I said nothing as I departed the ruins of Durnhal.
No one waited to hear it from me.
No breeze. No heartbeat. No Loop murmuring riddles in my ear. Only the distant echo of my own feet walking across memory-wounds. The city had released me.
But it had taken something.
Not a power. Not even a memory.
It had consumed the version of me who believed staying alive was sufficient.
And that left me lighter now.
Perhaps too light.
With each step east, the world altered.
Stone broke into pale-blue frost. Permaice Loop-burnt shimmered over ground that shouldn't have been frozen. Trees slanted backward. The clouds did not move — they only hung, watching, as if waiting to fall.
The area was Straywinter.
A dead zone never born in any timeline — a paradox field scooped out by one of the earliest Loop collisions. Kael said nothing lasted here long, because time itself abandoned the task halfway through being.
And something was alive here.
Because I sensed it before I saw her.
A presence.
Tension. Pull.
Not hunger.
Judgment.
---
I topped a ridge of shattered ice.
And saw her.
Standing alone in a clearing of still-air.
A figure of steel and bitter quiet.
Astra.
The Loopborn General.
The Reset Watch's blade.
The one whose task was obvious: make sure Kevin never becomes the Collapse Catalyst at all costs.
Even if it meant murdering me before I knew what I was.
See also "The Story So Far" so far.
She didn't step aside as I came near. Simply stood. Waiting. The greatcloak draped over her armor did not stir. There was no wind present. Her helmet obscured most of her face only her mouth exposed, set in an expression of quiet certainty.
"You entered an unthreaded field," she told me. "That's a statement."
I paused fifteen steps away from her.
"Did you know?"
"I don't want to," she replied. "But that's irrelevant too."
"Why now?"
"Because now… you remember too much."
I balled up my fists.
"I didn't ask for these memories."
"You didn't refuse them either."
Astra drew her weapon.
Not a sword. Not a gun.
Something in between a long glaive that glittered with mirrored sides. Each blade bore glyphs that depicted various Kevins. I saw myself in all of them. Dying. Running. Laughing. Burning.
"This is your last intersection," Astra said.
"Meaning?"
"You choose now run, fight, or fold."
"And what do you choose?"
Her mouth twisted.
"None of those. I choose witness."
And then she attacked.
I just evaded the initial strike.
It wasn't quick. It was unstoppable.
Like earth falling. Or a memory crumbling.
Her glaive sliced through the frostline behind me, and it didn't respect physics. It sliced through the course I could have taken, erasing the choice.
The next blow didn't catch me but it caught the version of me who would've turned left.
He crumpled. He's gone.
And that left only the version of me who chose right.
I knew now.
Astra did not fight bodies.
She fought possibilities.
"This isn't fair," I growled, dropping into cover beside a splintered glacier.
"Correct," she shouted back. "It's never fair. That's why you should have died sooner."
The second strike was from above a midair sweep rewriting gravity just long enough to rip the ground away from beneath me.
I dropped. Rolled. Swore.
And when I got up, there was someone standing next to me.
He was my height. Same build. Same face.
But older.
His eyes were exhausted. His hands smoldered with loopfire.
"You're not real," I said.
"Neither are you," he told her softly. "But I recall how we defeated her."
"We don't defeat Astra. Nobody does."
"Not openly. But there's a window."
He gestured.
Behind her.
A flaw in the paradox field. Flickering. Temporary thread a brief divergence due to Durnhal's fall.
"That's your escape."
"..."
"And you?"
"..."
"I remain here."
"..."
"You'll perish."
"..."
"..."
"Already did. But one of us must live."
"..."
He walked away.
And ran at Astra.
I didn't wait.
I sprinted towards the flicker.
Behind me, I could hear Astra yelling, "NO!", and her blade screamed a folding of timelines, a silencing of echoes. My other self did not scream. He merely took the blow.
And made it matter.
Because the gap opened.
Just enough.
I plunged through.
Light.
Pain.
Silence.
Then
A voice.
Not Astra's. Not mine.
"You shouldn't be alive."
I came to.
And saw Veyne.
The Balance Blade.
Standing in the ruins of the reset point I'd just transitioned into.
His face inscrutable. His twin blades already out not in hostility, but as if he'd been waiting for me.
"You shouldn't have gotten past her."
"Neither should you."
"I didn't. Not exactly."
We stood for a long time in the sand.
Two survivors.
Both of us unsure if we were meant to be alive still.
And both of us aware of what was next.
---