After months under Master Elara Sion, I had come to understand the fragile rhythm of life. She had taught me how every heartbeat, every decision, and every breath connected to something larger. But one thing still troubled me — time itself.
I often wondered, if everything is connected, why does time break them apart?
One evening, when the sky glowed orange over the silver tree, Elder Aarion appeared once again. He said only one thing: "To understand destiny, you must first understand time. Go north, where the river turns golden. He awaits you."
The journey wasn't easy. The path twisted through cliffs that shimmered like mirrors. By the time I reached the golden river, dusk had fallen. The water didn't flow like normal rivers—it moved in both directions, forward and backwards, as if confused about which moment it belonged to.
Standing on the stone bridge over that river was a man in a long, flowing robe the colour of twilight. His skin was pale, and his hair shimmered silver from one side and black from the other, divided cleanly down the middle. In his right hand, he held an ancient hourglass glowing faintly blue; in his left, a small digital watch that ticked softly.
When he looked at me, his eyes were two different colours — one golden, one grey. He smiled faintly. "You must be Mukul Sharma, the child who carries the weight of seven stars."
I bowed lightly. "Are you my next master?"
He nodded. "Yes. I am Master Chronos Veyra, known once as The Keeper of Time. Some call me The Eternal Watcher; others call me The Man Who Walks Both Ways. Neither matters to me anymore."
Elder Aarion's voice echoed softly behind me. "Chronos Veyra is both historian and guardian. He commands the flow of time but bears the curse of memory — he remembers everything, even what should be forgotten. When the gods themselves lost track of their past, they turned to him."
Master Chronos chuckled. "They didn't like my answers," he said quietly. "Truth often bends time more than lies ever could."
From that night onwards, I became his student — though training under the Keeper of Time was unlike anything else I had ever known.
His sanctuary stood at the edge of the golden river, an observatory filled with countless clocks, sundials, mirrors, and glowing crystals that floated in slow circles. Each object ticked, buzzed, or hummed in a rhythm all its own. The air always smelt faintly of metal and rain.
My first lesson began the next morning, though I soon realised that morning and night were meaningless there. "In this place," he said, "time does not pass; it pauses to listen."
He made me touch the golden water that flowed below the bridge. The moment my fingers dipped in, I saw flashes—visions of my past, my home, and my family laughing on my fifth birthday. Then, images of pain — the explosion in China, my fall, the island.
Startled, I pulled my hand back. "It showed me my life!"
Chronos nodded calmly. "Time remembers everything. The question is, can you?"
He taught me how to harness the Echo Stream, a technique that allowed my consciousness to walk through memories without losing sense of the present. Ancient monks once used it for meditation; modern scientists called it temporal neural recall. "Different names," he said, "for the same truth."
Day after day, I learnt to listen to time instead of fearing it. He had me watch sand fall in the hourglass while focusing on each grain. Sometimes, the flow reversed for a moment, freezing midair.
"Focus is the only tool time respects," he said. "When your mind is scattered, time scatters. When you are still, time bows."
He explained how every choice we made created ripples that echoed forward and backwards — small vibrations that shaped both fate and history. "People believe time moves in a straight line," he said. "It doesn't. It spirals around the moments we cherish or regret."
Then came his modern teachings. Chronos showed me holographic timelines — bright streams of energy twisting around each other like living histories. "Every person carries an inner thread of time," he said, "and through data and thought, scientists are learning to see it. Watch closely. Each timeline is a reflection — one part choice, one part destiny."
He also taught me chronocoding—a rare blend of old runes and temporal patterns that could store information in time itself, not space. By carving symbols into crystals and synchronising breath, he showed how knowledge could be preserved beyond generations, waiting for one who could read it.
"Memory", he said, carving slowly, "is humanity's greatest invention — yet also its prison."
During one lesson, he asked me, "Mukul, would you change your past if you could?"
I hesitated. "Maybe. I would stop myself from being separated from my mother."
He smiled sadly. "That's what I once thought, too. But every pain you endure becomes a piece of your melody. Remove it, and you change the song."
When I asked why he lived here, apart from every master, his eyes softened. "Because the past never leaves me. I saw too much. I watched ages rise and fall. I remembered every face I ever lost. The only way to find peace was to stop walking forward — and simply watch."
On my final day, he handed me the hourglass he always carried. Inside it, golden sand flowed endlessly between two halves but never emptied.
"This," he said, "is not a clock. It's a reminder. Time doesn't move around you, Mukul — it moves through you. Every second you live tethers eternity to the present. Use it wisely."
He turned toward the river and added quietly, "When your seven stars awaken, time itself will listen. Be sure your heart is worthy of that silence."
As I left his sanctuary, I looked back once. The golden river shimmered, and for a moment, I saw reflections of all my masters standing behind Chronos — twenty silhouettes, waiting.
And that was how I met Chronos Veyra—the Keeper of Time, the master who taught me that the past is not chains to escape but echoes to understand—and that one who honours his memories controls both his destiny and his peace.