Morning came as it always did, golden light filtering through the dormitory window like lazy fingers stretching across the stone floor. But to Callen, it felt… hollow. Familiar. Repetitive.
Because it was.
Again.
He lay in bed for several long minutes, eyes on the ceiling. Every breath was quiet and calculated. Rhoan snored across the room, just as he had in the previous two loops. That particular habit was unchanged. So were the birds outside. So were the bells of the East Tower, about to chime the hour.
And yet Callen Ward was no longer the same boy who'd panicked during his first resurrection.
This time, he was in control.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, sat up, and stared at his hands. They were clean. No blood. No burns. No trembling.
"Loop two," he muttered. "Day one."
He'd spent the last loop gathering. Studying. Testing spells. He now understood the basic timeline, the monster patterns, and the school's vulnerabilities. But he hadn't yet touched the real rot at the heart of Aethenhold.
This loop would be different.
This time, he was going straight to the source.
---
Classes were, as ever, a formality.
He sat through Rune Theory, Alchemical Principles, and Defensive Casting with a vacant expression and one hand scribbling mindlessly while the other held a small rune-crystal beneath the table, subtly charging it. He could recite Professor Tilwin's lectures by heart now.
In the afternoon, he made excuses to skip the Combat Arena session and instead visited the outer tower library—the Surface Archive, as it was called. A pleasant place, bright and airy, but limited in what it offered.
The real secrets were deeper.
He slipped past the main staircase, through a narrow servants' door, and into the Restricted Wing's southern corridor.
Three days into his first loop, he'd forced his way in using a basic rune disruption spell—a clumsy method that tripped a dozen alert wards. That had nearly gotten him expelled.
This time, he used something better.
He pulled a strip of enchanted parchment from his coat and activated a concealment rune inscribed in his own blood. The magic sparked, hummed, then settled around him like a thin, invisible veil.
It wasn't perfect. The spell wouldn't hold long.
But it was enough.
The hidden door responded to his touch with a soft click, and Callen slipped inside the forgotten heart of the Academy.
---
The Restricted Archives were cold.
Not in temperature, but in presence. Something in the air carried weight—a pressure on the mind, a chill on the soul. The corridor stretched endlessly down, past shelves of brittle scrolls and grimoires too dangerous for even professors to read unshielded.
Callen moved fast.
He passed the shattered remains of a mirror-enchantment chamber. Ignored the black-bound codices muttering in ancient tongues. He was looking for a very specific book.
"Chronomantic Divergence and Soul Loops" by Archmage Vael Seradin.
He'd found it last time on day twelve.
Now, he wanted it on day one.
There.
Second shelf on the left, behind a rusting silver cage. His hands itched as he reached for it—his pulse spiking from residual memory. Last time, the book had bitten him. Literally. Left an arcane burn across his palm.
"Not today," Callen muttered.
He drew a silk glove from his satchel, laced with runes for stability and anchoring. Then reached out.
The book twitched.
He froze.
Then, as though sensing his preparation, it stilled—settling like a hunting cat that had been seen.
Callen grinned.
"Nice try."
He pulled it free and opened to the first page.
---
> "Time does not move forward. It moves in intention."
"The soul, untethered, is not bound by linear progression."
"To loop is to fracture one's essence across realities. But with fracture comes choice."
Callen's eyes scanned the text quickly, absorbing more this time. The book discussed time loops as soul-based anomalies—uncontrollable by common spellwork. But certain rare individuals, under high magical pressure or death trauma, could become "time-tethered," existing across multiple recursive versions of reality.
Most loops, it said, ended with madness.
Callen wasn't surprised.
But the last chapter stopped him cold.
> "There are those who can remember beyond the tether."
"They are the 'Fixed.' The Watchers. The Knotted Ones."
"If you encounter them, beware. They do not reset."
"They always remember. And they do not forget failure."
His breath caught.
This meant… he wasn't alone.
Some others—some people—might always remember. Even through his resets.
It made sense now.
The shadow knight.
That creature hadn't been a mindless monster. It had known him. Looked directly into his soul. With recognition.
Callen slammed the book shut, hands trembling.
He wasn't trapped in some random spell.
He was in a game of gods and ghosts—and someone else was watching.
---
By the time he returned to the dorm, the world outside had begun to darken.
