Hal died again.
The claws of the void agent tore through his chest with surgical precision, splitting flesh and bone as though they had done it a thousand times before. In that final instant, the world stuttered sound, pain, even the metallic taste of his own blood freezing mid-breath. Then came the voice he had heard in every life he could still remember. Cold. Inevitable. Familiar in the worst possible way.
"You will return to me."
No anger. No triumph. Only the same quiet certainty that had chased him across lifetimes he no longer fully recalled.
He woke coughing ash and frost.
The ruined cathedral pressed down on him like an open grave. Broken arches clawed at the pre-dawn sky of Greyreach, and the air tasted of rust and old winters. Vines strangled half-buried megacity towers in the distance, their leaves black against the pale horizon. Hal pushed himself up on trembling arms, ribs screaming where the wound had already begun to knit shut too slowly this time. His body remembered how to heal. His Aperion did not.
Pathetic, he thought, the word carrying centuries of quiet contempt. Still scraping the bottom of the barrel after all this time. How many cycles has it been since I could fight without borrowing someone else's blade?
A low, wet scrape echoed from the shadows between the shattered pews. The void agent or what was left of it was already reforming. Thin, elongated limbs unfolded at impossible angles. Black ichor hissed where it touched stone, eating away at the frost. The bone mask tilted, empty sockets locking onto him with patient hunger.
Hal's hand closed around a jagged length of rebar. Old instinct made him settle into a fighting stance he had perfected in lives that had long since been erased from this reality. His Aperion channels were collapsed again, raw and useless. The spark he managed to summon flickered like a dying match barely enough to warm his palm, let alone burn the creature to cinders.
Not again, he thought. Not this early in the cycle. The great existences shouldn't have noticed me yet.
From the darkness behind the creature came the sound of boots crunching on frost.
A lance of radiant silver-blue light tore through the gloom. The void agent shrieked once and split apart cleanly, burning before it even hit the ground.
Hal exhaled, the tension in his shoulders easing only slightly. He knew that light.
"You're late," he said, voice rough but calm, the words slipping out with the effortless politeness of someone who had once worn crowns in forgotten empires.
Atheus Varron stepped into the faint dawn glow, armor still pristine despite the ruins. The heavy navy cloak shifted as he lowered his sword, cold green eyes narrowing behind the lifted visor. The knight's sculpted breastplate caught the first hint of morning light, the masked face on his cross-guard seeming to watch Hal with silent judgment.
"Late?" Atheus repeated, irritation sharpening every syllable. How many times do I have to pull this man out of his own mess? The thought burned hotter than the dying flames on the ground. "I told you not to wander off alone before dawn. Again."
Hal brushed dust from his coat with deliberate slowness an old courtier's habit that refused to die no matter how many realities he crossed. "I had it under control."
"You were bleeding out in a cathedral ruin. Again." Atheus's jaw tightened. He hated how familiar this had become. The strange vagrant with holes in his memory had appeared barely three weeks ago, and somehow Atheus kept finding reasons to save him. Duty? Curiosity? A nagging sense that this man was important to something larger than the frontier? He wasn't sure anymore. All he knew was that every time he turned his back, Hal ended up half-dead in some ruin.
Hal met his gaze evenly. In that moment, something ancient flickered behind his eyes the weariness of someone who had watched too many dawns rise over graves that no longer existed in any map. "It was a calculated risk."
Atheus snorted. "Your calculations are going to get you killed permanently one day."
If only it were that simple, Hal thought. He almost smiled at the irony, but the expression never reached his lips. Attachments ended. They always did. And yet here he was, letting this stubborn knight pull him out of the fire again.
The ashes of the void agent still smoldered. Atheus spoke a single word "Ignite" and blue-white fire finished the job, leaving only a faint scorch mark on the stone. The knight's shoulders remained tense, his gauntleted hand resting near the hilt of his sword.
"Third attack this week," Atheus muttered, scanning the ruins. "Ever since you showed up, these things have been crawling out of the cracks faster than usual. What aren't you telling me, Hal?"
Hal didn't answer immediately. He flexed his fingers, watching a weak spark of Aperion dance across his skin before dying. The channels were still shattered from whatever had happened during the transition between realities. Weeks, maybe months, before he could fight properly again. Maybe never, if the erosion kept worsening.
"The great existences are noticing," he said quietly, choosing his words with care. "Or something close enough to mimic them."
Atheus turned sharply. "Great existences?"
Hal's expression didn't change, but inside the old ache stirred the whisper that had followed him through every reset. You will return to me. He pushed it down, burying it beneath layers of practiced detachment. "Nothing you need to worry about yet."
The knight studied him for a long moment, green eyes searching for lies. He talks like he's seen the end of the world and got bored of it, Atheus thought. And somehow I keep believing him. Why? Because he looks at everything like it's already gone?
A cold ripple passed through the air. Both men stiffened at the same time.
