As I awoke I barely registered the sound of the cell door creaking open. My head hung low, shoulders slumped, the iron shackles biting and digging into my raw bloody wrists. Footsteps echoed softly against the stone, light and sure—too light for a guard.
Forcing my head up I saw her through eyes blackened and bruised with dried blood caking them shut but I saw her still.
Auralia.
For a moment, relief surged through the haze of pain and exhaustion. Her silhouette, framed by the torchlight, was just as I remembered—elegant, sharp, familiar. Hope sparked in my chest, feeble but burning. She'd come. She'd found me.
"Auralia…" My voice cracked, dry and hoarse. "I knew… I knew you'd—"
She said nothing.
Her eyes met mine, those green-gold eyes I'd trusted through a hundred battlefields and blood-soaked nights. But there was something wrong with them now. Not cold. Worse than cold—distant. Resigned.
My breath caught. She stepped closer, and something gleamed in her hand. A thin, silver line of steel. Her rapier.
No. No—
"Auralia… wait. What are you doing?"
Her expression didn't change. No hatred. No sorrow. Just stillness. She reached out as if to steady me—and then the blade slid between my ribs with terrifying ease. I gasped, the pain exploding in my chest like lightning. It didn't feel real. A sudden pressure, a violent burning, and then the warm flood of blood down my chest and back.
My knees gave out, but the shackles held me upright, dragging against my arms as I sagged forward, pinned like a puppet with its strings cut. Looking down at the blade embedded to the hilt in my chest—her blade—and then up at her again. My lips moved soundlessly before I managed a whisper.
"…Why?"
For a heartbeat, something flickered in her eyes. Regret, maybe. Pain. But it was gone too quickly.
"I've already committed to forgetting you, Eiran," she said quietly. "In fact you are already a ghost to me."
I wanted to scream, to fight, but the pain was drowning me. My heart thundered once—twice—then faltered. Every beat is weaker. Slower.
She pulled the blade free, and the world followed it. Darkness crept in at the edges of my vision, and still I stared at her, desperate to understand. Not like this. Not by her hand. Not her.
With a final burst of strength I look up at her and I can't help but admire her, Auralia Aedove She stood just shy of six feet, her lithe frame wrapped in supple leather armor that whispered with every step. The armor, clearly elven in craftsmanship, was elegant and functional—stitched with flowing patterns that echoed leaves and starlight, reinforced where it mattered, yet never bulky. Beneath it, she wore a tunic of deep forest green, the fabric so fine it seemed to drink in the light. Her face bore the unmistakable beauty of the elvenkind, though softened by human blood. High cheekbones, a gently tapered jaw, and full lips framed her expression, which seemed forever caught between quiet amusement and wary calculation. Her skin was a light olive tone, sun-kissed and smooth, save for a faint scar tracing a line across her collarbone—just visible above the tunic's edge.
Eyes of deep emerald green, flecked with gold, shimmered beneath long lashes. They held a sharpness that belied her age—keen, assessing, as if she were always watching for the blade behind the smile. Her ears were delicately pointed, just enough to mark her heritage, often hidden behind the loose waves of her chestnut-brown hair. It fell past her shoulders, with hints of copper that glinted when caught by the sun. She wore it half-braided, strands tied back with silver thread in a nod to elven tradition. In her hand a rapier given to her by the emperor of Vagga, its hilt finely wrought and clearly well cared for. The blade itself, though not ornate, held a quiet menace—the kind of weapon that spoke of speed over strength, precision over power. She moved with a predator's grace, balanced and fluid, her every motion purposeful. To those who passed her in the crowded roads of cities or the quiet underbrush of ancient woods, she might appear as nothing more than a traveler. But those who looked closer saw the contradiction in her—an air of nobility and danger, of beauty and blade.
Feeling the effect of the venom that coated her blade, I can only think "No this can't be how my story ends, I can't let it end like this!" As I look her in the eye I see the unshed tears behind them and I know that the pain I feel in this moment is nothing compared to the pain of what she has done and that she will be haunted by this for the rest of her life.
It's cold.
Not the kind of cold that clings to your skin—but the kind that starts in your chest and spreads outward, slow and final. I can't feel my legs anymore. The shackles are the only reason I'm still upright.
She's still there. Auralia.
My friend. My ally. The one I trusted when there was no one else left.
The pain in my chest is sharp, but it's not what hurts the most. It's the look in her eyes—like I'm already gone. Like this is something she had to do. I want to ask her why. I want to scream at her. But there's no strength left for rage.
So I just breathe. Shallow. Strained. Blood slicks my lips and tastes like iron and regret. I look at her, and for a moment, I don't see the assassin or the executioner. I see the woman I once fought beside, the one who made the world feel a little less cruel.
