The day was beginning to fade. Crimson-orange light slipped through the crumbling towers of Moat Cailin like blood seeping through cracked stone. The final day of Levi's so-called three days of grace was slipping by, and he had done… almost nothing.
He had wandered the old fortress with the same aimlessness that defined his first days in Bogwater. He kicked a rock for five minutes. He sat beside a mossy wall for ten. He even stared at a bird until it flew off out of pure discomfort.
For once, the cheat engine had been left untouched—though it buzzed at the back of his mind like a persistent itch. Levi could feel it. Something had changed ever since the file had responded in that broken tower. But whatever power it held, whatever potential, it demanded thought. Work. Risk. All things he had spent a lifetime avoiding.
With the sun dipping behind the swamps and the calls of frogs beginning to echo, Levi figured he'd find Jory. The kid had more energy than sense, but at least he talked like a human being.
Walking through a vine-draped hallway, he turned a corner—only to freeze mid-step.
Voices.
He ducked behind a collapsed doorway, barely hidden by the shadows clinging to the stone. Just ahead, near the base of the tower stairs, two guards stood idly in conversation. They hadn't seen him.
"…There's talk of a tourney in the south," one of them said, adjusting his sword belt.
"Aye. Lord Arryn's hosting it in the Vale. Some say it's for Lord Eddard and the young lords who've come of age."
"Baratheon's riding in it, isn't he?" the second guard asked. "The Storm Lord himself."
"They say he wins everything, drinks twice as much, and fights like he's made of fire and steel. Eddard's close to him, though. Foster brothers and all. Might not matter if Ned fights or not. He's not the tourney sort."
Levi blinked. A tourney? Eddard? Robert Baratheon?
The names came like a slow slap. He didn't know much about Westeros—not yet—but he knew enough to recognize those names. And hearing them in casual conversation made the world feel suddenly realer.
The first guard nodded. "Jon Arryn's trained him well. Those Vale lords raise 'em proper. Not like us lot, raised by frogs and fog."
They both chuckled.
Then came the part that made Levi's blood chill.
"…and that boy with Gran Mae? The strange one? He looks about the same age, don't he?"
"Aye," the second said. "Maybe a touch thinner. Bit of a daft look on him, too."
Levi's stomach dropped. Same age…?
He slowly backed away, his heart pounding. Not from fear of being caught—but from realization.
They think I'm fourteen.
He leaned against the moss-covered wall, suddenly lightheaded. I'm twenty-five. Or I was. I had a job. A couch. Wi-Fi!
But the pieces were falling into place now. Too easily.
He hadn't just been sent to this world.
He had replaced someone.
A boy with no history, no name, no one to notice his absence.
"…Why didn't I notice?" Levi whispered, mouth dry. "Why didn't I ever question that?"
Because he was lazy. Sure but in action mostly the mind is so free to think and have a thoughtful journey but now because avoiding a thought was easier than facing it.
He let his thoughts unravel like old thread. Everything was noise now—the swamp bugs, the croak of frogs, the idle gossip of soldiers still echoing faintly behind him. But in his mind, a quiet question stood alone
Why does it feel like a part of my mind and some of its intellect or whatever had it was somehow gone.
No answer came. Just the sting of twilight wind on his face.