The old wing of the Silva Estate had been locked for centuries.
Scarlet moved through it in silence, careful not to disturb the dust that slumbered on the stone-carved sigils. She had no reason to be here—no permission. But something had drawn her. Not instinct.
Kale's voice.
Not spoken. Not shouted.
Thought.
She'd heard it again.
"A week. That's all I need. Just a week to stabilize the soul."
It whispered into her mind like breath over skin—close but intangible. The voice echoed too clearly to be her imagination. And it was his. Kale's voice, unmistakable.
And it wasn't the first time.
She found him in the heart of the estate's forbidden sanctum—a vault chamber of rune-slicked stone, forgotten by history but pulsing faintly with ancient power.
Kale knelt at the center of an old sigil ring, shirtless and still. His back was turned to her, the exposed skin of his shoulders glowing faintly with foreign script—alive, writhing like ink in water. His hands rested on his thighs, clenched white.
He wasn't meditating.
He was enduring.
His body was trembling. Slowly. Violently. Like someone trying not to scream.
Scarlet watched, breath caught in her chest.
She had always known Kale was strange. Cold. Unnerving.
But this?
"The fracture's deep this time. Took too much in the last death."
Last death?
She blinked hard.
"A few hundred loops ago, I used this chamber to kill a Fallen Weaver. Took me seven tries. Didn't even know what I was back then…"
She stopped breathing.
Hundreds of loops…?
"...After the three-hundredth time, I stopped counting. It doesn't matter anymore. The world still ends. Evan still smiles. And Scarlet still hates me."
Her knees gave slightly under her.
A quiet gasp nearly slipped through her lips, but she bit down hard on it. Her fingers trembled as her mind reeled.
Three hundred…?
He's died hundreds of times… and come back… again and again?
Her heart slammed against her ribs. Her head spun.
And Kale—Kale didn't know she was there.
He shifted slightly, his head tilting upward, eyes still closed.
"Seven days. Then I'll be whole again. Then I can kill gods if I must. Again."
The glow faded slightly from his skin, the sigils dulling into scars rather than light.
His breathing slowed. Normalized. His voice, his thoughts, quieted.
But Scarlet's thoughts screamed in her skull.
Kale Silva has looped hundreds of times.
And no one knows. Not even me.
She backed away from the chamber like a thief, heart hammering like a war drum, retreating into the silent hallways of the estate.
By the time she reached her room, she slammed the door shut and pressed her back against it, trying to breathe.
She didn't speak. Didn't cry. Didn't move.
She stared at the floor for what felt like an hour, one truth echoing over and over again:
Kale Silva… is not human.
That night, she couldn't sleep.
She lay in bed, the silk sheets twisted around her legs like restraints, eyes open to the ceiling.
And for the first time since she had met him—
She felt something more terrifying than hatred.
She felt curiosity.