A young servant was waiting for me in front of the temple. He couldn't have been more than fifteen, his plain linen robe was a little too big for his slender figure. The moment our eyes met, he bowed quickly and motioned for me to follow. Silently, he turned at once and began leading the way outside, along the winding pebble-stone paths that curved around the rear gardens of Marine Palace.
Truthfully, none of the palace buildings were ever given distinct names. So I decided to give them one myself. The largest and most imposing of them, the main royal residence, I chose to call the Marine Palace, inspired by the sea-blue hue that washed across its ground walls like a calm, endless tide.
The stones crunched faintly beneath our feet. His steps were careful and light, barely disturbing the path, while mine made a far more noticeable sound against the pebbles. The air carried the scent of damp earth and roses from the nearby hedges. A thin breeze stirred the willow branches ahead, and sunlight shimmered across rooftops glazed in deep jade tiles. My hair was arranged in its usual bun at the back of my head, but this time I dressed warmer, choosing a light grey dress with long sleeves and making sure to bring a warm coat along.
It had been more than three years since I had last walked through these garden areas. The gardens seemed fuller now. There were new lamp posts and freshly trimmed bushes all around us, the clean polished metal gleaming in contrast with the green leaves. There were quite a few azure blue flowers sticking out of the vines around the arches of the path that I didn't remember. Renovations, perhaps.
The servant glanced over his shoulder more than once, as if worried he was walking too fast or too slow. Escorting someone summoned by the Emperor was clearly not part of his usual routine.
"The lake lies just beyond the eastern terrace," he explained in a careful voice.
I know. I may not have come here in three years, but I still remember the wide staircase descending towards the lake's surface and the bridge that stretches out from the platform's edge.
Reaching the top of the staircase, the boy stopped and turned to me. "Shall I lead the way onto the bridge?"
"No," I replied calmly. "I came to study what the palace staircases were made of."
He blinked, clearly confused. I sometimes found myself questioning the judgment of those who hired new staff for the palace. Honestly, I didn't need an escort for the next twenty meters, it was f-
"I… see," he said after a pause that suggested he indeed did not see. His brows lifted slightly. "Most staircases are built with steps attached to a central support or frame. This one is reinforced with-"
"Are you serious?" I asked, letting my voice roll with dramatic disbelief.
He stiffened instantly, swallowing hard as he shifted on the pebbles.
"Oh, come on," I muttered, rubbing my forehead. "If you're planning to collapse from anxiety, at least do it somewhere less visible."
"Stop taking your frustrations out on the poor boy." A familiar voice. The breeze seemed to stop for half a beat just as I turned around.
Erzion stood a short distance behind us, having approached silently along the stone path. He stepped forwards, one hand reaching for mine like a true gentleman.
"This wouldn't have happened if you hadn't made me come," I muttered, trying to sound indifferent.
Between us, the servant stood very still, caught like a startled fawn, no doubt wishing the lake would rise up and swallow him whole.
"We had a deal, my dear shining one," he replied smoothly, though there was warning beneath the velvet of his tone. "Do not pretend I forced you."
By the time the words hung in the air, the boy had already vanished, probably sprinting for safety. With a shared glance, Erzion and I began walking towards the bridge.
The massive stone bridge stretched out before us, arches rising on either side, a thick ceiling casting deep shadows across the pathway. The air beneath the cover was cool, almost damp, and the faint echo of our footsteps seemed to hang longer than it should.
"Why would you even want to come here again?" I asked, my voice swallowed slightly by the shadowy expanse.
"Not sure myself," he replied softly, his voice low and smooth. A faint smile tugged at the corner of his lips. "Maybe because I'm fond of the moments we've spent here… the way you used to look at me, eyes wide ss I ran along the arches, my laughter carried lightly through the air above the lake."
I snorted. "I found you quite annoying back then. And I still do."
He fell into step beside me, silent now, the weight of the stone arches pressing above us. The bridge stretched farther than I remembered, its massive expanse spanning the lake's widening waters.
Erzion was the first to stop, somewhere near the center. I came to a halt beside him, the shadows thickening around us, and peered over the edge. Beneath the bridge, the water gleamed like polished glass, deepening into an endless blue where sunlight barely reached.
We stood there together, side by side, letting the quiet of the lake fill the space between us. The stone was colder than I remembered as I sat on the edge of the bridge, palms pressed behind me, legs folded safely on the stone beside Erzion's boots instead of hanging over the water. The lake was shimmering just beyond my back, close enough that I can feel its presence without looking. The palace gardens around us were quiet, no guests were allowed to enter this area. The long vines were tailing down the columns, softening the stone, and the light breeze made them tremble and rustle.
He laughs, soft and surprised, like he forgot laughter was allowed here. "You never made a sound. I thought you were going to vanish one day and I wouldn't even notice."
"I was following you as the late queen commanded me," I said "You were just too busy pointing at birds."
