Lucid stood there, holding the cold hand of the man who was not his father. He could not help the slight sobs and sniffles that escaped him. He did not know why he was crying. Something deep inside his brain registered a profound loss, but he was not supposed to feel this. Why was he feeling the same crushing emotions as Karmen?
'These people are not real. Focus,' he ordered himself.
'This is not your family.'
'He is not your father,' he thought bitterly.
The feeling of failure was a stone in his gut. 'I tried. I really did try.'
Then, the pressure began. It was not a void, but a heavy, smothering darkness that sought to swallow his awareness and pull him under. It enveloped the edges of his vision.
'No. No. No.'
"I said no!" he yelled, not in his mind but aloud. He straightened up, stomping his feet on the wooden floor as if to ground himself in the physical world.
He was starting to understand it. The more cycles he went through, the more he synchronized with the real Karmen. Lucid would do things he normally would not. He did not know how far along this merging was, but he guessed it was quite advanced. If he started to act like Karmen, or worse, become Karmen himself, the penalty of the trial might be guaranteed without a way out.
The indifferent darkness that had covered his body recoiled. It shrank back, retreating into the corners of the room until it was gone.
"Tch. So I can resist it," he thought. Lucid was back in full control. All that crying and pleading had been Karmen's body reacting. He himself had not moved or truly wept, though he could feel a lingering sense of sorrow, a pity for Karmen. He understood how it felt to lose a father. To have someone so strong and always there for you just vanish, claimed by death. It hit too close to home. But now was not the time to focus on his personal past struggles. He needed to focus on the struggle that presented itself for today and tomorrow.
"There is his mother, brother, and niece left," he started reasoning in broken murmurs, wiping the wetness from his cheeks. Lucid, Karmen, the line was unclear over who was truly in control by now.
A hand rested on his shoulder. In a flash, he spun around, gripping the cloth of the sleeve and pulling upward to see who it was.
It was Jane, the young maid.
Thinking it was that slender, venomous looking woman Ivy, he had prepared to attack in that moment. But it was not her. It was the girl who had helped him earlier. He calmed down, breathing in and out slowly to steady himself.
"Bring Gerald. Say that I want the most expensive gravestone there is. And, and," he instructed, his voice broke off i to silent sobs.
She did not reply with words. Instead, she gently tugged at his hand and then wrapped her arms around him, hugging him from behind. Her head rested against his shoulder blade.
"It is alright. You do not need to put on an act," she said softly.
Whether it was a moment of grief, a moment of frustration, or a moment of losing control, Karmen broke. He cried in that moment, his body trembling slightly in her arms.
"After every family he had visited to save, after every sickbed he had witnessed, a sigh of acknowledgment had awaited him. It was never enough," Lucid muttered, half to himself.
"I am sorry," he managed to say.
"Look at me, Master Karmen. You are wonderful," she said.
She smiled, looking up at him.
Lucid's own thoughts came in sharp and cold, a defense against the warmth she offered.
'No, no, no. Wait, this is not right. Come to your senses,' he argued internally.
'She wants nothing more than my title and my expenses. I mean, I am the young master after all. This is just her duty.'
"I prepared a bath for you. Please, let me tend to you," Jane offered, her voice hopeful.
'No, Karmen!' Lucid was fighting back for control. The other voices inside his body, the remnants of Karmen and Alice, were quiet. Yet how was it that he could still feel this pull, this urge to surrender to the comfort being offered?
'It makes no sense. The path should be changed drastically. Karmen should not be acting, or making me act, with such emotional weight. The events are different from the original timeline.'
Outwardly, Lucid smiled at her. A blush crept up the neck of the orange haired girl, a feeling she could not control.
"I am alright, please. Call Ivy for me. There are arrangements to be made."
The room was soon overwhelmed by butlers and maids, their cries filling the air as they gathered around their late master's body. It was publicly established that he had suffered a heart attack that evening. Plans for a quick funeral were set into motion.
'It is time,' Lucid thought.
It was morning by now. Time had passed in a blur. Lucid could not wait. He could not bring himself to relax. During the funeral, he would take matters into his own hands.
Before the funeral began, he slipped into his mother's room. She was in her bed, and like Lyle, she was flat asleep, caught in the same unnatural slumber. She was the same woman he had taken blood from in a past cycle. Now he would make it up by curing whatever that witch had cast upon his family.
He administered the antidote quickly and slipped out of the bedroom, a feeling of grim triumph in his chest. It had been quick work. But he quickly came to a realization. He could not change much in this cycle. This cycle was different. He did not have to try as hard. He did not have to sway someone's interests. He did not have to accept terrible compromises. No, he had simply carried knowledge from the last cycle forward. He had done what could not have been done before.
***
Time synchronization
***
Weeks went by in what felt like a very short period. It was as if a rift had carried him further in time, a jump he had not controlled. He was sitting at that familiar desk of his again, looking like he had not had much sleep. He looked toward the window. His brother was there in the yard, constructing some weird metal thing. His mother was in the garden, sipping tea under a parasol. It was a beautiful, lush summer day. Things were going alright, better even. But he felt that something was not right. A deep, formless ache of anxiety sat in his chest.
As he sat, a familiar knock resounded through the door.
"Come in."
It was Jane. She was carrying a tray of tea. Lucid, or the part of him that was Karmen, felt a deep sense of relief. A part of him was genuinely happy to see her.
He sniffed the tea, taking in its fragrance before drinking. It was tea with some strange herb mixed in it, Karmen's favorite. Taking a sip, though, it reminded Lucid of a certain cheap tea he had once spat out at an inn long ago.
