The days that followed were quiet.
Not peaceful—quiet in the way a held breath was quiet, tight with unspoken tension.
Aren woke before dawn each morning, long before the village stirred. The house remained wrapped in sleep, the wooden beams above him groaning softly as the night air cooled. He lay still for a few moments, staring at the ceiling, listening to the rhythm of his own breathing.
Then he rose.
He moved carefully, pulling on worn clothes, tying his boots without sound. The guitar rested against the wall, wrapped in cloth, exactly where he had left it. Aren hesitated every time he passed it. His fingers twitched, as if drawn by memory rather than intention.
But he did not touch it.
Not yet.
Instead, he stepped outside.
The air before sunrise was sharp and clean, carrying the scent of damp soil and distant pine. Aren made his way beyond the edge of the village, to the shallow clearing he had claimed as his own. The ground there was uneven, scattered with stones and half-buried roots—nothing special. But it was quiet.
And quiet was what he needed.
He began with movement. Slow at first. Controlled.
He stretched his arms, rotated his shoulders, flexed his hands until the stiffness faded. Then he ran—short bursts at first, then longer strides, pushing his legs harder each day. His lungs burned. His heart pounded.
He welcomed it.
When exhaustion set in, he stopped—not to rest, but to listen.
To his breathing.
To the blood rushing in his ears.
To the faint, almost imperceptible hum that sometimes lingered beneath it all.
Resonance.
Not power. Not sound.
Just awareness.
After running came repetition. Balance drills on uneven stone. Slow strikes against the air, mimicking movements he had seen guards practice in the village square. His form was imperfect, his body still too small, but he adjusted, corrected, tried again.
Failure did not frustrate him.
It focused him.
By midmorning, sweat clung to his skin, his muscles aching with a dull, persistent burn. Only then did he allow himself to sit.
Only then did he unwrap the guitar.
The broken instrument lay across his lap, silent and unresponsive. Its snapped strings caught the light, dull and lifeless. Aren stared at it for a long time, searching for something—anything—that might explain the feeling he carried inside his chest.
He plucked one of the intact strings.
The sound was weak. Thin.
Useless.
He exhaled slowly and set the guitar aside.
"Again," he murmured to himself.
The routine repeated day after day.
Run.
Train.
Listen.
Sometimes he stayed out until his legs trembled beneath him. Other days he returned home early, forcing himself to stop before exhaustion claimed him completely. His parents noticed the changes—his mother's eyes lingered on him longer, his father asked more questions—but Aren answered carefully.
"I'm fine," he said, and meant it in the narrowest sense of the word.
At night, he studied.
Old pages salvaged from traders' packs. Stories overheard at the tavern. Half-remembered lessons from travellers who passed through the village. The world was vast, layered with rules he did not yet understand.
But one truth was clear.
Relics defined fate.
Those who awakened strong instruments were pulled toward cities, academies, paths of influence and danger. Those whose Relics barely stirred remained where they were, shaping quiet lives around functional Resonance.
And those whose instruments failed?
They were not written about at all. That silence bothered Aren more than anything else.
On the seventh day, his body began to protest.
It started as a dull ache behind his eyes. Then a heaviness in his limbs that did not fade with rest. He noticed his hands shaking slightly when he tried to tie his boots.
He ignored it.
The clearing felt different that morning. The air was heavier, charged with something he could not name. Aren ran harder than usual, pushing past the point where his breath came ragged and uneven.
When he stopped, his vision swam.
He knelt, palms pressed into the dirt, waiting for the dizziness to pass.
It didn't.
Instead, the hum returned—stronger than before. Not sound, not quite vibration. A pressure, building slowly in his chest.
Aren staggered to his feet.
The guitar lay where he had left it.
Calling to him.
"No," he whispered.
He reached for it anyway.
The moment his fingers brushed the strings, pain lanced through his arm—not sharp, but deep, resonant, as if something inside him had been struck out of tune. He gasped and pulled back.
The hum spiked.
Then—
Silence.
Absolute, crushing silence.
Aren swayed. His knees buckled.
He did not remember falling.
Only fragments followed.
Cold ground against his cheek.
The taste of iron.
The sound of his own heartbeat, too loud, too fast. Then darkness closed in.
When he woke, it was night.
Aren lay on his bed, fully clothed, a blanket pulled up to his chest. Every muscle in his body ached, as if he had run for days without stopping.
His mother sat nearby, spinning thread with slow, careful movements. She looked up the moment his eyes opened.
"You're awake," she said softly.
"I—" His throat was dry. "What happened?"
"You collapsed," she replied. "Just outside the village. Maren saw you and brought you home."
Guilt flickered across her face, quickly masked. "You scared us."
"I'm sorry," Aren whispered.
She reached out, smoothing his hair back gently. "You don't need to be.", but her hands trembled.
Sleep took him again that night.
Deeper this time.
The dream returned.
The void stretched endlessly around him, darker than before. The guitar hovered closer now, its broken strings glowing faintly blue. The light pulsed in time with his heartbeat.
Aren stepped forward.
"This isn't real," he said.
The guitar answered.
Not with sound—but with memory.
A life before this one. Hunger. Loneliness. Sleepless nights and silent classrooms. A body that failed too young, in a room with no witnesses.
Then—
A river.
Moonlight on water.
An old woman's voice, calm and patient.
"Quiet things decide the loudest futures."
Aren reached out—
And woke screaming.
His body convulsed, forcing a cry from his throat—thin, weak, desperate. The sound startled him. It came from him. From this small, fragile body he now occupied. His limbs moved without permission, flailing clumsily as if they belonged to someone else.
Hands caught him.
Warm. Steady.
Voices filled the room.
And somewhere, beneath it all, the broken guitar hummed—once—before falling silent