Arjun woke to the sound of bells.
Not the gentle chiming of temple bells from his childhood, but something harsher—bronze clanging against bronze in an irregular rhythm that spoke of urgency rather than ceremony. He sat up on the straw mattress, his body protesting with a dozen small aches he hadn't noticed the night before. The barn's interior was dim, lit only by thin streams of morning light filtering through gaps in the wooden walls.
The dreams had been worse this time.
Not the battlefield—something different. He'd stood in a vast hall with pillars that stretched into darkness, and a voice had spoken in a language he shouldn't understand but somehow did. *The wheel turns. The debts remain. What was given must be returned.* He'd tried to see the speaker, but every time he turned, the pillars shifted, and he found himself facing a different direction entirely.
He pushed the dream aside and focused on the present. The bells continued their discordant song.
Arjun stood, testing his legs. The exhaustion from yesterday had faded, replaced by a restless energy that felt foreign in his limbs. He'd slept perhaps four hours, yet he felt more alert than he had after a full night's rest back home. Another oddity to file away.
He left the barn and stepped into the morning chaos of Millbrook.
The village—he'd learned its name from Elara before she'd left him at the barn—was larger than he'd initially thought. Perhaps two hundred buildings clustered around a central square, with dirt roads branching off in six directions like the spokes of a wheel. The architecture was practical: timber frames with wattle-and-daub walls, thatched roofs weighted down with stones. A few larger structures near the square boasted slate roofing and glass windows—marks of wealth in a place where most people made do with shutters.
The bells came from the square. Arjun made his way toward them, navigating around villagers who hurried in the same direction. No one paid him much attention; his borrowed clothes were plain enough to blend in, and the general atmosphere of urgency seemed to override curiosity about strangers.
The crowd gathered around a wooden platform in the square's center. On it stood a man in his fifties, broad-shouldered and weathered, wearing a leather vest over a wool shirt. A bronze bell hung from a post beside him, and a younger man—barely twenty—continued to ring it until the older man raised his hand.
"That's enough, Petyr." The older man's voice carried easily across the square. "Everyone's here who's coming."
The bells fell silent. Arjun counted perhaps eighty people in the crowd, with more watching from windows and doorways. He positioned himself at the edge, where he could observe without drawing attention.
"Most of you know already," the man continued, "but for those who don't: the Thornwood's acting up again. Third night in a row we've had something testing the wards on the eastern edge. Last night it got through."
A murmur rippled through the crowd. Arjun filed away the terms: *Thornwood*, *wards*. The magic system at work.
"Gareth's sheep pen was torn apart. Lost four animals before he drove it off with fire. He got a look at it—said it was like a wolf, but wrong. Too many joints in the legs, and its eyes reflected red instead of green."
"Phase corruption," someone called out. "It's getting worse."
The older man—the village headman, Arjun guessed—nodded grimly. "Aye. The Waning's hit us harder than usual this cycle. We're two weeks from the Nadir, and already the corruption's pushing this far from the deep woods."
Arjun listened carefully, assembling pieces. The phases weren't just about magic availability—they affected the world itself. During certain phases, something called "corruption" intensified, creating or transforming creatures into threats. The Waning was the current phase, leading to something called the Nadir. A cycle, then. Predictable but dangerous.
"We need to reinforce the wards," a woman's voice cut through the murmuring. Arjun recognized Elara, standing near the platform. "The eastern boundary hasn't been properly maintained since old Matthias died. We've been relying on wards he set twenty years ago."
"And who's going to do it?" another voice challenged. "You? You're barely past your journeyman trials, girl. Ward-work needs a proper mage, and the nearest one's three days' ride in Crosshaven."
"I can handle basic reinforcement—"
"Basic won't cut it, not with the Nadir coming."
The argument escalated, voices overlapping. Arjun watched the headman's expression tighten with frustration. A community under stress, resources stretched thin, and no clear solution. Familiar dynamics, even in an unfamiliar world.