"Thank you for the tea."
"I am pleased it is to your liking, master."
"So, Ivy is still here in this mansion, though her work as a healer is no longer needed, correct?"
"Yes, sir. She is currently in her guest room. She says she is finalizing her notes before departing."
"Is that so."
Ivy had been suspiciously quiet and unnoticeable as of late. He guessed her plan had partially worked, but also partially failed. She would need to contact Materna and seek further instructions on how to advance now that her primary scheme had been disrupted. Lucid could not help but manage a triumphant grin. He had won. Partially.
Karmen's father's death was a bitter taste left on his tongue, a tarry residue of failure.
Though he had stopped the Withering, the magical plague was gone. He had won. But why was he still here? The rift, the force that cycled him, should have spat him back out by now. Like right after that Sentrum rift beside the town's fountain. The stillness was unnerving.
"Master, what are you thinking about?" Jane asked, watching his face.
"A victory. A bitter victory," he said.
She looked confused, and it was her right to be. He must have seemed like a madman muttering shrouded lines with hidden meanings.
The door to the study burst open.
It was Ivy, the Enlightened healer.
She tilted her head, studying him as one might examine a flawed but fascinating artifact.
"Tell me," Ivy said, her tone measured and refined, "which decree of Fate do you believe carries greater authority?"
Lucid did not answer. His jaw tightened.
She gestured lightly toward the stone beneath their feet, toward the halls and banners beyond the chamber walls.
"This territory," she continued, "has long been bound to Materna by covenant and decree. Its claim was written before your House ever raised its first spire."
Her gaze shifted back to him, sharp and unyielding.
"And yet," she said, "there is also the matter of lineage. The uninterrupted continuation of House Valrious, embodied in its sole surviving son."
Jane shifted uneasily behind him. Lucid felt it, though he did not turn. He remained where he was, shoulders squared, as if his presence alone could bar Ivy from advancing further.
'She is not threatening me,' his thoughts churned. 'She is weighing me.'
"You speak as though these things are negotiable," Lucid said. "As though Fate convenes councils and entertains arguments."
Ivy's lips curved, not in amusement, but in acknowledgment.
"Fate does not debate," she replied. "It adjudicates."
She took a slow step forward. The air felt heavier for it, thick with something unseen yet pressing.
"You have already forced her hand once," Ivy said. "Mother Fate claimed your father when he rejected the cure. That outcome was non-negotiable. It satisfied a debt that could not be deferred."
Her eyes flicked briefly toward Jane, then back to Lucid.
"The survival of the rest," she continued, "was permitted because it did not violate the core design. You did not erase the Withering. You merely altered its distribution."
Lucid clenched his fists. "You speak as though my family is a ledger."
"In matters of Fate," Ivy replied calmly, "all things are accounted for."
She stopped a few paces away from him now. Close enough that he could see the faint markings along her gloves, sigils woven so subtly they might be mistaken for ornamentation.
"You believe your fate has resolved," Ivy said. "That by surviving, by preserving your bloodline, you have concluded the matter."
Her expression softened, though there was no kindness in it.
"You have, in truth, created a conflict of obligations."
Lucid's breath caught.
'She is saying Fate must choose,' he realized. 'And something always pays the cost.'
"If the legacy of House Valrious continues," Ivy said, "then Materna's claim upon this land is delayed, perhaps even diminished."
She raised a finger slightly.
"If Materna's claim is fulfilled," she went on, "then the continued independence of your House becomes… inconvenient."
Silence settled between them, thick and oppressive.
"You stand at the convergence of these outcomes," Ivy concluded. "Not as their master, but as their point of tension."
Lucid felt it then. Not pain, not fear, but a pressure behind his thoughts. A sensation like being observed from within.
'This is not about choice,' he thought. 'It is about precedence.'
Jane's hand brushed his sleeve, tentative. "Lucid," she murmured.
Ivy's gaze did not leave him.
"Let us observe," she said politely, "which obligation Mother Fate elects to honor first."
Lucid swallowed.
For the first time since entering the rift, he understood that surviving was not the same as winning.
"Controlling you was not our end goal. It was this territory. This valued land that belongs to Materna,
She gestured her hand forward, fingers weaving in the air. She was casting a spell. Before Lucid could fully react, a blur of motion intercepted the space between them. The silhouette with the plain outfit of a maid stepped forward, jumping to shield her master.
"No, you idiot!" Lucid shouted.
It was a violet beam of concentrated, sickly light. It shot through the inside of the room with a sound like tearing silk. The force knocked back the heavy oak desk and shattered the windowpanes. Shock and noise resounded from outside.
Lucid fell to his back, clutching the girl who had just served him tea. He looked at her, choking on the dust and dread. "Are you alright?"
There was a huge, smoking gash across her stomach. The fabric of her dress was gone, the skin and flesh beneath burned and blackened. She was bleeding, a dark stain rapidly spreading.
"Ma... master... Kar... men," she said, the words broken and wet.
He clutched her tight, pressing his hands uselessly against the terrible wound. "No, no, no. Jane, it is okay. Breathe. Look at me."
"Oh, how cute. A couple in their last moment," Ivy's voice cut through the settling smoke and dust. She stood unharmed, watching.
"Jane. Look at me. I am here for you," Lucid pleaded, ignoring the witch.
Her eyes found his. Something flickered in them, a recognition, a softening. Then her gaze shifted. It looked past him, becoming unfocused and distant.
He followed her glance looking into her eyes. Fear registering.
Jane was dead.