The Ash Hollow monster was no more. That alone was enough to make Elias realize the cycle wasn't just a curse—there was a lever.
He'd died before. Come back. Changed the fight. Lived. And the world had bent to accommodate the different outcome.
The problem was the scar.
"Some things do not turn back."
The Script's line still bothered him. If wounds could linger, maybe memories could. And if memories could linger… so could repercussions.
He started small.
Following the Hollow battle, he walked through the marketplace and deliberately cut in front of the bread salesman before his cart fell over. The salesman grinned and said thank you.
Later in the day, he caught the wooden toy boy just before he tripped, showing the cobblestone had tilted to one side. The boy laughed and ran off with no scratch.
Two little things. Both unimportant on the grand canvas of the world. But both alterations.
He went on to make them.
The following day, he cut across a new path to the training ground, down a street he'd never walked before. That's where he spotted her.
She was standing against a wall, arms crossed, regarding him with unnerving stillness. Her clothing was practical—boots, light leather, a dark green tunic—and her hair was bound up in a loose braid.
But it wasn't her pose that immobilized him.
It was what he saw in her eyes.
The way they seemed to know him.
Elias slowed. "Do I know you?"
She smiled faintly. "Not yet. But you will. Again and again."
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. "You're a Reader."
"Very good." She straightened, bracing away from the wall. "Most don't realize that until the third meeting."
He blinked. "Third—"
"You're still on your first loop," she said to him. "I can tell by the way you keep glancing around corners. As if you think the world's going to explode."
Elias's throat was parched. "Who are you?"
"Call me Selin," she said. "And before you ask—no, I'm not here to rescue you. Not exactly."
They strolled side by side towards the square. Selin strode with an easy confidence born of having survived too many near-death days.
"How long's the loop?" Elias asked.
Her smile didn't reach her eyes. "Long enough to learn the gods don't make mistakes. Which means you're here is one."
"That's… comforting."
"Don't get too comfortable. Loops aren't infinite. Eventually, you'll hit the wall."
Elias raised his eyebrows. "The wall?"
She shrugged. "The point where it no longer resets. Or where you no longer wake up. Whichever comes first."
She stopped at the fountain. "Take this as a free piece of advice—don't attempt to change everything all at once. The more you corrupt the Script, the more it corrupts back."
Elias observed her. "Why speak if you're not here to help?"
"Because," replied Selin, her gaze shooting past his shoulder, "I like to see the new ones discover how low they've sunk."
She disappeared as he turned around.
The remainder of the day passed in a haze. Aric noticed Elias's distraction at training and reprimanded him.
"Your defense is lackadaisical," Aric said, knocking him down for the third time. "What's on your mind?"
Elias hesitated. Another Reader was not something he was ready to talk about yet—not until he knew what Selin really wanted. "Just… thinking about what the Script will provide for battles."
Aric's expression was amazed, but he let it drop.
That night, the Script returned.
"The Reader sees the same death twice."
He wasn't sure if it meant his own or someone else's. But the wording had meaning. And he had this queasy sense Selin already knew which one it meant.
The next day, the Warden assigned him to duty in the direction of the river quarter. Brynn led them, with four soldiers in their wake. Elias knew the route they were following—they'd taken it on his initial life here. Nothing happened.
Which was why the shift struck him with the force of a brick.
Halfway there, screams echoed from the piers. A crowd was dissipating, and something was pushing its way through them with unnatural haste.
It wasn't carrion. It was human.
A man in worn robes, face white and eyes glazed, was hacking dockworkers down with a curved knife. The air around him rippled in sickly waves, like heat off rock.
Brynn did not wait. "Take him down!"
The soldiers closed in. Elias followed, sword raised. But as he crossed the distance, the man spun—and Elias watched the blade flash towards Brynn's throat.
The Script blazed.
"The captain falls here."
The same cold certainty as the Ash Hollow prophecy. The same this is the moment. And he had seconds to change it.
He launched himself forward, running Brynn down and sending her tumbling. The robed figure's sword sliced through where her neck would have been. Elias sprang to his feet, raising his sword just in time to parry the next strike.
The force of it rattled his bones. This wasn't normal strength.
The man's voice was a rasp. "You're not supposed to be here."
Elias's gut twisted. Another Reader? No. Something else.
The fight was fast and brutal. Brynn recovered quickly, joining him in pressing the attack. The soldiers flanked, cutting off the man's retreat.
A final blow from Brynn's sword dropped him, and he crumpled to the docks.
Elias leaned over, struggling to breathe. His eyes shot to Brynn—alive. This time.
But the Script glowed again.
"The captain falls here."
And when he looked back at the body of the man… it vanished.
That night, Elias lay awake, Selin's words echoing in his mind.
"Don't try to change too much at once."
If the killing was still on its way, then the loop wasn't just a chance to break out of destiny. It might also be the reason why destiny kept pursuing you.