He leaned forward, elbows on the parapet, eyes fixed on the lake as if it still held thesame birds from the past. "They were good birds," he said softly.
"They were ducks."
"Majestic ducks."
I hated him most for the way escape was impossible. I tried again and again, but every time I went too far, my body betrayed me, turning rigid, unresponsive, trapping me where I stood. Like being sunk in invisible glue, the only release was always the same: returning to him.
Years passed, and the illusion slowly drove me mad. Even my attempts to end it were meaningless. The way I am now… perhaps it's because I watched him break as well. Seeing his madness brought me a quiet, shameful peace, to know I wasn't the only one trapped in this, that he was paying for what he'd done. And somehow, my heart softened at the sight.
The lake shimmered in cold shades of gray. I stared at its surface, reliving moments from the past, and for a while, neither of us spoke.
Suddenly, the wind grew stronger, and I clutched my coat tighter. I felt Erzion come closer, one hand stretched out, holding a globe of invisible energy that spread warmth around us. Soft threads of light drifted from his fingers as he moved the glow closer to me.
I turned towards him fully. The light caught in his hair, and for a fleeting moment we could have been mistaken for two ordinary people, sitting on a bridge like any other, over a lake like any other.
"You always did that," I said, bitterness thick in my throat. "It feels like mercy."
"It is not," he said. "I am simply trying to return what is rightfully yours."
At first, I couldn't find any words to answer. This whole thing was his fault to begin with. He had hurt me, destroyed my whole existence more times than I could count. And yet, as I looked at him now, I felt something dangerously close to pity. When I met his gaze and saw the emptiness there, the blankness, the nothing, I pitied him. Him, who had wandered through his human life without a soul, suffering in a way I would never fully understand.
"Thank you, Erzion," I said at last. Simple.
He exhaled, relieved, like he had been holding that breath for years. "I like seeing you smile."
The light faded slowly, obedient to the moment.
"Next time," I said, "I'll point out the birds for you."
He grinned. "Majestic ones only."
The ground seemed to tilt beneath my feet. Erzion's voice faded fast in my mind, I could barely hear him now. Then, I felt a cold stone surface at my back, sinking into my bones, while my skin burned in scattered patches. I tried to lift my head, but the world tilted, its edges dissolving into fog. Everything was blurred...
Voices crowded the air above me. Too many. They overlapped and tangled, sharp and frantic. Fabric brushed against fabric. Sandals scraped stone. The noise pressed against my skull. The ringing drove me crazy, and I wished I could bang my head to make it stop, but I couldn't move my hands... Where was I, what was happening??
"Bring hot towels! Quickly, she is freezing!"
That voice.
Even through the haze, it sliced cleanly through the chaos. My heart stuttered. I tried to focus, to push past the dizziness. Faces hovered above me, shapeless at first, then slowly sharpened at the center while their edges melted away.
Servants. So many of them. Their silhouettes bent over me, movements jerky and indistinct. I couldn't see their expressions clearly, only the urgency in their hands.
And then I saw him.
Erzion.
He was younger. So much younger. A boy, perhaps ten years before the man he was now. But I recognized the line of that jaw instantly. The rigid way he held himself. The eyes I never truly saw clearly, always just beyond focus, as if something in the world refused to let me glimpse his soul, or as if he didn't have one.
He was on his knees. On his knees on the stone floor, right beside me.
The queen stood somewhere beyond him, I glimpsed pale fabric and and tightly clenched hands. Again, her face was a blur of white and shadow.
Something was wrong with my body.
Light flickered over me, unstable, rippling. My skin felt too tight in some places, numb in others. Burns stung along my arms and shoulders. My hair brushed my cheek, short strands tickling my skin. Brittle at the ends. It smelled faintly of smoke.
I tried to move my fingers. They responded sluggishly.
That was why he shouted for hot towels.
My gaze drifted downward, or perhaps inward. It was difficult to tell. My shoulders looked so small. My collarbone so sharp, I felt way skinnier than I was.
But... that was me. That fragile, shimmering thing on the stone, the body I was currently in, was me from when I first appeared in the human realm!
"Vila?" His voice felt so fragile across the space between us. He sounded impossibly far away. "Vilendra?"
I blinked.
I pressed my palm against the wall of the bridge. Cold stone once again but this time it was solid. Clear. Real. None of what I just saw was from this timeline...
What did just happen?
"Vilendra, is everything alright?" Erzion called my name again.
"Where I am?" I felt so disoriented.
"In the... gardens? On the bridge we were..."
I swallowed hard, my throat dry, as if the air itself had turned to dust. "The bridge," I repeated, but the words sounded foreign on my tongue. Empty.
I turned slowly, half-expecting to see the chaos, the smeared yellow of the dry heat, the noise, the crowded people, the anxious sound of Erzion's screams. But instead, I saw nothing.
Just white. Just the simple, quiet surface of the lake shimmering in the distance.
"Erzion," I whispered.
