The consequences did not come all at once.
They arrived in pieces—formal, measured, and precise. As if the world itself had decided to dissect Aren's fate instead of ending it outright. By the next morning, his name had been written into official ledgers.
Aren Vale.
Status: Null Resonant.
Relic Classification: Fractured Relic – Nonfunctional.
The words were clean. Impersonal.
Cruel in their simplicity.
He was summoned again—not to the grand hall this time, but to a narrower chamber where stone walls pressed inward and sound carried too clearly. Three figures sat behind a long table. Authority without adornment.
Inspector Halvren did not look at Aren when he spoke.
"Your assessment has concluded," he said. "The Council has reviewed the anomaly."
Anomaly.
Aren stood still, his broken Relic cradled against him like something fragile rather than useless.
"Due to the instability of your Resonance," Halvren continued, "you will not be permitted to remain within the central districts."
Aren blinked. "Then… what happens to me?"
Halvren finally met his gaze.
"You will be returned to your place of origin."
The younger official beside him hesitated before adding, "For your own safety. And the stability of the system."
The system.
Always the system.
They spoke as if Aren were a flaw in a structure too delicate to tolerate deviation.
"You will be escorted," Halvren said. "A subordinate will accompany you and report any abnormalities."
Aren nodded slowly. There was nothing else to do. When he left the chamber, the city felt different.
The same streets. The same towers in the distance. The same hum of Resonance woven into daily life.
But the people looked at him now.
Not with curiosity—but recognition.
Someone whispered his name. Someone else laughed openly.
"That's him."
"The broken Relic kid."
"Did you hear? His Resonance snapped on awakening."
A group of older boys stood near a vendor's stall. One of them mimed strumming an imaginary instrument, the motion exaggerated and sloppy.
"Careful," he said loudly. "Might fall apart in your hands."
The laughter that followed wasn't sharp.
It was casual.
That was what hurt the most. Aren lowered his gaze and kept walking, by the time he reached the outer district gates, the rumors had evolved.
They always did.
Some said his Relic had screamed before breaking.
Others said it had gone silent forever.
One claimed Aren had no soul at all.
Each version chipped away at something inside him.
The escort assigned to him waited near the gate—a man in his early thirties, posture straight, eyes observant. His cloak bore the mark of a minor administrative rank.
"Subordinate Kael Riven," the man introduced himself. "I'll be accompanying you."
Aren nodded.
They walked in silence for a while. The city slowly fell away behind them. As the road stretched ahead, Aren's thoughts drifted back to the Relic in his hands.
A broken guitar.
No.
Not a guitar.
A Harmonic Relic, the embodiment of a soul's Resonance.
And his was shattered.
The phrase echoed in his mind.
He remembered the old man then.
The way his gaze had lingered. The strange weight of his words—spoken without explanation, yet heavy enough to sink deep.
Aren's grip tightened.
Was this what he meant?
Kael glanced at him. "You're quiet."
Aren hesitated, then asked, "Has anything like this ever happened before?"
Kael did not answer immediately.
"…No," he said finally. "Not in recorded history."
That should have made Aren feel special.
It didn't.
It made him feel alone.
That night, as they rested at a roadside station, the laughter returned. Not from the world around him, from memory.
Another life.
Another body.
He remembered sitting in a classroom, head bowed, pretending to write while others whispered behind him.
He remembered the words.
Why bother?
He'll never make it.
Some people just aren't meant for more.
The same tone. The same careless cruelty. His chest tightened.
He had died once already—quietly, without recognition. Had he really been reborn only to stand in the same place again?
Aren curled his fingers around the broken Relic, pressing it against his chest.
"I won't," he whispered.
He didn't know what he wouldn't do, only that surrender was not an option.
They reached his hometown ten days later.
It looked smaller than he remembered, or perhaps he had grown. Kael escorted him to the edge of the village and stopped.
"This is as far as I go," the man said. "I'll remain nearby. Observe."
Aren nodded, stepping forward alone.
No ceremony. No announcement.
Just a boy returning home with something broken in his hands and a name the world had already decided.
As the village gates came into view, Aren did not look back.
But somewhere behind him, the system tightened its grip.
And somewhere ahead—
Something waited.