The forest had always been quieter when Kael traveled alone.

  There was a stillness to it—not peace, not really, but a kind of passive watchfulness, like the world was holding its breath as he passed. No birdsong. No rustling of animals. Even the wind seemed careful not to stir the leaves too loudly.

  He walked with his cloak drawn tight, more to hide himself from memory than from the morning chill. The road beneath his boots was narrow, half-swallowed by weeds and time. A path forgotten by most, and yet he remembered it well. Too well.

  In regression #36, he’d led a battalion down this same route. They’d been ambushed two days later.

  In #72, he’d buried a companion beneath that moss-covered boulder just ahead.

  In #81, he’d died here.

  Kael didn't pause, didn’t flinch. He just kept walking, every step a quiet defiance of the past that tugged at him like invisible hands. He’d made it out of Avelryn. Away from the girl. Away from the inn with its creaky stairs and the widow’s warm smile. Away from that look in her eyes—that hope he didn’t ask for and didn’t deserve.

  Still, he felt like he hadn’t left anything behind at all. The doubt clung to him like woodsmoke.

  The road twisted, descending into a gully where the trees pressed close. Their branches arched overhead like ribs, filtering the daylight into fractured gold and green. The deeper he walked, the heavier the silence grew. Not ominous—just expectant.

  Something was coming.

  Kael slowed.

  His fingers flexed instinctively, drawing on an old thread of magic, one he hadn’t touched in this life. The weave shimmered faintly at his fingertips—just a whisper, a shimmer between worlds.

  He felt it before he heard it: the subtle change in air pressure, the way the forest exhaled all at once.

  Then—footsteps.

  Deliberate. Heavy.

  Kael turned, slowly.

  A man emerged from the treeline behind him, tall and broad-shouldered, wrapped in a soldier’s cloak with a sigil Kael hadn’t seen in decades: a black sun over crossed blades.

  Vaeltherian.

  Kael didn’t recognize the man—but the man clearly recognized him.

  “Kael Ardan,” he said, with the cool certainty of someone who wasn’t asking.

  Kael offered nothing in return. Just tilted his head slightly, eyes narrowing.

  The man smiled grimly, as though he didn’t expect politeness. “Didn’t expect to find you on this road. Not yet.”

  Kael’s voice, when it came, was quiet and flat. “Then you haven’t been paying attention.”

  The man snorted. “We pay attention. You’re the one who vanished off the board. No prophecy. No armies. Just… gone.”

  Kael didn’t respond. He could feel the weave shifting again, warping subtly with the stranger’s presence. Time was thinner here. He needed to be careful.

  “I’m not here to fight,” the man added. “Though I imagine you wouldn’t believe that.”

  “No,” Kael said. “I wouldn’t.”

  The man took a step closer, and Kael’s hand twitched near his belt—not for a blade. For something older. Something worse.

  But the man stopped. Raised both hands. “I’m not your enemy, Ardan. At least, not today.”

  There was a long pause. The wind stirred the leaves again, softer this time.

  “Who are you?” Kael asked finally.

  “General Varn.”

  Kael blinked. That name was an echo—one he hadn’t expected to hear.

  “You were a brigadier in regression… what, forty-three?”

  Varn nodded slowly. “Fifty-seven, as well. We never met directly. But I’ve read the reports. All the ones they kept, anyway.”

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  Kael frowned. “I burned most of those.”

  “Not fast enough.”

  The forest fell quiet again.

  Varn looked tired—not physically, but behind the eyes. Like he’d been carrying a truth too long, unsure where to put it down. Kael recognized that look.

  “I came to find you,” Varn said after a moment. “Because I’m starting to remember things I shouldn’t.”

  Kael raised an eyebrow. “Hallucinations?”

  “No. Battlefields. Names. Conversations that never happened—except they did. Just not in this life.”

  Kael studied him carefully now. Regression echoes weren’t supposed to bleed into normal people. Not without a tether.

