"...How is it?" Ashen asked after the healer finished his spell.
The elderly man's face tightened. He also looked at Seraphine with something almost pleading in his expression.
The woman in question sadly answered with a slight shake of her head. "Nothing changed."
"...Alright."
Ashen didn't look surprised. He casually dismissed the frightened old man and settled back into his throne.
His lack of surprise was natural; this wasn't the first healer to attempt a cure. In fact, he was the last of hundreds, every one of them was accomplished enough to pull someone back from the verge of death under normal circumstances… but they had all faltered under her condition.
Fortunately, Ashen hadn't placed all his hopes on them.
"Regina."
"Lord." The head maid answered promptly.
"Is the magic circle ready?"
"Yes, my lord. The final touches were completed this morning."
"Good. just in time." He stood with renewed spirit. Seraphine moved to his side and intertwined their hands. "Let's go. This time it will work."
"I'm sure it will," she gave him a reassuring smile, almost as if he were the one about to die.
"That's the spirit. Let's hurry, the deadline is approaching."
They walked the castle's corridors with Regina in tow until they reached a dimly lit room in the far corner of a long hall. Inside, two male elves stood over a grand circle filled with geometric signs, elven script inscribed along its borders. It was the chant rendered in written form.
"Primordial, you arrived at the right time. The circle only needs the person in question to complete the casting." One of the elves turned at their entrance with a smile. He was elderly, which said quite a lot about his age, since a thousand-year-old elf would barely look past middle age.
"Nothing went wrong?"
"Everything is perfectly in place. The spell will function even on a fresh corpse, provided it is within minutes of death. With your mana and the number of mana cores we've set in place, we could revive a dragon, let alone a human girl. Haha."
"Your consort won't be able to die even if she wanted to with this masterpiece," the other elf finished in reassurance.
"Then let's begin." Ashen filtered the obvious pride from the words and kept what was useful.
In this era, the lost art of magic circles had not yet been lost. Unlike conventional spell casting, it required inscribing intent in written form and arranging the inscription so that no mana leaked when the circle was charged, hence the geometry and the signs.
This particular circle had been built through collaboration between the castle's best minds and these two elf sages after Ashen described Seraphine's condition. As for why the elves had agreed… beyond genuine interest in the project, making the king of vampires owe them a favor for the price of saving one human woman was an obvious profit.
Ashen didn't care about their motives. As long as they did the work, he could accumulate favors. He wouldn't be here forever anyway.
Seraphine stepped into the center of the circle and waited. Ashen stood directly behind her.
The inscribed lines began to shimmer. The glow built gradually, intensifying until the lines looked almost liquid with mana running through them like water through channels.
The spell held itself suspended, waiting for the right moment.
And when three months had passed precisely from the moment of his arrival, the right moment came.
Seraphine's body gave way on its own. She sank to her knees, her face visibly draining of color. The glow broke from the confines of the written chant, and a white brilliance filled the chamber.
Ashen moved instantly, catching her before she reached the floor, one hand sliding to her waist as he eased them both down, her back against his chest. His other hand pressed to a specific point on the circle's edge.
His mana surged next, pouring every drop he had into the spell, Mana Authority pushing the flow faster than his body was designed to emit.
When he was spent, the mana the spell had taken turned a deep verdant green and latched onto Seraphine's body, saturating her entire being.
He produced a sharp knife from his sleeve and drew it across his wrist in one swift motion. As blood welled freely, he brought it to her mouth.
She latched on instinctively, drinking with fervor.
For a moment, everything seemed to hold. Ashen's face softened. The elves wore pleased expressions. Regina watched with wide eyes.
Then Seraphine's swallowing slowed.
…And slowed.
And stopped entirely.
GULK — GRLKKK—
Her choked voice cut through the oppressive silence. Her blood mixed with his in the hollow of her throat. Ashen watched, helpless, as the life in his arms quietly left his reach.
She reached for him instinctively in those last moments, and in that reaching, he finally saw it. The fear she had been burying under every reassurance she'd given him. How could she not have been afraid? Seraphine wasn't made of stone. Of course she was afraid of dying.