He should stay quiet. He knew nothing about wards or magic or the threats they faced. Getting involved would be foolish.
But he'd never been good at staying quiet when he saw a problem he might help solve.
"Excuse me." His voice wasn't loud, but something in its tone cut through the argument. Heads turned. "What exactly do the wards do?"
The headman studied him, recognition flickering. "You're the stranger Elara brought in yesterday. The one who appeared on the north road."
"Arjun Sharma. And yes, I'm new here. Which is why I'm asking questions instead of making assumptions."
A few people chuckled at that. The headman's expression softened slightly. "Fair enough. Wards are magical barriers—they don't stop things physically, but they turn away creatures affected by phase corruption. Make them uncomfortable, confused. They'll avoid a warded area unless they're driven by something stronger than instinct."
"And the corruption comes from the Thornwood?"
"From deep places," Elara interjected. "The Thornwood's just the nearest. During the Waxing and the Zenith, the corruption's weak—barely noticeable. But during the Waning, especially near the Nadir, it intensifies. Creatures change. Some go mad. Others... become something else entirely."
Arjun processed this. A cyclical threat, tied to the phases. Which meant the community had dealt with this before, had established procedures. "How often does this happen?"
"Every cycle," the headman said. "Four times a year. But this one's worse than usual. The scholars in the capital say the cycles are becoming more extreme. Longer Waxings, deeper Nadirs. Something's out of balance."
*The wheel turns,* the voice from his dream whispered in memory. *The debts remain.*
Arjun pushed the thought aside. "If the wards need a proper mage to reinforce, and the nearest mage is three days away, what's your contingency plan?"
The headman's jaw tightened. "We double the night watch. Keep fires burning on the eastern edge. Hope the old wards hold long enough to get us through the Nadir."
"That's not a plan. That's hoping the problem solves itself."
The words came out harsher than Arjun intended. He saw several faces harden, defensive. The headman's eyes narrowed.
"You have a better suggestion, stranger? You know ward-work, do you?"
"No. But I know risk assessment. You're gambling that the wards will hold based on hope rather than evidence. If they fail, you'll lose more than sheep. You need to either evacuate the eastern farms until the Nadir passes, or you need to find another solution that doesn't rely on twenty-year-old magic you can't verify or repair."
Silence fell over the square. Arjun realized he'd overstepped—not in content, but in delivery. These people didn't know him. He'd just criticized their leadership in public, offering nothing but problems without solutions.
Old habits. His father had always said Arjun's honesty was both his greatest strength and his worst flaw. *You're not wrong, beta, but you need to learn when being right matters less than being kind.*
Before he could apologize, a new voice spoke from the crowd.
"The boy's not wrong, Aldric."
An elderly woman pushed through to the front. She walked with a cane, but her back was straight and her eyes sharp. Her gray hair was bound in a complex braid, and she wore a pendant that caught the light—a circle divided into four quarters, each marked with a different symbol.
"Mara." The headman—Aldric—inclined his head respectfully. "I didn't see you there."
"Because I was listening instead of talking." She turned those sharp eyes on Arjun. "You. The stranger. You see problems clearly. Do you see solutions as well, or just criticize?"
Arjun met her gaze. There was something in her expression—a test, perhaps, or a challenge. "I see what's in front of me. Right now, that's a community trying to solve a magical problem with non-magical resources. Either you need to change the problem or change the resources."
"And which would you choose?"
"I don't know enough to choose. But I'd start by understanding why the wards are failing. Is it because they're old, or because the corruption is stronger than expected? If it's the former, even imperfect reinforcement might help. If it's the latter, reinforcement won't matter—you need a different approach entirely."
Mara smiled, and it wasn't entirely pleasant. "Elara. Take our honest stranger to the eastern boundary. Show him the wards. Let's see if his eyes are as clear as his tongue is sharp."
Aldric looked like he wanted to object, but Mara's tone brooked no argument. Elara stepped forward, her expression unreadable.
