Aeon POV
Time passed like a blur. Weeks, maybe—he wasn't sure. The world around him was shifting shapes and colors, a storm of sensation too sharp and too fleeting to understand. Most of the time he simply slept. Thoughts came, but they scattered like sparks. It felt as if something was drawing his energy, keeping his body moving on autopilot.
And yet, when he forced himself—just a little—he could grasp fragments of control. The more he reached, the clearer it became. Memories from another life flickered—how he had lived, how he had died—but each time he tried to hold them, they slipped, dissolving into nothing.
He saw two figures. One was warm, familiar—his mother. The other, taller, softer, he assumed was his sister. Their voices were shapes he could not yet translate, but he had learned her name: Essa. His eyes, once blurred, caught shapes now—colors, forms—but fine details remained just beyond reach. Both shared the same vivid orange hair. Did he have the same? It seemed impossible, unnatural, almost magical.
During the first week, the birth-matron—he thought she had helped him enter this world—kept coming. Every time she appeared, an intense light surrounded him. He did not understand how she did it, but he recognized her: her hair was green, and when he first opened his eyes, he had seen the same vague green color, so he knew she was the same person. Thinking of her now made him feel sleepy, a heavy pull dragging at his small body.
And yet, sometimes, beneath the haze of exhaustion, Aeon sensed something else. A rhythm not his own pulsed faintly within him, steady as a second heartbeat. It lingered at the edge of his awareness, ancient, waiting. He did not know its name. But deep down, some instinct whispered: this world truly had magic.
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Aisa POV
It had been a month since Aeon's birth.
Aisa sat quietly beside the cradle, watching her son's tiny chest rise and fall. His dark navy-blue hair shimmered faintly in the lantern light, a mirror of his father's. The same blue eyes too—though now they looked impossibly large against his round cheeks. Essa had inherited her fiery orange hair from Aisa, but even she carried her father's deep blue gaze. Every time Aisa looked at them, she saw pieces of him, the man who should have been here… but wasn't.
Almost ten months had passed since he vanished on that last adventure. Most missing adventurers never returned. She knew that. She had seen it happen to others, had even comforted widows who wore the same hollow look she now carried. And yet—she couldn't accept it. Not him. Not her husband.
Before he left, he had acted strangely. Aisa remembered the moment vividly: how she had delayed telling him about her second pregnancy, saving it as a birthday surprise. When she finally spoke, his reaction had been a mix of happiness and something else—something unsettled. His smile was there, but shadows clung to the edges of it, like a man carrying secrets too heavy to share.
Just as before, he had performed those strange rituals. The first time, when she carried Essa, she had thought little of it—odd gestures, runes whispered into the air, the faint shimmer of magic brushing over her. But when he repeated the same rites for Aeon, she could no longer dismiss them as superstition. The runes were unlike any she had seen before—sharper, older, not of Artia. His voice shifted when he spoke them, carrying the weight of a language that didn't belong to this world. She had asked, once, what it meant. He had only smiled, kissed her forehead, and told her to trust him. And she did. With all her heart.
Yet the memory of their last parting gnawed at her. He had prepared too much, almost obsessively—sacks of gold and silver piled higher than she had ever dreamed of seeing in a lifetime. He had pressed them into her hands with a steady voice, but his eyes betrayed something else: resignation. "Just in case," he had said. Just in case he never returned.
It had felt less like a promise to come back, and more like a farewell carefully disguised as provision. And still—still—her heart refused to accept it. Aisa clung to the hope, however fragile, that he had not left them to die in memory, but to ensure they lived in peace until the day he found his way back.
A soft cry pulled her from her thoughts.
Her gaze dropped to Aeon. His eyes were open, but that familiar emptiness lingered in them again, as though his soul drifted far away. Worry twisted inside her. At first, she had feared the unthinkable—that her son was one of the soulless. Such children were rare, not just in Artia but across the surrounding kingdoms. Rare… and pitied. Some noble families whispered of curses; others abandoned such infants outright. Aisa's heart had nearly broken at the thought.
And yet, sometimes, her worry flared anew: a faint flicker of light seemed to shimmer at the edge of Aeon's vision, and his tiny hand twitched, curling into shapes she did not recognize. Is something wrong? she thought, her breath catching. Am I imagining it? Or is he… different? She shook her head, forcing herself to believe it was just a trick of lantern shadows, but the unease lingered, gnawing quietly beneath her hope.
The birth-matron had checked him day after day, week after week, weaving healing spells and searching for signs of affliction. Nothing. Aeon was not soulless. And yet… sometimes, in fleeting moments, light would return to his eyes. Sharp. Observant. Far too knowing for a newborn. Almost as if he were watching, studying, thinking. That intelligence unsettled her, yet it also filled her with hope. If such awareness could flicker so early, then surely his spirit was strong. Surely he would recover.
She leaned closer, smiling gently despite her worry. Then she wrinkled her nose. "Ah, so that's why you're crying."
Essa peeked in from the doorway, curious. Her fifth birthday had passed just last week, and though she still clung to childhood's softness, her steps already carried a little of her father's boldness.
"Essa, dear," Aisa called softly, "could you bring me fresh pants for your baby brother?"
"Sure, Mommy!" came the cheerful reply, her little feet pattering away.
Aisa gathered Aeon into her arms, rocking him lightly as she whispered, "You're such trouble already, aren't you?" Her voice softened, breaking with tenderness. "But you're my trouble… my little gift."
Life in their small home continued in this rhythm—simple, fragile, and filled with both laughter and worry. Yet Aisa never fully shed the shadow of doubt that lingered at the edges of every gentle moment. A twitch of a finger, a strange glow, a fleeting expression—each could spark a tiny panic in her heart, a whisper of fear that something greater waited beyond her understanding.
Time moved on. Seasons shifted.
And by the time Aeon reached his sixth month, their little family—though shadowed by absence—still held together, waiting. Waiting for the light of brighter days. Waiting for the return of the man whose secrets still lingered like an unfinished story.
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A Silent Watcher
Unseen by mother or daughter, another presence lingered.
Within Aeon, beneath the fragile beat of his infant heart, the Cube pulsed quietly—an eternal rhythm hidden in the folds of his soul. It observed the family's small joys, their fears, their fragile hope. It did not feel love, nor grief, but it understood.
For now, it kept Aeon's true soul in slumber. His newborn body was too fragile, his vessel too thin to contain the depth of will that once defied annihilation. So the Cube siphoned every spark of magic his infant body produced, channeling it into silent labor—fortifying nerves, hardening bones, tempering the fragile weave of his spirit. The emptiness in his eyes was not absence; it was the pause before awakening.
Yet preservation alone was not enough. The Cube had read the bond's memories—fragments of another world, another life. From them, it understood the danger of waiting. It could not yet speak to Aeon directly; the strain would risk revealing its presence to forces beyond this world. To reach such strength might take centuries, and centuries were luxuries destiny rarely granted.
So it devised another path. In the deep chamber of Aeon's soul, the Cube began its quiet work: weaving threads of light and memory into a construct. Neither living nor dead, neither spirit nor machine, but something in-between. An Echo-Core—a holographic intelligence seeded with fragments of the Cube's vast knowledge and imprinted with the memories of its chosen master.
It was a shadow-self, a bridge between mortal and eternal. One day, when Aeon's body was ready, this echo would awaken. Through it, the Cube could guide him, teach him, and prepare him for truths he could not yet hold—without unveiling the eternal heartbeat that slept beneath.
For now, it remained silent. Patient. Watching.
And within the quiet cradle, eternity prepared its voice.