Chapter 1

I opened my eyes, finding my body hurt a lot less than I was somehow expecting. It became apparent quickly I didn’t remember anything other than my name, Cain Herondale.

I could hear boots slamming on the ground running towards me, hoping they were friendly I chose to sit cross-legged on the metal plated floor. It was mere seconds I had to wait before a dozen metal behemoths came sliding around the corner near me.

I studied the, creatures?, trying my hardest not to panic. I could almost feel my mind start to lose focus as I failed at not panicking. 

I had literally just woken up in a place I didn’t know, that looked an awful lot like some government facility with what looked like metal draconians running at me, how was I supposed to stay calm here. 

I just sat and stared before a mental stutter ran through me. I realised I was starting to remember things. It took until there were almost on top of me but my brain started working again, I could tell that the people running towards me moved too awkwardly to be artificial, that meant they were people wearing high tech armour.

Instead of the guns I expected them to be wielding, instead I had a sword shoved in my face and an artificial sounding voice echoed through the passage.

“Surrender or Die!” 

“Shit, yeah I give up, can someone please explain where I am?” I answered as fast as I could.

*

It was less than ten minutes later that I was being dragged, blindfolded, into a room. The only reason I even noticed was because I heard the hiss of an automatic door opening. I was thrust into a chair, that then flowed around me, holding me completely immobile.

I have no idea how long I sat there waiting for something to happen, the darkness behind the blindfold causing me to lose track of time very quickly. Fortunately the boredom started to alleviate the fear, panic etc. feelings causing me to struggle to breath. 

It could have been five minutes or an hour before I heard the door open again. My mind had been slowly recovering from whatever happened to me, I still didn’t remember much about myself except my name and a few incidentals.

Suddenly, the blindfold seemed to disintegrate in a burst of heat that didn’t touch my skin and I saw where I was. The room was completely grey, the lights were dim and I couldn’t see the door that I had come through or the one I had heard open on the other side of the room. 

Seated across a table from me were two men, one was a middle-aged white man, dark grey hair that looked too vivid to be real and deep purple eyes were the first thing I noticed. A heavy scowl marred his square jawline.

The other man was his almost complete opposite, a bald pudgy black man with deep blue eyes, complete with a great big grin.

“How the hell did you get into the facility kid?!” the white man yelled.

Kid? How old was I? I could feel my mind clouding over a bit, like I was really exhausted all of a sudden.

“Sir, I have no idea where I am or how I got here. I truly have no idea what’s going on.” I answered mechanically. 

Why did I answer like that? How was I calm while this guy just yelled in my face, he was an intimidating dude.

“Bullshit! Noone can accidentally end up here!” he yelled again.

“The only thing I remember is a school trip to a Laboratory in London.” I answered, again sounding too calm and automated..

I saw the black man’s eyes narrow at that answer, a pressure I hadn’t noticed before started to get heavier, the black man didn’t interrupt though.

“Oh looks like we have a history buff here. I again call bullshit! Who sent you? The Allied Worlds? Those crazy Truth of Mist bastards? One of the Corps? Maybe even the Amphira?” he rattled off names like I would recognise them all.

I just stared blankly, getting more and more confused. Allied worlds? Since when were there more than one? Truth of Mist sounded like a cult and Amphira maybe had something to do with water…

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Apparently I spent too long just staring at him because he suddenly slammed his hand down on the table in front of me, making me jump, glaring at me the whole time. The numbness was wiped clean away as I focused again. A deep terror was welling up inside of me once I could think again.

“Sanderson, enough. The boy truly knows nothing, I believe he was teleported against his will, that would explain the mana signature in the passage and his complete lack of knowledge.” the black man finally spoke up.

“Sully, did you get a read on him? Do you have the information we need?” Sanderson shot back.

“I will need to do a more indepth read but I believe he is truly from London.” Sully replied sounding confused.

“That’s impossible, we are literally in the blast site right now.” Sanderson answered, sounding confused.

I wasn’t understanding anything that was being said. 

“He was there, at the beginning, I see the images in his head.” Sully explained.

The look of shock on Sanderson’s face should have made me feel better, but the confusion was too overpowering for me to make heads nor tails of anything. Clearly Sully could see the fear, confusion and lack of understanding I was failing to hide.

“I’m sorry son, you are terrified of us and everything happening around you aren’t you. I want you to listen very carefully to my voice.” 

“Sleep.” was the last word I heard before I slumped deeper into the chair.

*

I spent a long time wavering in and out of consciousness, hearing random words from those around me.

“...weakest spell…” 

“...no defence then suddenly...gone..”

“...suspicious..”

“...truly believe he’s an ancient.” I was coming to when I heard Sully say these words.

