"Huff — huff — huff —"
Theo tears himself out of sleep all at once.
He bolts upright, both hands flying to his throat, pressing against it — his eyes wide and wild and fixed on something that isn't in this room.
"No — no—!"
Down the corridor, a woman with blonde hair is already moving. She reaches his room to find him still screaming, hands locked around his own neck, his whole body soaked in sweat.
She crosses the room and pulls him against her.
"Son — son — what happened?"
A maid appears in the doorway behind her.
Something in the woman's voice cuts through it. The screaming slows. The breathing finds a rhythm. His hands loosen from his throat.
He opens his eyes and sees her face.
"...Mother?"
"Yes, my son." She pulls back to look at him. "Did you have a nightmare?"
But he isn't listening. The image surfaces without warning — her body, still, on the ground, covered in blood. The same face now watching him with living eyes.
He throws his arms around her and holds on.
"Is it really you?" His voice breaks. "Is this the afterlife? Mother — I missed you. Every single day, I—"
"Theo." She holds him tighter. "Nothing has happened to me. This is not the afterlife."
She undoes the hug gently, and her thumbs move across his cheeks, wiping the tears away.
"It was a nightmare?"
Theo doesn't answer right away. He looks around the room slowly. At the walls, the light through the curtains, his own hands. He turns his head toward the mirror on the far wall.
A teenage boy looks back at him.
What.
His hand drifts back to his throat. His fingers press against the skin there.
Was my neck not—
The cold reaches his spine all at once.
"Theo — Theo—"
"Young master—"
Both voices pull him back. He looks at his mother's face — frightened, searching — and makes a quiet decision.
Later. Think about it later.
He exhales. "I just had a nightmare, Mother. Don't worry."
She doesn't look fully convinced. "If the pressure of the succession is too much, I can speak to your father—"
"It's nothing like that." He shakes his head, and then something genuine moves across his face. "Could I have a mango pie? Made by your hands?" He looks at her. "I think that would fix everything right now."
The worry on her face softens. She stands, already turning toward the door.
"That's all you had to say. I'll make as much as you want."
She's gone before he can say anything more.
Theo watches the empty doorway.
She's always like this, he thinks — and the ache in his chest is not unpleasant. Just heavy. The particular weight of something you lost and somehow have back.
He glances at the maid still hovering near the door.
"Siri."
"Yes, Young Master?"
"Go and help her."
"Yes, Young Master."
Theo gets up from the bed and walks to the mirror.
He stands there for a long moment, just staring.
His face. Young. Unmarked. The face of an eighteen year old boy looking back at him with dark, uncertain eyes.
How is this possible.
His mind moves fast. His mother — alive. Siri — alive. And this place. He looks around the room slowly, taking it in. The walls, the furniture, the window, the morning light falling exactly where it always used to.
Isn't this the Grandal Duchy.
The duchy he destroyed himself. With Ashora. With his own two hands, he had torn it apart — and now here it stands around him, whole and untouched, like none of it ever happened.
And this room.
His eyes go dark.
This is the room where that bastard killed my mother.
The rage comes fast and hot. His fist moves before he thinks about it and hits the mirror. The glass cracks across the middle, splitting his reflection into pieces.
He stands there breathing, staring at his broken image.
Then a new thought pushes through the anger.
How am I here.
He turns and walks to the window. Opens it. The outside air comes in His eyes move across the rooftops until they find the clock tower rising above everything else.
He looks at the date displayed on its face.
Emlarz Calendar. Year 761.
He goes still.
Year 761.
That means I am eighteen years old.
That means in three days — three days — the successor race for the Grandal Duchy opens.
He grips the windowsill.
Which means everything is about to happen again.
The rage comes back — quieter this time, but deeper. He thinks of his mother downstairs in the kitchen right now, making mango pie with her own hands, completely unaware of what is coming for her.
That bastard will kill her again.
No.
The word forms in his chest before it reaches his mind.
No. I will not let that happen.
He looks down at his hands. Young hands. Soft. Nowhere near strong enough for what he is remembering.
If this is real — if I have actually come back — then I have to move fast.
He thinks clearly now, the rage folding itself into something colder and more useful. His head had been cut clean from his shoulders. He had died. He was certain of that. And yet here he stands, eighteen years old, three days before everything begins.