She won't speak. Maybe she can't. Maybe if she does, she'll fall apart, but I won't give her silence. My voice is barely a whisper, but I speak anyway. The truth, plain and bare.
"I was never the villain of our story, my love."
My lungs burn. Each word cuts deeper than her blade ever could.
"Nor was I the hero."
I swallow blood. My arms tremble in their chains.
"I was simply a man… forced into a role… so that another could play the role they were given."
The room is spinning now. Darkness creeps in, heavy and slow. But I hold on just long enough to say what matters most.
"But I loved you. Even when I shouldn't have."
And then... i let go.
At first, I thought I was dreaming. There was no pain. No weight in my limbs. No warmth either, just… stillness. Not cold, not dark, just nothing. Then nothing began to shape itself.
A floor beneath my feet—smooth, black stone like polished obsidian, stretching forward in a narrow path that vanished into silver mist on one end and burning red light on the other. I stood at the center of a bridge that spanned a chasm with no bottom. Above me, there was no sky. Just a vast expanse of swirling shadow and light, folding into itself like a storm trapped in silence.
Then I realized—I wasn't breathing.
I wasn't alive.
This was it.
The Place of Judgment.
It was said to exist beyond the veil of death, where all souls pass—no matter how holy or damned. I'd heard the tales as a boy, whispered by drunk priests and dying soldiers, Yet I never believed them.
I believe now.
Pillars ringed the path ahead, tall as towers, etched with faces I could barely look at—some beautiful, some monstrous, and some… both. They watched me without eyes. I felt them weighing me with a gaze deeper than flesh. They saw through everything I'd ever tried to hide. Ahead of me, a great dais rose from the void, glowing softly—light not from flame, but memory. And above it, suspended in the air like a hanging judgment, an hourglass turned with no hands. Its sand shimmered gold one moment, blood-red the next. I knew without being told: those were my moments, falling one by one—my choices, my failures, my sins.
To the left, I saw the descent.
Rings of fire spiraled downward, each circle tighter, darker, more twisted than the last. I couldn't see the bottom. I wasn't sure there was one.
To the right, a path of silver mist wound upward into brilliance—serene, distant, unknowable. The Realm of the Gods, if such a place truly existed.
I stood between them, neither burning nor shining. Not yet.
No voice greeted me. No figure appeared to judge me.
Only the truth.
And I think I knew, in that moment, that I wasn't here to beg or fight.
I was here to be seen.
Stepping forward towards the raised dais and hourglass I continued to watch it for a moment And yet, I was not alone. I felt it—before I saw anything. A pressure, subtle at first, like a weight behind my eyes or a whisper brushing against the back of my neck. Not malevolent. Not kind. Just... present. Timeless. Endless.
Slow and hesitant, I turned the way a man might turn in an ancient forest when he knows something is behind him but fears it might not be human.
She was standing there.
Madira.
The Goddess of Souls.
I had never seen a statue of her that came close to the truth.
She was tall, but not towering. Her form shifted with the light—neither young nor old, neither beautiful nor terrible. Her skin shimmered like pale moonlight through water, and her eyes… gods, her eyes. They were vast. Ageless. Each one held galaxies, and I felt myself shrink beneath them, laid bare and weightless like dust in a storm. She wore a gown of layered veils that whispered across the stone without touching it, each layer stitched with glowing runes that pulsed softly in rhythm with… was that my heartbeat?
No. I had no heartbeat.
Her voice, when it came, didn't reach my ears. It echoed inside me, stirring something old and fragile.
"Eiran."
Just my name. But it was all of me in that word—my triumphs, my failings, every version of who I had been and might have become. I couldn't speak. I could barely stand. I felt like a child caught in a lie, or a king stripped of his crown. She stepped closer, and I realized her face was not fixed—it shifted with every breath, now a stranger's, now Auralia's, now mine. She was everyone. She was every soul.
"You have passed from the world of flesh."
"Now comes the truth."
I wanted to look away, but her gaze held me. Not with force. With mercy.
Terrible, infinite mercy.
Madira's gaze held me still, yet I felt no chains. There were no guards, no walls—only her, and the unbearable weight of truth ready to fall. She raised one hand, pale and luminous, and with that simple motion I felt the threads of my soul begin to unravel—memories pulling loose like frayed cloth.
And then—
"Wait."
The word was soft, but it cracked across the stillness like thunder.
Madira's hand froze in the air.
My breath caught—if I still drew breath. I turned instinctively toward the voice.
There, standing just at the edge of the obsidian path, was a boy.
He looked no older than ten, barefoot, his white hair wild and wind-tossed though there was no wind here. His eyes… gods, his eyes. One gleamed silver, the other gold. They shimmered not with light, but with motion—the turn of stars, the spinning of worlds, the breath of centuries collapsing into a single gaze.
He smiled at me like he'd known me all my life.