"Come on, then," she said to Arjun. "Let's see what you can see."
---
The walk to the eastern boundary took twenty minutes. Elara led him through the village and out past the last cluster of farms, where cultivated fields gave way to wild grass and scattered trees. The Thornwood loomed in the distance—a dark mass of ancient forest that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it.
"Mara's the village elder," Elara explained as they walked. "She was a proper mage once, trained at the Collegium in the capital. Retired here thirty years ago. She doesn't do much active magic anymore, but she knows more about ward-work than anyone within a hundred miles."
"Then why isn't she reinforcing the wards?"
"Because she's dying." Elara's voice was flat. "Some kind of wasting sickness. She has maybe a year left, and every time she works major magic, it costs her. She's saving her strength for emergencies."
Arjun absorbed this. Another piece of the puzzle. "And you're her student?"
"Was. I finished my journeyman trials last year. I'm competent at basic ward-work, but I'm not ready for something like this. Not yet." She glanced at him. "That speech in the square—you made enemies. Aldric's a good man, but he doesn't like being challenged in public."
"I wasn't trying to challenge him. I was trying to help."
"By telling everyone their plan was stupid?"
"By pointing out a flaw in their reasoning." Arjun paused. "I should have been more diplomatic. I'm not good at that."
Elara snorted. "No kidding. You've got the tact of a brick through a window." But there was no real heat in her words. "Still. You weren't wrong. We are gambling. And if the wards fail during the Nadir..." She trailed off, shaking her head.
They reached the boundary. At first, Arjun saw nothing unusual—just a line of wooden posts driven into the ground at regular intervals, each carved with symbols he didn't recognize. But as he focused, something shifted in his perception.
It was like seeing heat shimmer on a summer road, except the shimmer had structure. Threads of something—not quite light, not quite substance—connected the posts in a complex web. Some threads glowed faintly, pulsing with a steady rhythm. Others were dim, their pulse erratic. And in several places, the threads had broken entirely, leaving gaps in the pattern.
"You see it." Elara's voice held surprise. "You actually see it."
Arjun blinked, and the vision faded. "See what?"
"The ward structure. Most people can't perceive it at all without training. Even then, it takes concentration." She studied him with new interest. "You have mage potential. Probably strong, if you can see it naturally."
"I don't know anything about magic."
"Doesn't matter. The ability to perceive magical structures is innate. You either have it or you don't." She moved closer to the nearest post, running her fingers over the carved symbols. "What did you see?"
Arjun described the threads, the gaps, the irregular pulsing. Elara's expression grew more troubled with each detail.
"That's worse than I thought. The ward's not just weakening—it's destabilizing. See that post there?" She pointed to one about thirty feet away. "That's where Gareth's sheep pen was. The ward failed completely in that section."
Arjun walked to the post, examining it. The wood was old but solid, the carvings still sharp. Nothing obviously wrong with the physical structure. He reached out, hesitated, then placed his palm against the carved symbols.
Heat flooded up his arm.
Not painful, but intense—like touching sun-warmed stone, except the warmth came from within rather than without. And with it came... awareness. He could feel the ward's structure, not just see it. Could sense the flow of energy through the network, the places where it pooled and the places where it drained away. Could feel the corruption pressing against it from the forest, a cold pressure that sought any weakness.
And he could feel something else. A resonance, deep in his chest, that responded to the ward's rhythm. As if some part of him recognized the pattern, understood it on a level below conscious thought.
"Arjun?" Elara's voice seemed distant. "Arjun, step back. You're not trained for direct contact—"
He pulled his hand away. The sensations faded, leaving him dizzy. Elara caught his arm, steadying him.
"What were you thinking?" she demanded. "Direct contact with an active ward can feedback if you're not shielded. You could have burned out your channels before you even learned to use them."
"I'm fine." Arjun's voice was steady despite the lingering vertigo. "But I think I understand the problem."
"Oh? Twenty seconds of touching a ward and you understand what I've been studying for years?"
