The afternoon sun hung like a weight in the sky, casting long slants of gold through the vaulted windows of the east wing. Dust glimmered in the rays, drifting lazily through the air as if even the light had grown tired of watching blood dry on the polished stone. The dueling hall—once pristine and echoing with pride—now smelled of burnt cloth, sweat, and something rawer. Iron. Regret.
Izen stood on the edge of the ring, boots squared, shoulders loose. His cloak was torn at the shoulder, revealing a fresh welt that still steamed faintly from an earlier strike. Across from him, the older student—Nero, a third-year and victor of last year's Crucible—circled like a caged wolf, a serrated glaive dragging behind him with the sound of teeth on tile.
"You're not dodging this time," Nero sneered, voice low but sharp enough to cut. "I've seen the trick. The disappearing act. You're done."
Izen exhaled slowly, resisting the urge to glance at the stopwatch nestled beneath his sleeve. It pulsed faintly against his wrist, a heartbeat out of sync with his own.
Two seconds. That was all he'd get. A window the size of a breath. It wasn't enough to overpower Nero. Not head-on. But it was enough to adjust.
"I was hoping you'd say that," Izen replied, his voice calm. Not cocky—just focused. Then he stepped forward deliberately, each movement light, precise.
Nero lunged, glaive cutting a vicious arc.
Izen didn't move.
Not until the weapon was already in motion—then his hand twitched. The world snapped into stillness.
He moved through the frozen frame like walking through rain that had been paused mid-drop. Nero's body was rigid, his face caught in a sneer that hadn't yet finished forming. The edges of his blade blurred, caught between intent and action.
Izen didn't attack.
He stepped to the left instead, repositioning just past the glaive's arc, and tapped the hilt of Nero's weapon with the tip of his boot, nudging it ever so slightly.
Then time resumed.
The glaive whooshed harmlessly past Izen, carving into empty air where he'd been standing. Nero's eyes went wide. His momentum spun him half-around, off-balance.
Izen ducked and twisted, letting his elbow catch Nero just beneath the ribs.
A clean hit.
The older student stumbled back with a grunt, weapon dragging.
Murmurs erupted from the edges of the room. Upperclassmen, instructors, even initiates had begun gathering in the upper balconies and side corridors to watch.
Caerel stood in silence at the far end, arms crossed. Mira leaned forward from her perch on the railing, eyes sharp, her hand resting idly near the dagger at her hip. Silas and Dalen were further back, both quiet but alert.
Nero wiped blood from his lip, glaring. "What the hell was that? You teleporting little—"
"It's called footwork," Izen said, voice dry.
And then, for the first time in a long while, he allowed himself a smirk.
They didn't let him leave the hall immediately. After the match, Instructor Halvern insisted on recording the results, filing a formal review, and scanning Izen with a "mana integrity" reader twice just to confirm he wasn't using off-list artifacts.
Of course, they found nothing.
The stopwatch didn't operate on conventional mana. It didn't flare with magical signatures or glow with heat. Whatever power it tapped into, it was older. Stranger. Izen suspected even the instructors didn't fully understand it.
Back in his dorm, he sat on the edge of the bunk, pulling the stopwatch free from beneath his sleeve.
The casing was worn—polished brass, slightly dented near the hinge. A single hairline crack ran down the face like a fault line. But it still ticked.
He thumbed it open.
The hands didn't move like a normal timepiece. They jumped erratically. Sometimes forward, sometimes back. Once, it stopped for a full minute before ticking twice in the same second.
Izen stared at it for a while, thinking. Not just about Nero. But about what came next.
He'd been testing new variations over the past week. Quietly. In the dead hours between classes, when no one watched. So far, he'd learned he could "tag" specific places—like anchoring a bubble of stillness in the air—and return to them with a snap. It wasn't teleportation. It was temporal anchoring. Reality remembered the point in time. He just rewound himself into it.