Like he would know me again.
Madira's expression didn't change, but the void around us seemed to draw tighter, reverent.
"This soul stands at the threshold," she said, voice even, eternal. "His thread has run. He must be judged."
The boy tilted his head.
"His thread may have run, but I haven't finished weaving."
My mouth was dry. My knees trembled. Somehow, this boy—this impossibility—was more terrifying than any blade. Even Madira, goddess of souls, paused before him.
He stepped forward, hands in his pockets, looking at me not with pity or scrutiny—but with curiosity. As if I were a question he had yet to answer.
"You're early," he said to me, as if I had made some mistake.
"Or maybe just on time."
"Who… who are you?" I managed to whisper.
He grinned.
"I have many names. But none that matter here and now"
Time slowed—or stopped entirely. The hourglass above us froze mid-turn, its sands suspended in the air like stars caught in amber. Even the pillars seemed to bow slightly, their carved faces flickering with silent recognition.
I stared at him, heart pounding in the silence between worlds. His eyes—those impossible eyes—held no hint of mockery or cruelty. Only a quiet patience, as if he understood things I could not yet grasp.
"I don't know who you are," I said, voice rough and hollow, "or what game this is."
He chuckled softly, the sound like wind through ancient leaves.
"No game, Eiran. Only a choice."
He stepped closer, the light bending around him like ripples on water.
"You can walk forward now, and be judged by Madira, the goddess of souls. To have your life weighed, your sins and virtues balanced without mercy or favor."
His gaze sharpened, holding mine steady.
"Or…"
He paused, as if tasting the weight of his own words.
"You can return to the beginning of your story. To live it again. To change what must be changed—or to fail once more."
I blinked, disbelieving.
"Return… to the beginning? How? Why would you offer that?"
He smiled, not cruelly, but with something older than time itself.
"Because some stories are not finished. And some souls have yet to find their true path."
I looked back toward the glowing dais where Madira waited, serene and eternal.
My hands trembled.
To face judgment meant the end.
To return meant… uncertainty.
The boy—Asmut, though I did not yet know his name—waited for my choice.
And in that moment, between eternity and oblivion, I felt the fragile hope of another chance flicker in my chest.
With a knowing smile the boy pulled from his pocket a small object in which he held between his slender fingers, and I couldn't tear my eyes away from it. It was no larger than a coin, yet heavier than I expected—a solid, cold thing crafted from metal that gleamed like liquid silver in the dim light of the Place of Judgment.
The cover was smooth and polished to a mirror's shine. With a soft click, Asmut pressed a tiny button, and the cover sprang open to reveal a face unlike anything I'd ever seen.
Inside was a perfect circle marked with numbers, arranged with such precision it felt sacred—like the stars charted in a night sky. Two slender arms, like delicate needles, hovered above the dial. One moved slowly and steadily, sweeping in a graceful arc, while the other flicked forward in sharp, rhythmic jumps—each tick sounding like a whispered heartbeat echoing in the silence around us.
There was a smaller dial nestled within the larger one, its hand moving at its own mysterious pace, a secret I couldn't yet understand.
Around the edges, intricate engravings spiraled—flowers, stars, and strange symbols that shimmered faintly as Asmut turned the watch in his hand, as if the light itself danced to its rhythm.
It was a device meant to capture something I could never see—time itself—grasping the invisible and holding it still.
I stared, captivated, unable to look away.
His eyes met mine, calm and endless, and in that moment, I understood: this small, silent thing was more powerful than any sword or spell. It was the measure of every breath, every choice, every moment slipping away or held fast.
I swallowed hard, the weight of the choice settling deep in my chest. Judgment meant the end — a final reckoning I wasn't ready to face. But the promise of returning, of rewriting what had already been written, stirred something raw and fragile inside me. A desperate hope.
"I'll take it," I said, voice trembling but resolute. "I'll return."
Asmut's silver-gold eyes flickered with something like approval — or maybe amusement. Without a word, he lifted the pocket watch again, its face glowing faintly in the gloom.
With deliberate care, he pressed the small button and flipped open the cover. His slender fingers found the tiny winding crown on the side, and he began to turn it slowly, deliberately — backwards.
The hands on the dial reversed their graceful dance, spinning counterclockwise, time itself unraveling before my eyes. The ticking grew softer, then slower, until it seemed to breathe with the pulse of the universe.
Around us, the air shifted — heavy, charged, as if the very strands of fate were being rewoven.
I felt the past pulling at me, tugging like a distant current, calling me back to the place where my story had first begun.
Asmut's voice, calm and steady, broke through the silence.
"Go, Eiran. Live again. Learn what must be learned. Change what can be changed."
The world blurred, colors bleeding and folding in on themselves. And then—
I was falling, spinning, sinking through time itself, back to where it all began….