“That is impossible, it has been almost exactly two hundred years since the Time of Machines. Hell, the celebration of the bicentenary, marking the beginning is in three weeks.” the voice I didn’t recognise answered back.

“Shush, he has woken up.” Sully answered.

I slowly sat up, looking around the room I was now in. It was a pretty but sterile bedroom, a lot of white cotton and a plain grey comforter. Sully had been joined on a couch by a beautiful blonde woman in her forties, maybe. once again, her eyes were a vivid colour, this time a deep golden.

"Good morning Cain, Sully here was just telling me about you. Can you tell me what you remember please." She softly asked.

I don't know why but I wanted to listen to her, please her even. She was just so shiny and beautiful. I felt those words echo in my head a few times before answering.

"I was on a school trip into London, I'm from Australia but living in America, my parents moved us around alot you see. Anyway, our school won a competition, so our class got to go on a trip to see a science experiment. Something to do with Physics, a laser and space time or something. I don’t know, I was never really into science.” I rambled, giving information I didn’t even really remember.

I have no idea how long I spoke about different things, things that I was remembering as I spoke, like my parents names, Charles and Selene Herondale, I couldn’t remember what they looked like though. The travelling around the world was due to my father being a Physicist who consults on projects that are behind schedule. My mother, on the other hand, if you couldn’t tell from her and my name, studied the cultural implications that early religions portrayed onto modern culture. She was named after the goddess of the moon while she named me after one of the christian villains, the first murderer.

They were the real reason my school ‘won’ the competition, they wanted to show me the latest experiment my father was working on. It was the school and some big tech company that paid for us to go see it though, personally I believed they wanted my dad to work harder so they did him this favour, I imagine flying a class of twenty kids didn’t even register on the radar of spending for this project.

I continued to tell the pair in front of me all this information as I remembered it, it wasn’t until I got closer to the experiment they seemed to appear eager.

“My dad never told me completely what the project was about, other than they were making progress. But we did overhear some of the other workers talking about it while we were touring the facility. Apparently they were trying to pierce through a bubble in space where the fabric of space time was, ‘dim’, I think they said. They were making some pretty crazy speculations.” I continued. 

My mind was still full of how pretty and shiny she was as I talked, every time she smiled, I talked faster. Every time she frowned, I felt bad and tried to add more detail.

“They said there might be a source of infinite energy on the other side. Self perpetuating expansion or something.” I finished, not sure what else to say.

As the woman turned away from me to look at Sully, I felt my mind clear again, it was only then I realised I had been looking her directly in the eyes the whole time. It was like she had me under some form of compulsion that required eye contact, thus breaking it when she looked away.

“It can’t be possible Sully! He was there! In the beginning, when our world was reborn. But how doesn’t he have access to Mana? It is written that all those who survived the blast across the country were filled with Mana, immediately forming cores, why does he appear to be a normal fifteen year old boy before going through the coring ceremony? You’re my Truth Sage! Answer me!” the woman rattled off.

I was so confused, nothing she said made sense to me. Mana was something from fantasy, not real life, were they talking about nanobots or something? It was always said that would be the future branch of science and I could imagine some scientists finding it funny to call them Mana.

Sully looked at me, tilting his head to the side like he was listening to something I said still. As he turned away from me, finally, and looked at the woman, the pressure at the back of my neck disappeared as well. It would appear they had both been doing something to me.

“The only scenario that I find possible, or even think of at all, is that the burst of Mana that slammed through the hole they punched in the fabric of space and time when they started the experiment included every conceivable form of Mana. Not just the standard elements but also the esoteric ones that humans can’t normally touch, like Chaos and Time. If Cain here was hit by a burst of Mana that both healed his body and also Void, Space and Time Mana at the same time, I could see him being transported through Void space and moving in time instead of space.” Sully explained, most of his explanation going over my head. I understood a little from the fantasy novels I used to read but not everything.

“On the positive side, this scenario mean he could have an affinity for many different elements, but especially Space or Void. We are always in desperate need of more Pilots when he’s older.” Sully mused after his explanation.

“Hold up! You are both now talking like i’m not even here. I have a right to know what the hell is going on! I swear to god, if you two compel me or read my mind again I am going to be super pissed off!” Sully flinching was the proof I needed to confirm my thoughts about the pressure I had been feeling.

“Now, where am I? Who are you? and what the hell is happening.” I asked.

“Well the two most important questions you are likely to ask today. You are still on, what you would call, Earth, we renamed the world Terra about a hundred years ago. You are in my home, what was once the Royal Palace of the English Monarch. My name is Esmeralda Elizabeth Montgomery and I, alongside my husband Edward Montgomery the third are the monarchs of Terra."