He ignored the sarcasm. "The ward isn't failing because it's old. It's failing because it's starving. The energy flow is uneven—some posts are receiving too much, others too little. The network's out of balance."
Elara stared at him. "That's... actually correct. How did you—" She shook her head. "Never mind. Yes, that's the core issue. Wards need regular maintenance to keep the energy distribution balanced. Without it, they develop weak points. But fixing it requires recalibrating the entire network, and I don't have the skill for that."
"What if you didn't fix it? What if you just reinforced the weak points?"
"That's what I suggested in the square. But it's not that simple. If you just pump more energy into the weak sections without addressing the underlying imbalance, you might make it worse. The ward could collapse entirely."
Arjun considered this. A system under stress, with no perfect solution. Only trade-offs and calculated risks. "What's the worst case if you do nothing?"
"The ward fails completely within a week. Maybe less. Anything in the Thornwood that wants to could walk right into the village."
"And the worst case if you try to reinforce it?"
"The ward collapses immediately. Same result, but faster."
"Then the risk calculation is simple. Doing nothing guarantees failure. Trying to reinforce it gives you a chance, even if it's small." He met her eyes. "You should try."
"Easy for you to say. You won't be the one responsible if it goes wrong."
"No. But I'll be here when it does. And I'd rather face the consequences of trying than the consequences of giving up."
Something shifted in Elara's expression. Not quite trust, but a crack in her skepticism. "You really believe that."
"I don't believe in much. But I believe in trying."
She was quiet for a long moment, staring at the ward posts. Then she sighed. "I'll talk to Mara. See what she thinks. But don't get your hopes up—she's cautious, and she has good reason to be."
They walked back to the village in silence. Arjun's mind churned with questions. The heat he'd felt when touching the ward, the resonance in his chest—that wasn't normal, even for someone with "mage potential." And the way he'd understood the ward's structure, not through analysis but through direct perception...
*What was given must be returned.*
He didn't know what that meant. But he was beginning to suspect it had something to do with why he was here.
---
The afternoon found Arjun in the village square, watching the daily market. Elara had gone to consult with Mara, leaving him to his own devices. He'd considered returning to the barn, but restlessness drove him to observe instead.
The market was modest—a dozen stalls selling vegetables, bread, cloth, and basic tools. Nothing exotic, nothing that suggested wealth or extensive trade. A community that produced most of what it needed and imported little. Self-sufficient by necessity rather than choice.
He noticed a commotion near one of the stalls. A young man—the same one who'd been ringing the bell that morning, Petyr—was arguing with an older merchant. Arjun drifted closer, curious.
"—told you yesterday, I'll have the coin by week's end," Petyr was saying. His voice held desperation poorly masked by bravado. "My father's selling the south field harvest. I'm good for it."
The merchant, a heavyset man with a calculating expression, shook his head. "Your father's been 'selling the harvest' for three months now, boy. I've extended your family credit as far as I can. No coin, no grain."
"My sister needs medicine. She's sick—"
"Not my problem. I'm a merchant, not a charity." The man's voice wasn't cruel, just matter-of-fact. "Bring me coin or bring me trade goods. Otherwise, move along."
Petyr's hands clenched into fists. For a moment, Arjun thought he might swing. Then the young man's shoulders slumped, and he turned away, defeat written in every line of his body.
Arjun should let it go. It wasn't his business. He had no coin, no resources, no standing in this community. Getting involved would be foolish.
He stepped forward anyway.
"Excuse me." Both men turned to look at him. "I couldn't help overhearing. The boy needs medicine for his sister?"
The merchant's eyes narrowed. "And who are you?"
"Someone asking a question. What kind of medicine?"
"Feverwort tincture," Petyr said, hope flickering in his expression. "She's had the shaking fever for a week. Without the tincture..." He didn't finish the sentence.
Arjun turned to the merchant. "How much?"
"Two silver marks. And before you offer to pay for him, stranger, I don't extend credit to people I don't know either."
