Winter gnawed at the coast without mercy. The sea had turned the color of hammered iron, waves beating the sand to glass, and the wind slipped through every crack in the shack no matter how tightly Jalen braced it. He rebuilt it anyway — board by board, nail by nail — until the walls no longer rattled and the roof only leaked when storms came sideways. It wasn't perfect. But it was enough that Mira sometimes stayed through the night, her child warm against her shoulder.
He never admitted the work was for her. Yet when he drove stakes into the sand to brace the door, or dug a ditch so water wouldn't pool under the floorboards, he measured each decision against a weight he couldn't name: the sound of a baby's cough, the memory of Rhea shivering in her last moments.
When the storms eased, he punished his body.
He ran until frost cut his feet raw and his breath rasped like knives. He dragged driftwood in heaps across the sand, stacked it into walls, then tore them down to build again. He dropped to the ground and hammered push-ups into the earth until his arms shook, then lay flat in the cold, listening to his heartbeat pound against the silence.
Sometimes villagers watched from the dunes. Children whispered. Men muttered. But no one came close.
At night, he lit the fire and tested Dream Mold. It flickered weak, more smoke than steel, and when he forced it, pain surged through his chest like something tearing loose inside. He collapsed more often than he stood.
Meditation brought no peace. He sat cross-legged by the embers, eyes closed, breath slow. But the block was deeper than breath. Behind his ribs, the vault clanged shut, and memory spilled instead: Rhea's last cry, Stix's goodbye, Joker's cruel laughter that had been his own.
He always opened his eyes before dawn, no closer to breaking through.
The village learned his false name — Kael. They spoke it without fear now. They no longer whispered raider-slayer when he passed. Some even nodded, cautious but not cold. Children stared openly until their mothers pulled them away.
It was the traders who carried shadows.
They came on broken wagons, ribs sharp beneath cloaks, voices cracked by the road. And always, they spoke of Everlock.
The first time: "His crown's a noose now. He hanged one of his own generals for speaking against him."
Another time: "Temples burned. Priests were dragged through the streets. He spits on every god but he absolutely hates the God of Freedom."
And later still: "He outlawed the word freedom. A child who spoke it was branded a traitor and send into the wasteland that use to be the Verdant Expanse."
Jalen listened from the edge of the crowd, hood low. He never asked questions. Never corrected them. But each rumor pressed harder than the last, filling him like cold stones.
Mira found him one afternoon, fixing the latch of the shack's door with a strip of leather. She stood with her baby pressed to her chest, watching his hands work.
"Kael."
He kept working, but his posture softened. "Mira, you can call me by my real name when it's just us."
Her eyes lingered on him. "All right, Jalen. You listen to them more than anyone. If you care so much, why not see for yourself?"
His fingers pulled the leather tighter. "Because the time hasn't come yet."
"And if it never does?"
The knot bit into his skin as he tied it. At last, he lifted his eyes. "Then I'm happy here. It isn't perfect, but what is?"
He drew a long breath, as though forcing himself to continue. "My sister is here. You're here. So is baby John. Before I was the God of Freedom, I was only Jalen."
Mira's gaze didn't waver. "That's a half-truth. I can see it in your eyes."
He looked away first.
"You yearn for more — to make things right. I don't know everything you've been through, but I know this: you're still a man. You'll be knocked down, but content defeat? That isn't you."
Jalen's voice dropped. "You don't know me…"
"That's true. But I know you're a good man. You're the one who jumped between me and a sword. The one who drove off the raiders that haven't returned since. The one who let me stay in your house with my child. Ka—" she caught herself, "—Jalen, don't forget who you are."
She bent and kissed his cheek, then stepped past him into the house.
Jalen returned to Rhea's grave almost every night. Frost crusted the sand, the tide hissing over her name until it blurred white. He sat with his back against the stone, knife loose in his hand, staring at the surf.
Sometimes he spoke. More often, he didn't.
"I don't want to leave you," he whispered once, his voice stolen by the wind. "Here… I can still feel you."
The tide whispered back, endless, uncaring. He pressed his forehead to the cold stone and let the silence answer.
"I just want to stay here. The world's taken so much. Losing you was the final straw. My past life feels foreign now, and despite all the hardships of this one, you made it bearable. Now I'm alone again, with no idea where anyone is. Rumors say Kullen's turned against me, though I don't know why. I wish it were easier. I wish there were a sign I could stay."
But the word circled him heavier each night.
'Everlock.'
The breakthrough didn't come at once.
The first attempt, his hand sparked with Dream Mold, a hilt forming and crumbling before he could grip it. Pain left him coughing blood into the sand.
The second, the blade held — a crude length of light, sharp on one edge but fading on the other. It vanished before he could swing.
He tried again, and again. Each time the vault inside him pushed back. Each time he staggered closer to collapse.
But he refused to stop.
On the coldest night yet, with wind tearing at the coast, he stood barefoot in the surf and raised his hand. The glow crawled down his arm, weak at first, then thickened, sharpened, until it hummed with weight. A sword. Rough, imperfect — but a sword.
He clenched it. Didn't stop.
He reached deeper, lungs tearing, vision swimming. The vault cracked, just once.
And a figure stumbled out of him.
His own shape — blurred at the edges, but solid enough. A sword in its hand, the same glow burning. Its eyes opened, mirroring his own.
They raised blades together. Then they clashed, steel ringing across the beach. Sparks spat into the night, the tide swallowing their steps. Jalen pressed harder, faster, arms screaming, but the clone met him stroke for stroke.
From the shack, Mira stood in the doorway with her child pressed close. She said nothing. She only watched as Kael — Jalen — fought himself beneath the winter stars, each strike brighter than the last.