted his head, unsure what she meant. "The god of time?"

  Marguerite's lips pressed into a thin line.

  "Are you sure you want to do this? It might..." Sol worriedly asked, yet digging his shoes into the soil, worried her was interrupting the spell. She looked up at him, sweat dripping down her brow. But did not speak, only the time's name tugged from her lips once.

  In the next flash, dust lifted in a sudden gust, and for the briefest moment Sol swore he saw the house as it once had been of warm light spilling from it's once shattered windows, the smell of bread and earth coiling in the air. Time seemed to stretch, twist, and ripple around them. Sol felt the past brushing against the present.

  Scarlet threads fluttered, once that made his eyes widen in recognition. They weaved through the house, lifting it up to what it once had been, and holding it together in stitches of it's memories.

  Marguerite sank to one knee, pale and trembling, but managed a weak smile when Sol worried like a mother hen spewing ‘are you alright?’s and ‘what do you need me to do?’s over her worn out self.

  "I—I am alright." She weakly chuckled, "Just overexerted myself, but nothing to worry about. I am not the great witch's disciple for nothing! Don’t underestimate me!" Ah yes, master, does hate being called by that name…

  “As you wish!”

  Sol stepped closer to the door, feeling the warmth of the house press against him like an embrace he hadn't realized he'd missed. A gentle embrace of a parent. The scent of old wood and parchment, and the quiet rhythm of this space frozen in time, or a memory—it all made his chest ache.

  Inside, the house was simple but whole again. The kitchen gleamed faintly, untouched by decay now. The table sat in serenity of timelessness by the window, a single chair pushed slightly back. Granny Lethea's bed was pristine. The sheets were folded as though she had only just departed. Sol could almost hear the faint creak of her joints as she moved around, which was so rare because of her curse—he could almost smell the faint herbal tang she always carried thanks to her medicine concoctions, but maybe that was just his hallucinations.

  Comfort and nostalgia wove around him like a cloak, in contrast to what had been over his shoulders this entire time. But Sol was sure that his past and his memories were never a lie. The crescent moon’s light, faint at first, began to pool in the center of the cottage floor, gathering like molten silver.

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  He walked over to the back door, pausing to let his fingers brush the painted wood. He gazed at the little garden that had somehow survived the loops of time. His practice dummy leaned against the fence, worn and patched but so familiar, almost as if it had been waiting for him to return.

  Marguerite's humming pulled him from his thoughts. She had glided over to the bookshelf, eyes passing through the spines like a diviner searching for a hidden pattern. And that was exactly who she was, with her violet irises, she pondered over the moon and the stars. Her fingers hovered, then brushed down the row, tracing invisible sigils over the leather-bound tomes. She hummed a quiet chant, low and lilting, until the book lifted from the shelf as if it had been waiting for her.

  Marguerite let the disturbed dust settle, her hands still cradling the book as though it might slip away if not handled with care. The golden parchment shimmered in the soft moonlight spilling through the windows.

  "This house… is truly fascinating," she murmured, letting the word trail off. Flipping it open, her eyes sparkled, reflecting the golden glow of the enchanted page sitting in the book. "This... is what you have come here for?"

  Sol turned fully, awe and disbelief mingling in his chest. The golden parchment gleamed as though alive, radiating a warmth that seemed almost sentient.

  "So it still exists," He whispered with a touch of wonder.

  "But remember," she said gently, "We are in the past. Everything here... ss fragile. One wrong move, and it could shatter before your eyes. If we carry it out, I am unsure for how long it will stay intact."

  Sol took a deep breath, feeling the gravity of what they had found, and yet comforted by the strange, persistent heartbeat of a place that had waited for him across time.

  "Yeah…" He let a small smile breaking through the tension.

  Marguerite's smile was faint but present nonetheless. She closed the book gently, letting the golden glow of the single paper pool between her hands. She let him hold what belonged to him once: the Sun Charm, a relic of the Sun itself. One that could not be recreated by just anyone in the present.

