It had been fourteen years. Fourteen long, forgettable years since Cael Solvane had been left behind.
Day by day, he drifted through life, sustained only by meager government allowances. They called them support schemes, but to Cael, it felt more like hush money handed to a ghost. No one ever checked in. No letters. No visitors. Just cold deposits and automated reminders.
From the very start, his life seemed like a clerical error the world never bothered to fix. People passed by him with blank stares, as if they could sense he didn't quite belong. He lived in a forgotten alley in the lower districts of Eastmark, a place where stray cats and rusted vending machines outnumbered warm greetings.
The only person who had ever shown him anything close to affection was the old man.
He wasn't family. He wasn't even a friend, not really. Just a wrinkled, wiry figure who lived in a shack two doors down, always smelling faintly of oil and burnt incense. Cael had once asked his name, and the old man just snorted.
"What would you even do with my name, boy? Frame it?"
Since then, he was simply Old Man.
Cael often remembered the story of how they ended up together. The old man said he'd been handed a blanket-swaddled infant one rainy night, in exchange for a plate of roasted chicken.
"Best meal I ever had," he'd say, his eyes half-glinting with mirth or memory. "Worth a lifetime of babysittin'."
Cael never really believed it, but the old man never budged from the tale. He never offered sympathy, either. What he did offer was tough love, bitter advice, and the occasional leftover stew. And somehow, that was enough.
Cael grew up doing whatever jobs came his way—cleaning gutters, stacking warehouse crates, scrubbing trains. Minimum wage, maximum exhaustion. Yet, he never let the grind interfere with his training. If anything, the struggle only honed his focus.
In this world, Imprints were everything.
They were more than powers—they were identity, currency, and future. Everyone received their Imprint at birth. Some inherited it. Others, like Cael, emerged with something that defied even the experts.
His was called Interval.
No one truly understood it—not even the old man, who was the closest thing to a mentor Cael had. There were murmurs that it was a hybrid Imprint, but such things were rare and almost always accompanied by tragedy.
Still, Cael had faith in it. He had to.
"Imprints ain't about strength, they're about use," the old man once growled over a mug of barley tea. "People always yappin' about power. But power without vision's just noise. A hammer's only useful in the right hands."
That philosophy became Cael's doctrine. Even simple Imprints like Grab or Pierce could be turned into legendary tools in the hands of the creative. Cael believed this with every fiber of his being. Because in a world where Imprints were tickets to life, he needed his to be more than a footnote.
And Interval—it felt like an extension of space and time itself. As if he existed slightly outside the flow of everything else. He was still learning what that meant, of course. But instinctively, he knew. There was weight in the seconds he paused, force in the moments he held back.
It made him dangerous. Or at least, it could.
And so he trained. Every spare minute. Every hidden hour.
In abandoned rooftops, he practiced delaying motion—his fist freezing mid-air, then accelerating all at once like a snapped rubber band. In narrow alleys, he would sprint forward, freeze for a beat, then reappear three feet ahead, breathless but thrilled. Sometimes it failed. Sometimes he hurt himself.
But he never stopped.
Despite the stagnation of his circumstances, Cael's mind moved like lightning. He'd study top-ranked Imprint users in bootleg broadcasts and underground forums, drawing diagrams, mimicking their techniques. The top echelon of society—the elites who walked red carpets and graced government halls—were always on his radar.
He envied them. Who wouldn't?
Born into privilege. Sponsored by corporations. Trained from the age of five. They didn't work double shifts at food stalls or dodge inspectors just to rent a rusting apartment. But even in his bitterness, Cael never let it fester into despair. Because he had something else:
Hope.
He fed on stories of underdogs—legends that began with nothing but grit and willpower. His favorite was Ishmael, the Champion of Novellis. The man was a living myth, known across every continent, bearer of the Resolve Imprint.
But more than that, Ishmael had started where Cael was. Poor. Orphaned. Unremarkable. And now?
He was a symbol.
A man of the people.
An echo of everything Cael wanted to become.
On quiet nights, when the smog over Eastmark thinned just enough to see the stars, Cael would lie on his rooftop, chest rising and falling with the rhythm of dreams. He would imagine himself standing on stage, cloak fluttering, his name whispered in reverence.
"Cael Solvane... Interval Manifested."
He whispered it now, eyes half-lidded as he sat cross-legged in the broken courtyard of an old shrine, abandoned since the last quake.
He raised one hand, fingers spread.
The air shimmered faintly.
Then it paused.
Wind, dust, sound—all suspended for a single heartbeat.
Then—snap—it all came rushing back. Leaves shook, gravel shifted, his hair ruffled in the sudden breeze.
He exhaled slowly.
Still not stable. But closer.
A slow clap echoed behind him.
He turned. The old man stood leaning on his cane, a crooked grin on his face.
"If you're tryin' to kill yourself with style, you're halfway there."
Cael smiled faintly. "Timing was better this time."
"Timing's only useful if you got somethin' worth waiting for."
Cael stood, dusting himself off. "I do."
The old man's eyes twinkled. "Then keep chasin' it. Just don't trip on your own shadow."
The sun dipped behind the jagged skyline. Lights flickered to life in the distance—some neon, some fire.
Cael looked out toward the horizon. Toward Novellis. Toward something more.
This world wasn't kind. But it was still full of stories. And he'd be damned if his wasn't one of them.
Interval was his gift. His burden. His truth.
And soon enough, the world would know his name.