Ashen felt like his heart was being torn into a million pieces as those once blue eyes that were now dulled gazed at him with longing one last time before she breathed her last and went completely still.
"..."
"..."
"Im-impossible—!"
One of the elves cried out, but Ashen heard only a faint ringing. The world lost its substance, with nothing left in it but the memory of her last gaze, looping.
.
.
.
Another glow swallowed the room.
This one had nothing to do with the failed spell.
⛧ ⛧ ⛧
The world reclaimed its meaning.
For this particular primordial, at least. But meaning arrived alongside a rage so total it left no room for anything else.
'Why?'
'Why?'
'Why do you dare to touch her?!'
Ashen opened his eyes to find Regina already prostrated, forehead against the floor, trembling visibly under the pressure of mana that had flooded the room in response to his emotions.
"...L-lord?" she tried.
He barely registered her.
'Whoever you are. Whatever you are. For making her show that face… I will kill you.'
'I will kill you even if it's the last thing I do.'
⛧ ⛧ ⛧
"Do not disturb me until my consort arrives."
After dismissing Regina, Ashen set his mind to work.
The first thing he examined was the nature of what was happening. He hadn't regressed in a linear sense; that was clear. This was a loop. Triggered by something, repeating under conditions he hadn't yet identified.
The most likely architect was his other self. But Twin Souls was dormant.
The same restriction that had applied during the first Fragment of History applied here. His other self had gained a soul and was treated as a separate entity by the Beholder's gaze, and therefore could not be accessed.
He didn't know the precise trigger. Was it Seraphine's death? The three-month mark? Both?
He also didn't know how many repetitions this loop could sustain, and he wasn't willing to find out by gambling with her life. Whatever the cause, he now knew the mechanism, and he had three months.
'Three months to find a solution. That's enough. That has to be enough.'
⛧ ⛧ ⛧
He didn't waste time.
When Seraphine arrived, he told her everything, from the Beholder's ability, the loops, the body she inhabited, and the death he had already watched twice. He left nothing out.
"This is a lot to take in," she said when he finished, offering a helpless smile.
"I know. I'm sorry."
"No!" She waved her hands. "Why are you apologizing? You didn't want any of this. And don't look so distressed… I believe you."
"Really?"
"Yes. Everything you said, I believe it." She pulled him into a hug and guided his face to her chest, as if that were simply where it belonged. "I should be the one apologizing. Watching me die must have been terrible… right?"
She caressed his face gently, and he allowed himself, finally, to relax by a fraction.
"...Yes."
"It must have hurt."
"Yes."
"I'm so sorry for causing you that pain, Ash..." Tears glinted at the edge of her eyes. Her voice nearly trembled, but she kept it steady and warm.
"Don't be." He lifted his face. "It's my duty as your man to keep you safe. That's what the Eternal you believe in teaches, isn't it? Can't have you disadvantaged compared to the rest of His female believers."
He tried to lighten the mood, but his hollow gaze wasn't cooperating.
"...Besides, I got you into this. I'll get you out."
"Ash…" She looked at his current state and decided that she couldn't leave him like this. She had to do something.
"I'm glad you're considering my faith," she said, with a faint smile. "But I want you to promise me one thing."
"Yes. Anything."
"Good. Based on how you described it, there's a chance the loop could repeat even if you save me this time; you have no proof it ends with my death, right?"
He nodded, reluctantly.
"Then what I want is simple. Every time you go back, I want you to inform me about all the previous loops."
He thought about it, then nodded slowly.
Seraphine pinched his cheek and grinned. "Not by telling. I want you to show me."
"Show…?"
"Don't you have dreamweaving? Use it on me. Every time."
"Oh… but why?"
"Because won't you feel lonely, repeating the same stretch of time over and over? hearing the same words, living the same moments, the same everything?" She held his gaze. "I want to be with you through all of it. So promise me."
"...I promise." He turned it over and found no reason against it. In fact, having Seraphine carry the weight of accumulated memory alongside him would only help.
"Good!" She ruffled his hair. "Now~ Start with the last two loops. I want to see them."