  Sol's fingers wrapped around the parchment, and the faint pulse of energy seemed to synchronize with his own heartbeat, indeed. The golden glow reflected in his eyes, making the lines of the house shimmer.

  He will break whatever prophecy loomed over Solthar.

  Marguerite stepped further inside. She scanned the rooms not with curiosity but with careful inspection, as if looking for something hidden beneath its simplicity of a home. It was considered fascinating by her, afterall. Her fingers brushed a chair, then the bricks of the fireplace designated for winter’s shortest days.

  "This lovely home shouldn't stand," she hummed. "Solthar's outskirts were razed by the abyss, time and time again, and when the old districts fell…. But—" She tapped the wall with her knuckle. "—this survived the arrow of time, a strange loop. That only happens when a house is bound to something. Just who was that woman, Sol?"

  Sol staggered, bracing for the ache in his wound.

  "Your wound is opening again." She turned to him with worry.

  But they both stilled as a low vibration rolled through the floorboards akin to an unmistakable resonance. The light shifted, as if someone unseen had entered the room once more. Marguerite's expression changed in an instant and she summoned her staff, ready to counter whatever was walking with them.

  "It's below us," she said. "The same presence we felt in the tunnels."

  He looked past her, toward the narrow stair leading into the cellar, one he had never noticed before—he had never explored the home this far in. The cellar exhaled cold up the stairs in an answer to his pondering, like a feral predator lurking in the darkness.

  He stepped toward the cellar.

  "No." Marguerite disagreed with a shake of her head, "Don't listen to it. We can’t go back in, nor can we face it."

  The wound along his ribs throbbed so sharply he flinched.

  Marguerite's eyes narrowed. "It reacts to you. That's why the Cathedral hunts you outright as well, they call you an anomaly—they think you're the key or the catalyst to something they intend to start or stop. Perhaps both."

  "Tell me about it." He sighed. He was unsure himself.

  The moonlight cut sharp across the cottage.

  The sudden patter over the roof alerted both Sol and Marguerite. Outside, the pale figures gathered. Dozens of them dropped down silently, hoods shadowing their faces. They did not breach the threshold, but pressed against the glass with gloved hands. The windows fogged with their breath though no mouths moved.

  Sol's skin prickled at the sight.

  "Drat!" Marguerite hissed, the violet magic circles summoning in her hands. "Careless of me, to let my magic flare like that! The wards carried it straight to them."

  She wheeled to Sol, back to his back. Her chest rose with ragged breath, her hands trembling from the spell already spent.

  Sol tugged the pistol from the depths of his coat, a weapon that hadn't left its holster in days. The steel was cold against his palm. He slipped the sun-charm into the hollow where it had rested before, a gesture rather ritualistic. The familiar warmth calmed him down.

  The disciples did not enter just yet, unnerving the two as they watched and waited.

  "They're not crossing," Marguerite whispered to the boy behind her, "Why aren't they—"

  Just then, one moved as a blur figure broke from the glass like a shadow beneath moonlight. The pistol kicked in Sol's hand. With one shot, the disciple fell, or rather, folded, like paper collapsing. A marionette? But others followed, pouring toward the house like water rushing a breach. Was it a shot of luck? Sol had no time to think.

  Marguerite raised trembling arms, but no magic came.

  "W—We gotta run!" She cried in panic.

  "Then we run." Sol seized her wrist.

  The door burst and they plunged into the night where the endless field guided them into the city, and the disciples were not that far behind in their chase. One leaped forward so dangerously—Marguerite screamed, but Sol pivoted over his foot, cocked his pistol in the direction and fired without aim.

  It made the hooded man halt, and dodge, creating enough distance for the two of them to rush into the steaming arteries of Solthar city.

  They tore through alleys slick with rain, boots hammering stone. Sol vaulted a toppled cart, dragging Marguerite after him as she yelped in surprise.