"I'm not offering to pay. I'm offering to work." Arjun met the merchant's gaze steadily. "I'll work off the debt. Two silver marks' worth of labor. You set the terms."
The merchant laughed. "You? You're a stranger who appeared yesterday with nothing but the clothes on your back. What kind of work could you possibly do that's worth two silver?"
"Whatever you need. I'm educated, I'm strong, and I'm honest. Put me to work for a day and see if I'm worth it. If I'm not, you've lost nothing but time."
"And if you run off?"
"Then you're out two silver marks and I'm a thief. But I won't run."
The merchant studied him, weighing the offer. Arjun could see the calculation in his eyes—the risk versus the potential gain. Finally, he nodded.
"Fine. But not for the boy's debt. For your own. You work for me tomorrow, dawn to dusk. If I'm satisfied, I'll give you two silver marks. What you do with them is your business."
It was a test, Arjun realized. The merchant wanted to see if he'd actually follow through, if his word meant anything. Fair enough.
"Agreed."
The merchant pulled a small bottle from beneath his stall counter and handed it to Petyr. "Take it. But your family's credit is done. Next time, it's coin up front."
Petyr stared at the bottle, then at Arjun, confusion and gratitude warring in his expression. "I... thank you. I don't know how to—"
"Help your sister," Arjun said simply. "That's thanks enough."
The young man nodded and hurried away, clutching the bottle like a lifeline. The merchant watched him go, then turned back to Arjun.
"You're either very kind or very stupid. Haven't figured out which yet."
"Neither. I just don't like watching people suffer when I can help."
"Even when helping costs you?"
"Especially then. Help that costs nothing isn't really help."
The merchant grunted. "We'll see if you still think that after a day hauling crates in my warehouse. Dawn, stranger. Don't be late."
Arjun nodded and walked away. He felt eyes on him—other villagers who'd witnessed the exchange. Some looked approving. Others skeptical. Most just curious.
He'd made a commitment he might not be able to keep. He didn't know if his body could handle a full day of manual labor in this world. Didn't know if the merchant would actually pay him, or if this was some kind of trap.
But he'd seen a problem he could address, and he'd addressed it. That was enough.
For now.
---
That night, Arjun lay in the barn and stared at the ceiling. His body ached with a bone-deep weariness that should have pulled him immediately into sleep, but his mind refused to quiet.
He thought about the wards, about the heat he'd felt when touching them. About the way his body seemed to have more endurance than it should, more strength than he remembered. About the dreams that felt less like dreams and more like memories that didn't belong to him.
*The wheel turns. The debts remain.*
What debts? What wheel?
Sleep took him before he found answers.
And in his dreams, he stood once more in the hall of pillars. But this time, he wasn't alone. A figure stood in the shadows between the pillars—tall, broad-shouldered, wearing armor that gleamed like captured sunlight. The figure's face was hidden, but Arjun felt the weight of its gaze.
"You carry what was mine," the figure said. Its voice resonated in Arjun's chest, familiar and foreign at once. "But you are not me. The question is: will you become me, or will you become something else?"
"I don't understand," Arjun said.
"You will. When the wheel completes its turn. When the debts come due." The figure stepped forward, and for a moment, Arjun saw its face—
He woke with a gasp, the image already fading. But one detail remained, burned into his memory:
The figure had been wearing earrings. Golden earrings that gleamed with their own light.
Just like the ones he'd seen in his first dream. The ones the warrior on the battlefield had worn.
Arjun touched his own ears, half-expecting to find metal there. But there was nothing. Just skin and the lingering sense that he was missing something important.
Something that would change everything once he understood it.
Outside, the bells began to ring again. Not the bronze clanging of alarm, but a different sound—deeper, more resonant. The sound of the village temple marking the hour before dawn.
Time to get up. Time to work. Time to keep moving forward, even when he didn't understand where he was going.
Arjun rose and prepared to face his second day in a world that wasn't his own.