  “What triggered it?”

  “I don’t know,” Varn admitted. “A month ago, I had a dream. Woke up remembering a siege that never happened. The next day, I avoided a trap I shouldn’t have known about. And then…”

  “Then you saw me,” Kael finished for him.

  Varn nodded.

  The pieces were moving faster this time.

  Kael exhaled through his nose, thinking. This wasn’t just fate correcting itself—this was interference. Something—or someone—was fraying the weave.

  “Whatever’s happening,” Varn said, “you’re at the center of it. Again.”

  Kael grimaced. “Lucky me.”

  They stood in silence for a long moment, the tension between them hanging like a blade.

  Varn broke it first. “You’re not going to stop it, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Even if everything collapses?”

  Kael met his gaze. “Let it.”

  Varn looked away, jaw tight. “Then we’re already dead.”

  Kael shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “Why run, then?”

  “I’m not running. I’m leaving.”

  “That’s semantics.”

  Kael’s expression darkened. “No. Running means fear. This? This is freedom.”

  “You think apathy is freedom?”

  “I think dying for a world that refuses to change is slavery.”

  The words landed with a weight Kael hadn’t intended, and Varn flinched slightly.

  “I used to think like you,” Kael said, quieter now. “Fifty lives ago. Maybe sixty. Thought I could make it better. Thought I could save people. But no matter how many times I tried, the ending was always the same.”

  “You don’t know that this time would be—”

  “Yes,” Kael snapped. “I do.”

  Varn didn’t argue. Maybe he couldn’t.

  After a moment, Kael turned to go. “Whatever memories are bleeding through—ignore them. Burn them out of your skull if you have to.”

  “And if I can’t?”

  Kael stopped. Looked over his shoulder.

  “Then remember who you were. And decide if that man was worth becoming again.”

  He left Varn standing there, alone in the trees.

  By midday, the forest had thinned. The road bent along the edge of a low ridge, revealing the valley below. A winding river cut through the landscape like a silver scar, and on the far side, smoke curled from the chimneys of a small township—larger than Avelryn, but still humble. Kael hesitated.

  The place was familiar.

  Of course it was. He’d come through here in regression #12. Saved them from a fire.

  In #49, he’d been the one to light it.

  Kael descended slowly, his boots crunching the gravel path. His mind felt raw—too many memories stirring at once. He needed rest. Food. Distance from whatever the hell Varn had just confirmed.

  And then—he felt it.

  A pull.

  Not physical, not magical. Something stranger. Like the weave itself had nudged him.

  He turned.

  A child was staring at him from the edge of a barn.

  The boy couldn’t have been more than ten. Straw-colored hair, dirt on his face, a wooden sword clutched in his hand.

  Kael froze.

  The boy’s eyes widened. “You’re him.”

  Kael blinked. “What?”

  “The Lightbringer. From the stories.”

  Kael’s stomach sank. “You’re mistaken.”

  “No I’m not,” the boy said, stepping forward. “You look just like the statue in the chapel.”

  Kael cursed under his breath. He’d burned that chapel in regression #61. How was the statue still—

  He turned, walking briskly. “Go home, kid.”

  But the boy followed. “They said you died. That you sacrificed yourself to kill the dragon.”

  “I did,” Kael muttered. “More times than I can count.”

  The boy paused. “But you’re alive now.”

  Kael didn’t answer. Just kept walking.

  The boy’s voice called after him: “Are you going to save us again?”

  Kael stopped. Didn’t turn.

  “No,” he said, without emotion. “I’m not.”

  He walked on.

  The wind shifted. Smoke, this time, but not from chimneys.

  Real smoke.

  Kael turned his head—and saw the black cloud rising from the far side of the town.

  Something was burning.

  His heart twisted. Not with fear. Not with duty.

  With irritation.

  Because he knew—knew without a doubt—that if he walked toward that fire, he’d be pulled back in.

  But he also knew… he was going to do it anyway.