Silence: City of Ivory and Shadow

Chapter 1: The Unmoving Time

Zephaniah's POV

I couldn't help but feel sentimental once I was inside. Home. This was formerly my home. Luke carefully moved the boxes and wood away from the basement door and while he was doing so I wandered around the kitchen. Moments later, he ushered me inside after carefully assessing if it was safe to get inside.

I tap the stone door just enough to reveal a hidden room in the basement. I flick my wand to turn on the lights. I have absolute certainty as I walk as if my feet had their own will.

I stop in front of a door that had an hourglass emblem and entered. My mother used to teach Isabela and me in this secret room. This door only appears before my mom, Isabela, and I. It's difficult to locate. Here, I said as I pressed a brick in the wall. We studied every aspect of magic, custom, culture, and even the myths pertaining to the Empire of Hohenheim that we are aware of in this very room.

I search around the place and found the golden box studded with diamonds. Only descendants of Zaman with Chronus blood will be able to remove the enchantments that have heavily sealed it. Fortunately, I have that blood flowing through my veins, allowing me to open it without dying. I just only saw this being open when mom told us the secret of her bloodline after that she sealed it with additional enchantments.

I carefully removed the seal, pricked my finger, and let the blood to drip onto the box. When the box is opened, it emits blinding light. Later, I had the sensation that we were being sucked into a loop.

As we are welcomed inside a room full of doors, I hold my breath. The realm of memories. There is another method of entering this realm, first you may directly ask Chronus to open a loop for you, or you may utilize a medium, but the drawback is that, even at my level of witchcraft, it takes a lot of energy to fully control and find the precise memory I wanted.

I closed my eyes and focused intently as I enchanted the spell given to me by my uncle.

"Oh Chronus the father of time. Time that flows into different realm. Chronus, guide me to the door which leads to the day I need to learn."

As I repeatedly utter the spell, the doors magically made their way as if guiding me to that silver door.

"Are you ready?" Luke asks in an anxious tone. I gave him one final glance before we get inside. As if I was trying to reassure him, but in reality, I was trying to convince myself it will be alright.

The cold wind greeted us as we entered through the door. I was back, but this time I was an astral being who could not be seen or heard. I observe while the scene plays out in front of me. It was the last memory I had with my sister. Until the very end she was a refined witch and I will always remember her.

As I watch it, I couldn't help but grieve. I saw my sister Isabela rushing through our door, then it changed to the scenario of us running in the woods. Moments later I witness how my sister vanish into thin air as she cast the last spell she could as a witch.

I'm shouting and balling my eyes out as I attempt to reach my sister's hands. Strong arms wrapped about me, lulling me as though to calm me, "Isabelaaaaa! Noooooo! Please come back."

"Luke, it was my fault" I cried.

He hugged me till I calmed down and watched as my memories continued to flood and repeat. "Shhh, calm down. Try to focus and remember the reason we came all the way here."

I was about to go through the same memory again when Luke reached out to me and says. "I'm afraid we have to go; this dimension is starting to fall Zeph. I hope you learn the answers you've been meaning to know."

I nod my head. "There are things better off, unheard and there are things better if people wouldn't say."

"What are you talking about?" He asked as we continue to walk along the unending doors.

I shrugged my shoulder. "All I know now is that my sister was caught covertly spying on a group that was responsible for our parent's deaths, and in order to save me, she sends me back in time. I have no idea what this has to do with the City of Ivory and Shadow, or where I will find this city of whatever it is, but my sister repeatedly told me to protect it."

Luke gave me a bewildered look. "Explain it to me in a way I can understand, what city are you going to protect and why?"

"I don't know," I heaved a deep sigh and continued. " I don't either know how it happened, but I believe that despite the danger to her life, she still decided to send me back in time even if it was just for a brief period of time- just long enough to render me unconscious, change my memories, and hide me in a forest.

I fish my pocket watch out from my robe, and in an instant, everything went blurry and we were transported back to the present time outside the dimension of doors.

Once again we are welcome by the cold breeze of winter and without wasting a single second We went searching for the piles of boxes.

My legs felt like jelly after that realization. Still, I need to make haste. Time is the enemy. I wanted to grieve but I have to do it later. My chest tightens. I paused for a moment, as I needed to hold the wall for support.

Ten years. Ten long years of hiding in Kaltain under my uncle's Chronus tutelage, while searching for traces of my sister believing there might be a way to save her, only to learn she died for me.

I couldn't help but regret things and blame myself that if only I was stronger then my sister would have survived. My sister knew we won't make it if she will not sacrifice herself, thus in order to save me from those persons coming after us she performed forbidden arch magic.

After going through memory over and over again, I learned that she performs a powerful spell known as the lost arch magic. As the name suggests it was lost in time due to the gravity of equal exchange of the activation of that spell.

As my sister slowly vanishes into thin air she repeatedly told me to protect the City of Ivory and shadows. She also told me to wait and protect the lady of light.

"Who is this lady of light?"

She continued to defend me until reinforcements arrived even though she was nearing the end of her life. She was grinning as she cast her final spell in a graceful and regal manner, as though her life had been completed. She was a sage witch of her era. Despite sharing the same blood as Chronus the expense of using a time arch spell is taboo and burdening to one soul.

Until the very end, until the last of her breathe and until the last of her magic core she protected me.