The first thing. The most important thing.
I have to reach the Second Tier. I have to be strong enough to stop it this time.
He nods to himself, the decision settling like stone.
I will destroy this damned Grandal family again — but this time, I will not lose anyone to do it.
He lifts his eyes to the open sky above the city. Wide and blue and indifferent.
A quiet look crosses his face. Something between determination and the particular warmth of an old memory.
I am waiting for you, he thinks. My dear friend. We will meet again soon — just like before.
Ashora.
"Hello, Sis Leona."
The voice comes from behind her — soft and familiar. Leona knows who it belongs to before she even turns around. A smile breaks across her face without her choosing it.
She spins on her heel.
"Ikshita — is that really you?"
She crosses the distance in two steps and pulls her into a tight hug. For Leona, Ikshita and Ashora have always occupied the same place — the people she has known the longest, longer than memory almost, since the three of them were small enough that none of it has a clear beginning. But Ikshita is her only girl friend, and that makes her something a little more special, a little more hers.
She squeezes tighter.
"Where were you for the past two years?" Her voice wavers between relief and accusation. "You left without saying a single word to me."
"Sis — I was with my uncle Phillip." Ikshita pulls back enough to speak properly. "I wanted to learn magic. But he said that for someone who already uses sword energy, sensing and using magic at the same time would be extremely difficult — so he took me into isolation to train."
"And how did it go?"
Ikshita smiles. "Very well. I am a Second Circle Mage now."
"Oh, nice," Leona says — and then in the same motion she slides her arm around Ikshita's neck and presses down, hard.
"But next time," she says pleasantly, "you tell me where you are going before you disappear."
"I — I — u-understand — big sis—"
Leona releases her.
Ikshita straightens up, rubbing her neck, and does not look remotely angry about it. She knows exactly how much that grip means.
She smiles. "Congratulations to you too, Sis Leona. Second Stage Awakener."
"Yes, yes!" Leona laughs, waving it off. "Now come on — let's go find Ashora. He missed you too." She starts walking, then throws the next part over her shoulder. "Also, Ashora and I are leaving on a long journey soon. Around the whole world. You should come."
Ikshita's eyes light up immediately. "I would love to—"
"Not that easy." Leona cuts it off without slowing her pace. "You have to ask your mother and father first. I can't just take you with us."
The light in Ikshita's eyes dims a little.
"...Both of them agreeing is going to be a struggle."
They reach Ashora's room. Leona knocks twice.
"Hey, Ashora — look who's here to meet you."
The door opens. Ashora looks out — and his eyes land on Ikshita.
"Oh," he says. "It's you."
Ikshita blinks. She had built this moment up in her head without quite realizing it — had expected something from him, some version of the warmth she was feeling herself. Instead his face is flat. Unbothered. Like she has just returned from a short errand.
"Ahh, big sis." Ashora shifts his gaze to Leona. "It's just Ikshita. You had me excited like the gods themselves were coming to visit."
He looks back at Ikshita with a casual shrug. "So — how are you? Enjoy your trip?"
"Yes," Ikshita says quietly. "I enjoyed it a lot."
Her eyes are doing something her voice is not. The disappointment sits in them plainly — not dramatic, just honest. She had thought about this meeting every day for two years. And he looks at her like he barely noticed she was gone.
She starts to sink into her own thoughts —
"Ow—"
Ashora's voice cuts through in genuine pain. Leona has hit him across the back — sharp and deliberate.
"Stop the act," she says flatly. She looks at Ikshita. "Don't be sad over this fool. He's performing."
"Sis, you didn't have to—" Ashora rolls his shoulder with a wince. Then he looks at Ikshita, and something easier moves across his face. "She's right. I was acting." A beat. "Seriously though — where did you even go? Two years, no contact, nothing. What happened?"
Ikshita opens her mouth —
"Forgive me for interrupting, Your Highnesses."
A servant stands a short distance away, head bowed low, hands folded.
"I beg forgiveness for the interruption. His Majesty and Her Majesty have called for both of you — immediately."
He bows once more and withdraws.
The three of them stand there for a moment in the quiet left behind.
"We talk later," Ashora says, already turning.
Ikshita nods.
Their reunion — barely begun — is set aside, and the three of them head off together to answer the amitrochates and tisya summon,