Hal felt it first the familiar pressure against his spine, the way reality seemed to hesitate, like a breath held too long. For a heartbeat the ruined cathedral flickered: stained glass whole and blazing with impossible light, a crowned shadow standing at the altar where none had been moments before.
"You will return to me."
Pain lanced through his skull. He stumbled, clutching his head. Atheus caught his arm, gauntlet cold and steady against his sleeve.
"Hal. Stay with me."
The vision shattered. Reality rushed back in dust, broken stone, the faint smell of charred ichor.
Atheus's grip tightened, concern cutting through his usual irritation. "What in the seven hells was that?"
"Not a void agent," Hal said, forcing his voice steady despite the tremor in his fingers. "Something watching. Learning how to wear the void's skin."
The knight released him slowly, suspicion deepening into something closer to worry. "Your curse is getting worse."
Hal laughed once short, bitter, ancient. "Tell me something I don't already know."
They stood in silence as the first true light of dawn spilled across the broken arches. Hal hated this part most: the moment after survival when the weight of borrowed time settled again. He glanced toward the horizon, where broken megacity towers strangled by vines waited like forgotten sentinels. Somewhere out there, a faint trace of Grisha's signature still lingered or at least the echo of it in this new reality.
"I need to find him," Hal said quietly. "Grisha."
Atheus exhaled, running a hand through his hair. "The friend from the dreams?"
"The only thing I still remember clearly from any of the lives before this one."
The knight adjusted the sword at his hip, the motion sharp with decision. "Then I'm coming with you. My oath to the frontier can wait. Right now it seems to involve keeping you alive long enough to make sense of whatever this is."
Hal hesitated. Part of him the part that had learned not to attach after too many permanent goodbyes wanted to refuse. Attachments ended. They always did. Grisha had taught him that much, even if the memory was frayed at the edges.
But the truth was simpler and far more practical. His body was weak. His power was gone. And this stubborn knight with his cold green eyes and unyielding sense of duty was the only constant he had found in this cycle so far.
"Fine," Hal said at last. "But don't expect gratitude every time you save me."
Atheus smirked, the expression not quite reaching his eyes. "Wouldn't dream of it. You're hopeless enough as it is."
They started walking. Hal's boots crunched on frost and shattered marble as they moved deeper into the ruins of Eldergrove Haven. Behind them, in the deepest shadow of the nave where dawn light refused to reach, something lingered a silhouette crowned with nothing, watching with patient hunger.
Hal felt its gaze pressing between his shoulder blades like a blade, but he said nothing. Some things were better left unspoken until he understood them himself.
Atheus glanced sideways at him after a few minutes of silence. "You know, I've met plenty of strange men on the frontier. You're the only one who talks like every day is borrowed time."
Hal didn't answer immediately. Because it was true. Every breath, every life borrowed. Until he found Grisha again, he belonged to the curse, the hunt, the endless cycle that refused to let him rest.
The whisper came once more, softer now, almost gentle.
"You will return to me."
A faint tremor ran through Hal's fingers. Thin arcs of pale blue light snapped across his palm weak, unstable, barely enough to light a candle in the wind.
He exhaled slowly. "So it's coming back. Kind of."
Atheus glanced over, concern flickering beneath the irritation. "Your Aperion?"
"Not real craft," Hal muttered. Another spark died against his skin. "Just residue. My channels collapsed while I was… gone. I'll need an archmage to redo the initiate ritual, reset the conduits. Otherwise I'm stuck with birthday-sparkler magic for weeks."
"I know someone in Selengar," Atheus said. "He owes me a favor big enough to fix even you."
Hal managed half a smile, the expression faint but genuine. "While we're there… think you could help me with something else?"
"Depends."
"An occupation." Hal shrugged, the motion almost embarrassed. "Can't keep walking into cities looking like a corpse that lost a fight with gravity. And until the channels are fixed, I need to eat."
Atheus snorted, the sound carrying a hint of reluctant amusement. "After everything we've survived, finding you a job will be the easiest task I've had all year."
The small certainty warmed Hal more than any spark of magic could. For the first time since waking, the weight on his chest felt fractionally lighter.
They moved deeper into the ruins, toward the distant outskirts where the faint trace of an old signature still lingered. The strange presence from the cathedral still gnawed at the back of Hal's awareness not void, but close. An imitation wearing the void's skin, learning how to hunt him properly.
The sun finally rose, spilling pale light across broken towers and frost-covered vines. The morning felt less hostile, but not safe.
Hal flexed his fingers. No sparks now. Just cold.
"Atheus," he murmured. "Whatever that thing was… it's learning how to mimic the void. And it's getting better."
"Then we move fast," the knight said, voice steady with purpose. "Before it perfects the trick."
They quickened their pace. Behind them, in the deepest shadow where dawn should have burned it away, the crowned silhouette remained.
Watching.
Waiting.