The King's Guard

Chapter 15

(Flashback)

The rain never stopped in Glaire Hollow. It tapped steadily on slate rooftops, trickled down windowpanes in thin, tired streams, and turned the narrow lanes into a permanent slurry of damp stone and moss-slick gravel. The sky itself looked as though it had forgotten the colour blue, locked in a perpetual state of sullen grey.

It was as if the appearance of the sky sharply represented the occasion. It was on the morning of the funeral.

He was only six years old. The black coat thrown over him by a neighbour hung awkwardly from his narrow shoulders, the sleeves too long and heavy with rain. His boots squelched in the soaked gravel with every slow step, trailing behind his father, who walked ahead without turning back. The man’s posture was rigid and unreadable, his face a mask of absence rather than grief.

The mourners were few: half a dozen at most, most of them locals who’d known his mother in passing. She hadn’t been someone who commanded attention. She was someone you noticed when she was gone. Kindness in quiet gestures, a soft voice that steadied a room, and a smile that made even bad days feel less jagged.

She’d been the first to see it—the strange moments that set Kael apart. When time seemed to trip over itself. When his footsteps echoed before he moved, or when his laughter arrived a breath too late. She never called it wrong or flinched.

“You’re a little bent clock,” she’d say, tapping him gently on the forehead with her fingertip. “But even broken clocks are right twice a day.”

After she died, the warmth in their house died with her. His father stopped speaking, except when absolutely necessary. Meals came late or not at all. Sometimes Kael would find him in the study, not working, not even reading, just sitting in the high-backed chair by the rain-washed window, staring at nothing. He even stopped going to his shop, where he worked as a blacksmith, making weapons for village guards and visitors alike.

On the better days, his father remembered to say goodnight. On the worse ones, Kael would sit on the staircase in the dark, waiting for a voice that never came.

That’s when the real strangeness began.

He started to see versions of himself: echoes that moved slightly out of step, flickering at the edge of mirrors or the corner of his vision. Objects slowed, wavered. A plate he dropped from the table once hovered in midair for half a heartbeat before gravity remembered its job and pulled it down to shatter. Time didn’t just bend… it wavered, as though uncertain of which moment belonged to whom.

It frightened the villagers. People whispered when he passed, not always quiet enough.

“That boy… the cursed one. He lost his mother, and then lost his mind.”

“Bloodline’s wrong. Always was.”

“Should’ve been the father instead.”

Kael tried not to listen, but it sank into his bones. The words clung like mildew.

It was Liam, his childhood and only friend who punched a boy in the face when one of them said it too loudly. He was eleven at the time, sharp-tongued and reckless, all knees and wild hair. He never asked Kael for explanations. His presence anchored him. When they walked together through the rain-soaked fields or sat under the shelter behind the school, the world felt a little less tilted.

Kael had no idea what the Academy was then. No clue about classifications or names for the thing curling inside his chest. All he knew was that when he broke, when the grief inside him built too fast, he vanished.

At first, it lasted seconds. A blink. Then longer.

Once, it lasted two hours.

He reappeared in the middle of the market square, drenched, disoriented, and shaking. People had screamed. A stallholder had crossed herself. Someone called the village priest, who arrived late and said nothing.

That night, his father hit him once with a sharp strike to the side of the face, loud in the silence of their kitchen.

It wasn't out of anger or cruelty.

It was fear.

“You don’t know what you’re playing with,” he’d said hoarsely. “Don’t tempt it.”

Kael hadn’t asked what it was. Power? Time? The thing that kept pulling at him from behind the walls of every moment?

He didn’t ask. He just stopped using it, or at least tried to.

By fourteen, he was half-a-person, sleepwalking through years of avoidance. He didn’t trust the gift. He couldn’t name it. But he knew it lived inside him, and it wasn’t gone.

Then came the woman in the black coat.

She arrived, stepping through the rain as though it didn’t touch her with a plain coat and gloves, and a stare that pinned him where he stood. Her name was Maren. She didn’t waste time.

“You’ve been flagged,” she said, as if it were obvious. “Spontaneous anomalies. Temporal echo traces. You’re not hiding it as well as you think.”

Kael blinked. “There’s a school for this?”

Maren tilted her head, one eyebrow raised. “There’s a place where people won’t call you cursed. If that’s what you mean.”

She told him about the King's Academy, the Shadow Corps, and handed him a sealed card.

It gave him hope and purpose, a will to live and succeed, and passion to strive for more, to help those in need.

(Present)

Kael sat on the cold stone edge of the Academy’s lower balcony, elbows resting on his knees, fingers clenched around the iron railing. The lights behind him from the dormitories flickered as if struggling against the mist, which rolled across the lawn in low, curling waves. The moon above was pale and blurred, like a ghost behind gauze.

The air was quiet, but his thoughts were loud.

It seemed like that rain in Glaire Hollow had followed him here. And tonight, that memory which he had long lost a grasp of now sat beside him like a second shadow.