He'd done it once during a spar with Silas. Silas had moved in with a feint, then aimed a gut-punch—but Izen had blinked, rewound two seconds, and dodged before the attack even began. Silas didn't notice. Just thought he misread the opening.
But there were limits.
The more he used the stopwatch, the more tension built in his temples. Not a headache exactly—more like strain. Like his mind was stretching, slightly out of alignment. If he used it too often, the aftershocks lasted longer. Sometimes he'd freeze time, then find his hands trembling when it resumed.
What would happen if I used it too long? Ten seconds? Twenty?
He didn't know.
And he couldn't afford to find out—not yet.
Later that evening, during dinner in the lower mess, Mira dropped her tray beside his and sat without a word.
"I heard you made Nero look like a spinning top," she said after a moment, dragging a piece of meat through sauce.
"I was just lucky."
"You don't believe in luck."
"I don't," Izen said. "But he does."
Mira chuckled under her breath, then glanced around. "Caerel's watching you more. He was whispering to Instructor Renne afterward."
"I know."
"Should I be worried?"
"No," Izen said, then paused. "But maybe they should."
A beat of silence passed between them.
"I think Silas is scared of you now," she added, more teasing than concerned.
"He should be. I'm terrifying."
Mira rolled her eyes.
Dalen joined them a few minutes later, looking like he'd sprinted across the compound. His hair was tousled, face flushed.
"There's a new challenge board posted," he said, sliding a crumpled paper out from his vest. "Student duels. Voluntary. Winners move up a tier. Losers… well, you know."
Izen took the paper. "Victor's name on here?"
"Top of the list."
The next morning, the courtyard was alive with noise. Students clustered in circles around the main board, reading match-ups and muttering wagers.
Izen stood just behind Mira, scanning the sheet.
Victor was scheduled to duel a second-year named Kasien. A brute, known for his brute-force technique and lack of subtlety.
Izen's name was near the middle—matched against Auran, one of the academy's "talent-bred"—a student from one of the noble houses. Top marks, refined swordplay, but untested in real blood.
Perfect.
He turned and walked away without a word.
That afternoon, beneath the sparring canopy, Auran stood in gleaming leather armor, his rapier glinting like silver thread.
"You'll yield before this even begins," Auran said, confidence practically dripping off him. "No tricks. No relics. Just steel."
Izen adjusted his cuffs calmly. "Of course."
Then the bell rang.
Auran came in with a flourish—sweeping strikes, footwork practiced and elegant. Izen gave ground quickly, ducking, weaving, not even bothering to strike back.
Let him play.
Let them all watch.
Then Auran went for a thrust, and the stopwatch clicked in Izen's sleeve.
Time froze.
This time, instead of dodging, Izen stepped to the side and flicked the edge of the rapier. He bent Auran's wrist slightly, adjusting the trajectory by no more than an inch.
When time resumed, the thrust missed entirely, and Auran stumbled forward.
Izen turned and tagged the space behind Auran with his mind. A shimmer flickered—a bubble of air subtly vibrating. No one else could see it.
As Auran recovered and lunged again, Izen activated the tag.
His body snapped backward through space—reappearing at the bubble's edge.
Auran gasped, spinning. "W-what—"
Too late.
Izen was behind him, and this time, he struck with an open palm directly into the center of the boy's back.
Auran collapsed.
The crowd was silent.
Caerel stepped forward, nodding once. "Victory: Izen."
That night, Izen sat alone in the eastern tower, stopwatch open in his hand.
The bubble trick worked. So did the tags. But he needed more control. More refinement. The stopwatch wasn't just a tool—it was a map. A puzzle. Every second had a price. Every rewind came with a cost.
And he'd started to hear things when he used it longer.
Not voices.
Just… echoes.
His own breath, delayed by a beat. The sound of footsteps that hadn't happened yet. Like the world remembered things out of order when he pushed too hard.
But that was fine.
He was used to walking ahead of everyone else.
He would just learn how to walk back, too.