He moved automatically through dinner, barely responding to Rhoan's teasing or the flirtatious glances Isora shot him across the mess hall. He knew they'd die soon. That knowledge stung every second like a needle in the skin.
But he wouldn't mourn yet.
Not when he could still change it.
Back in his room, he sat at the desk and laid out his notes—new pages added with magical ink that could carry across loops if he stored them inside his inner-soul space. That was a new trick he'd discovered last time.
He wrote a single header across the top.
LOOP TWO OBJECTIVES
1. Advance magic faster (Rune Tier 3).
2. Identify any other "Fixed" souls.
3. Find origin point of the Cataclysm.
4. Confirm if Shadow Knight retains memory.
5. Attempt minor interference in the timeline.
This time, he wasn't just reacting. He was planning.
He was going to break the hourglass.
---
Three days into the loop, he started changing the script.
Instead of avoiding Professor Halem's tutoring offers, he accepted. The man was a blowhard, but he held knowledge that had taken Callen weeks to master last time.
He also whispered too loudly for someone hiding dangerous secrets.
"So, Ward," the professor said during their private session. "What sparked this sudden ambition? You were quite... mediocre last semester."
Callen smirked. "I had a dream. I died."
Halem chuckled uneasily.
Callen pressed. "Say, Professor… do you believe in soul-binding rituals?"
That got a reaction.
Halem stiffened. "Where did you hear that term?"
"Just curious. I read somewhere that only cursed mages bind their souls."
"That's—! Nonsense. Dangerous nonsense. Soul-binding is outlawed across all six realms."
"But it exists."
Halem swallowed. "I advise you to forget it."
Callen didn't.
He added a new note to his page that night:
> Professor Halem = possible knowledge of ancient rituals. Watch carefully.
---
He also began scouting the Academy's lowest levels, areas under construction or marked 'unsafe' from magical decay.
On the seventh day, he found something that made his blood run cold.
A doorway made of obsidian glass.
Perfect. Seamless. Without a handle.
But when he approached, it shimmered.
Words appeared across the surface:
> YOU ARE EARLY.
> TURN BACK.
Callen reached out.
The moment his fingers brushed the glass—
Pain exploded through his skull. Visions. Screams. Chains. A burning sky.
He fell back, gasping.
And just before he blacked out, he heard a voice inside his mind—low and echoing.
> We see you now, Little Mage.
And we remember…
---
He woke in the infirmary. A healer hovering above, murmuring soft incantations to soothe his mind.
"You were found unconscious," the woman said, frowning. "The staff say you fell near the construction tunnels."
Callen nodded. His mouth was dry. "Right. I must've… tripped."
She didn't look convinced, but she didn't push.
After she left, he lay in bed for hours, thoughts spinning.
The door had spoken to him.
Whoever—whatever—was on the other side had seen him.
And remembered.
Just like the knight.
Just like him.
This world wasn't just resetting around him. It was remembering too.
Somewhere, in the cracks of the hourglass, something was watching.
And if he didn't find it first…
It would find him.
---
By the tenth day of the second loop, he had reached Rune Tier 3 casting. Faster than ever. He crafted a new wand, this one with phoenix bone and a soul-tuned quartz core—stable enough for high-output spells.
He had also begun subtly interfering with events:
Left Isora a coded note urging her to avoid the central plaza during the Cataclysm.
Shifted Professor Tilwin's patrol schedule one hour forward.
Secretly taught Rhoan a barrier technique he'd never learned in the original loop.
Each change felt small. Insignificant.
But Callen believed in momentum.
And time was his to shape.
---
Then, on the twelfth day, just as the moon began to turn red—
He saw her.
A girl standing outside the Arcarium Tower, alone in the dark, watching the sky.
She wore the Academy cloak. Her hair was silver—not white, but truly silver, like light made into strands.
Callen frowned. He'd never seen her before. Not in either loop.
He approached.
She didn't turn.
"You're not from here, are you?" he asked quietly.
She smiled, but didn't look at him.
"I wondered how long it would take you to notice me, Callen Ward."
His blood ran cold.
"I've been watching you," she said, eyes still on the sky. "You break the glass over and over. But you haven't seen the cracks beneath your feet yet."
He stepped closer. "Who are you?"
She turned finally.
Her eyes glowed violet.
> "I am the Sealed. One of the Fixed. And I remember every single time you've failed."