"I'm right here," he answered, but his voice no longer came from behind me. It echoed. Closer, then farther, then everywhere, layered over itself like a badly tuned chorus.
My pulse quickened. "Where are you?!"
A loud scream followed. But this time it didn't sound human.
"Half an hour left," the voice murmured. "That's plenty of time."
My grip tightened around the emptiness where one of the bridge's columns should have been. My fingers brushed against air. My mind scrambled to piece the world back together, to make it make sense but it wouldn't.
"Erzion, stop it!" I hissed.
But nothing from this actually stopped. The scream fractured into sharp, uneven pieces that filled the space around me until it didn't sound like a scream at all. I backed away, or maybe forward. I couldn't tell anymore. Every direction felt the same. Every step echoed like it was falling down a hollow well. The scraping sound was pulling every string inside my ears, my brain, my soul.
I couldn't breathe. I think I started screaming too. I couldn't see. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't-
My balance snapped. It felt as if I fell on the ground. The grinding buzzing in my head screamed strange sounds, far from any words, but I felt like I should understand them. A nervous tension stirred inside me, a mix of anger and frustration that I couldn't grasp, yet at the same time I wanted to make it stop.
I tried standing up but I stumbled again, then fell.
"Vilendra," the voice said, but this time it wasn't Erzion's. It was mine.
A crushing weight dragged me down. My limbs felt heavier with every heartbeat, as if invisible hands were wrapping around my ankles, my wrists, pulling me under.
I tried to move. I couldn't.
"Erzion!" My voice came out strangled, small.
"Snap out of it, Vila!" His voice cut through the static like a shard of glass, sharper than it had been a second ago.
Something cold brushed my cheek. A steady hand pressed against my skin. The touch was real. Too real. My breath hitched as my lashes fluttered open. For a split second, the blinding white sound around me shattered like cracked porcelain.
"Erzion?" I felt my voice trembling, but I couldn't hear it. The sound dissolved into the cacophony crashing against the inside of my skull. The whispers grew louder, no, not louder, closer. Layered, overlapping, a thousand mouths breathing my name all at once.
I clutched my head, nails digging into my scalp as if I could claw the noise out. The air was too thick to breathe. Too crowded. I felt like a million eyes were on me, watching from nowhere and everywhere. Their gaze was heavy, pressing down on my skin like heat from a furnace.
I think I heard Erzion's voice again. "Stay with me!" He said.
"What's happening?" I made myself to whisper again.
"I am not sure, but it's going to be okey. Let me help you."
I felt it before I could process what was happening, my feet left the ground. Warmth pressed against my back, a firm grip sliding beneath my knees. My head tilted against a shoulder.
The whispers didn't disappear, but they blurred into a dull, humming static as if someone had turned the world's volume knob down. My chest rose and fell in shaky bursts. The crushing weight that had been pulling me under was still there, clawing at my ankles, but Erzion's hold was stronger.
"Stay awake," he said, his breath hot against the side of my face.
"Erza?", I asked.
"Don't stress yourself."
My fingers curled weakly into his shirt. "Where are we going?"
"Somewhere they can't reach," he said.
"Who?"
"The voices you said you hear just now."
Wait.
"I hear voices?" I echoed, the words hollow in my own mouth.
And then everything stopped. The whispers that had filled the air like static, the eyes on the walls, even the pulsing beneath my feet, all of it vanished in a single, impossible heartbeat.
"I'm fine," I said, though the words felt like they belonged to someone else. My voice was steadier than I expected, like I'd rehearsed it somewhere far away from this moment. "You can let me down."
Erzion's steps slowed. For a second, I felt his arms tighten around me, as if he wasn't ready to let go. His breath ghosted against the side of my head, uneven now.
"You're shaking," he murmured.
"I'm fine," I repeated, forcing the lie into shape. "Really. Just... put me down."
He hesitated. But then, with a quiet exhale, he crouched slightly and lowered me to the ground.
"I don't know why you started acting like this... I-"
"Now I am fine, let me be. Go do your work."
He was staring at me for a long moment. The tension in his shoulders eased slightly, though the wariness lingered, sharp and unyielding.
"Fine," he said finally, his voice low. "But... go rest before the dinner. And if you don't feel well later either, don't come and stay rest."
I nodded, brushing imaginary dust from my clothes, trying to convince both him and myself that I wasn't trembling. We were no longer on the bridge, actually closer to the garden entrance.
He stepped back, giving me space, but I could feel the weight of his gaze. I didn't move. I just let the cold ground anchor me, letting my heart slow its frantic rhythm.
"Good," he said finally, softer this time. As if he was waiting a few moments to see if I would collapse again.
I swallowed hard and straightened my shoulders. As I started walking towards the temple, I let the weight of everything settle behind me like a door slowly swinging shut. An echo of footsteps followed. It was steady, unhurried, trailing me all the way to the front doors of the temple. Probably Erzion. But since I didn't turn back, I couldn't confirm this. And what's left for you is to trust my assumptions, since I'm the one telling the story.