The Codex screamed.
Not in words, but in a chorus of sound that shattered thought and sense alike. The throne room trembled, torches guttering as if the flames themselves feared to stay. Shadows twisted free of the walls, crawling across the floor like living ink.
Aleksi felt the first word claw its way into his throat. It tore through his chest like a blade, burning, searing, unstoppable. His vision went white.
Then the world tore open.
The court dissolved into shrieks. The guards clutched at their helmets as blood trickled from beneath the steel. A courtier's face melted into ash before his eyes. And above it all stood Elara, laughing like a goddess who had finally found her hymn.
"Aleksi," she cried, "you are my miracle!"
He tried to stop. Tried to close his mouth. But the Codex wanted voice, and he was its chosen vessel. The syllables spilled free—jagged, impossible sounds that bent the air around them.
And then pain.
Sudden. Absolute.
Something struck his chest. He realized, dimly, it was a spear. One of the guards had hurled it in desperation. It slid between his ribs, fire spreading through his lungs.
Aleksi staggered, gasping, blood bubbling in his throat. His scrolls spilled across the floor, useless, scattered. The last thing he saw was Elara's smile—bright, manic, victorious.
Then the world went black.
---
He awoke screaming.
Not in the throne room. Not on the cold marble floor. But in his own bed, in his scholar's chamber, surrounded by the dusty scent of old parchment. Morning sunlight slanted through the shutters. Birds sang outside the window.
Aleksi froze, breath hitching.
This was impossible.
His hand flew to his chest. No wound. No blood. Only the echo of pain, phantom and sharp, as if his body remembered what his flesh denied.
He staggered to the washbasin, splashing water on his face, staring at the reflection that stared back—wild-eyed, pale, alive.
Alive.
But he remembered the spear. The blood. The scream of the Codex.
Had it been a dream?
No. The memory was too vivid, carved into him like a scar that did not fade.
He gripped the basin until his knuckles whitened. Then he saw it—etched faintly across his reflection's chest. A mark. Like an hourglass turned on its side, glowing faintly before fading back beneath the skin.
A whisper echoed in his mind. Not Elara's. Not the Codex's. Something older.
"When you die… you will return."
Aleksi's stomach dropped. His knees threatened to buckle.
This was not mercy. This was a curse.
He understood it instinctively. Death would not free him. Death would only bind him tighter, dragging him back to this moment, again and again, until… until what? Until the Codex's hunger was fed? Until Elara's obsession was sated?
Or until he broke entirely.
He pressed his palms to his face, forcing breath into his lungs. He had to think. He had to treat this as he treated every problem: like a puzzle. A cruel, impossible puzzle.
The Codex killed him. The Codex returned him.
That meant he had time.
That meant he had second chances.
That meant… if he could endure the cycle, he could learn.
But it also meant every death would carve another scar into his mind. Already, the memory of the spear lingered in his chest like phantom fire. How many times could he burn before nothing was left?
A knock rattled his chamber door.
"Aleksi!" a voice called—his fellow scribe, Merek. "Are you awake? The palace sent word. You are summoned."
Aleksi's blood ran cold.
It was beginning again.
---
The path to the Citadel was the same. The guards were the same. Their footsteps fell with the same rhythm, the same silence. The throne room doors yawned open exactly as before.
And there she was. Empress Elara, draped in silk, her eyes alight as if she had been waiting for centuries just for him.
"Aleksi," she whispered, her voice wrapping around his name.
Deja vu. No. Not deja vu. This was the same moment, repeating itself.
But this time, Aleksi did not tremble quite so much when he bowed. This time, he knew what waited at the end of her command. The scroll. The chains. The hunger. His death.
And this time, he would not allow it to end the same way.
He lifted his head. His voice was steady, though his heart thundered.
"Majesty," he said, "before I serve, I must ask. Why me?"
The throne room stilled. It was not what he had said before. The cycle was already breaking.
Elara tilted her head, smile slow and dangerous. "Why you? Because the world is full of liars, sycophants, and cowards. But you… you speak truth even when it cuts. That is why you are mine."
Her hand rose. The servant brought forth the chained Codex once more.
Aleksi's chest tightened. The mark beneath his skin burned faintly.
The curse waited.
The cycle hung open like a wound.
Elara's eyes gleamed as she pressed the Codex toward him.
"Read for me, little scholar," she whispered.
And Aleksi, for the first time, forced himself to smile back.
Because now he knew something she did not.
He could die.
And return.
He was not her possession.
He was her greatest threat.
The silver chains fell away. The Codex stirred, hungry. The courtiers leaned forward, breathless.
Aleksi's hands trembled as he touched the scroll. But in the back of his mind, beyond the fear, a thought burned bright and defiant:
If I must burn a thousand times, I will.
But I will find the way to turn this curse against her.
The first word pulsed on the page.
The cycle was waiting.