It had been months since he arrived now. Apart from Temporal Rift, his core ability which he'd been familiar with, he'd learned names for things he once feared: Chrono Displacement, and Fragmentation Anchors. He could throw himself ten seconds into the past now without vomiting. That was supposed to be progress.

But the truth?

It still felt like he was flailing, just as that boy in Glaire Hollow who couldn’t keep time from warping around his grief.

“Nice view.” Reyna said from behind him.

He flinched slightly, his shoulders tensing before he turned his head and saw her. She was standing with her hands in the pockets of her training coat, the wind tousling strands of dark hair across her cheek. She made no effort to sweep them back.

He exhaled through his nose, gaze drifting again to the open skyline. Beyond the spires of the Academy, the horizon glowed faintly where the chronolights shimmered with slow pulses of blue-white that flickered with each shift in the field. It looked calm from here. Deceptively so.

Reyna stepped forward and settled beside him, lowering herself onto the ledge with a quiet grunt. She didn’t look at him. She just rested her arms loosely on her knees, fingers idly tracing the edge of her glove.

Neither of them spoke for a while. The silence was companionable, even though it stretched like the moments before a storm.

Eventually, her voice came again, low and even.

“You’ve been quiet since Darius’ drill.”

Kael gave a half-shrug, staring ahead. “I made a mistake.”

Reyna scoffed under her breath. “Jared almost walked us straight into a fire trap and you’re worried about your mistake?”

“I panicked,” he said quietly. “I let the Rift slip. If you hadn’t covered for me—”

“I had a good angle. That’s all.” She leaned back, letting her head touch the stone wall behind them. “You’re not the only one under pressure.”

Kael didn’t respond. His hands clenched on his thighs, jaw shifting slightly.

She turned her head slightly, studying him out of the corner of her eye. “You ever going to tell me what really happened back home?”

His throat tightened.

The wind stirred again, brushing past them with a cold whisper. He kept his eyes on the horizon. But the question had opened something, and the words, long buried, began to surface.

“My mother died when I was eight,” he said softly. “I don't really remember much about her, but she was a kind and loving mother. She was the best. Well, after her death… my ability started changing. More like warping. It wasn't that it wasn't always there when she was still with me. According to my father, my mother had a way of soothing me, giving me space to cope. I didn’t understand it at first. It was like… like time started bending away from me, like it couldn’t stand being near me.”

Reyna didn’t interrupt. Her expression had gone still, letting him speak at his own pace.

Kael’s voice dropped lower. “I used to think that if I could just master it, learn the right equations, train harder, push further, then everything would fall into place. That I’d stop being afraid. That I’d stop breaking things just by existing.”

He swallowed.

“But it’s still happening, Reyna. No matter how much I learn, I still feel it. Like it’s cracking under my feet. Like time doesn’t trust me.”

The confession sat heavy between them. He hadn’t meant to say that last part out loud, but he did regardless.

A faint pause stretched. Then Reyna shifted.

“You think it’s supposed to be perfect from the start?”

Her tone wasn’t mocking. It was measured and grounded. She looked at him now properly.

He let out a bitter laugh. “I think if I mess up again, someone could die.”

“And?” Reyna said, almost sharply. “That’s the job.”

Kael blinked.

She leaned forward, her voice steady but firm. “Then don’t mess up. That’s the only part you can control. But don’t walk around pretending you’re the only one carrying weight.”

He frowned, a quiet protest starting to rise, but she lifted a hand.

“You’re not the only one haunted. I told you earlier that I didn’t get into the Academy because I was blessed with some glowing birthmark or destiny prophecy. I fought for this. Every place I earned here, I bled for. Literally.”

She tapped her chest with two fingers. “And Jared?” Her lip curled slightly. “That boy’s got more secrets than skills. He acts calm, polished—but underneath? He’s rattling like a cracked hourglass.”

Kael opened his mouth, then closed it. He didn’t quite know what to say.

“But you…” Reyna tilted her head. “You actually care. And that’s rare.”

She paused. The wind had stilled for a moment, like time itself was listening.

“Just don’t let it drown you.”

Kael looked at her, properly looked. There was no softness in her words, but there was something better. It was clarity. Grounded, honest, and something he could hold onto.

They sat in silence again.

Above them, the mist had thinned out, revealing fragments of starlight. The lights in the upper tower had gone out. The Academy had finally grown quiet.

Kael drew in a breath and stood.

“Thanks.”

Reyna looked up, one brow raised. “For what?”

“For not pretending.”

Her mouth twitched into the faintest smile. “Try sleeping tonight. You look like someone paused halfway through a nightmare.”

He let out a small, genuine laugh. “Night, Reyna.”

“Night, broken clock.”

Later that night, Kael lay in bed staring at the ceiling. Jared’s slow and rhythmic breathing filled the space like a metronome.

He closed his eyes.

The memory of his mother’s clear and gentle voice returned.

“Even broken clocks are right twice a day.”