  "Warn me next time!" She gasped, but still clung together as they ran. Behind them, white robes threatened to snap closer, swift as dogs on the scent trail.

  They broke into a square strung with festival preparations, stalls lit with gas lamps and jugglers marching around despite the late hour. Sol hopped down metal stairs, guiding Marguerite along, she followed without a word, knowing how familiar he was with the underground city of Solthar.

  This was his world, not hers. But the disciples would not relent, they were just as familiar.

  The two leaped into darkened alleys of the underground, the space so far in with no sign of any festival— a damp, and desolate place, ridden with tired men and women. The people of underground city.

  A spear of radiant flames seared past, splitting a support of the stairs. The scaffolding groaned and collapsed in clangs. Sol flung himself upwards in the very moment, clutching a beam as Marguerite slipped from his grasp.

  "Marguerite!" His voice tore the night as she fell, eyes widened in panic, and arms reaching for anything to grab onto. Time slowed as he failed to reach for her hand.

  At the last moment, purple ripples unfurled below her, a mirror of liquid magic. She slipped into it like water, vanishing amongst the concentric circles.

  "Run, Sol! They are after you!" Her voice echoed in a final goodbye, and when he blinked, she was gone, swallowed by ripples, by disciples, by the city itself.

  Alone now, Sol scrambled across the collapsing frame of the staircase, leaping to the weak rooftops. His lungs burned, but the pursuit pressed him on. He glanced back once, only to see no one there. No Marguerite. Just those empty, grimy streets left in the wake of his run. But in the glass panes of small windows belonging to run down buildings, faint reflections lingered of white robes that could strike fear in anyone's hearts.

  Every turn drove him deeper into the city's bowels, and slowly, the routes began to feel unknown. It was as if the alleys themselves conspired to herd him.

  He stumbled through a rotted door and into an eerie silence, shutting it behind him in urgency. An old chapel stretched around him, sun-emblems long since defaced by time, and people. Something collided with the door, leaving it to rattle as if something was trying to break through, and Sol ushered further into the chapel.

  He crawled in panic, sunlit eyes clouded with fear as he tried to look for refuge. Dust choked the air. Behind the altar, a stairwell gaped open.

  A basement…? He wouldn't dare go into the yawning abyss, Sol was not stupid to walk into his greatest fear, atleast, how he referred to it as. He told himself he chose to do it when the door rattled behind, but it felt chosen for him, so he entered without a second thought.

  The steel staircases creaked a little too loudly as if someone else were walking down with him.

  The strong stench of copper hit him first like a fierce slap. That stench so akin to death.

  Torches burned fresh and new. Symbols gouged, carved into the brick walls. Concentric ritual circles of blood scored into the floor. Across the walls: fragments of diagrams, suns devouring suns and various runes were painted.

  His stomach twisted at the grotesque sight. He knew these shapes. He had seen them before. The Sun and the red moon were eerily familiar as he recalled that tapestry he had found in the cottage, then the remaining symbols seemed to have been taken from the tunnels they had passed through. Red threads flicker in his periphery, tugging and urging him to look deeper. And he did not resist, walking further into the suffocating basement of blood and rituals.

  A floorboard jutted loose. Sol lifted his foot in panic, wondering if had triggered some trap, but nothing happened for a moment so he relaxed as much as he possibly could in the situation. The boy crouched, trembling fingers brushing the tile to lift it. Beneath it was dusty material consisting of pages with scribbled writings he could not grasp in the dark, and ledgers, notebooks.

  Threads of red light shimmered in the air, diaphanous as spider-silk. They tugged his gaze downward, toward the notebook, the reliquary, the orb sigil pulsing faintly in the dust, carved within the parchment. As if something had bled onto the paper.

  "Is that what you were trying to warn me of?" He whispered, hoarse and small. And Sol knew, as he settled in the dark, that none of this had been chance.

  The chase hadn't saved him as he had hoped, instead it had guided him straight into whatever was unraveling within the city.