"Young master, please! Please wake up. I'm begging you, please!"
I could hear the head maid's sobbing. She always cried the loudest. Amara, I think her name was. Or maybe it was Amelia. I'd heard her sob over my deathbed so many times the name didn't matter anymore.
I kept my eyes closed. Let her shake my shoulders a little harder. Let her beg.
It wasn't cruelty, but I needed to know how long I'd been out. If she was this hysterical, if her voice was this raw, it meant I'd been unconscious at least two or three days. Right on schedule.
"His fever's worse." A man's voice, the physician. Dr. Halvern. Seventy-three years old, completely fucking useless in every single timeline. "The pattern... it's identical to what happened with the previous young masters. We need to prepare the family for—"
"Don't say that."
That was my mother, the Duchess Seraphine Ashvale. "Don't you dare finish that sentence, doctor. My son is not dying. Do you understand me? He is not." Her voice wavered. "He's not."
Someone was crying quietly in the corner. Probably one of the younger maids. They always cycled through new ones. The old ones couldn't handle watching children die over and over. I could hear my mother's breathing. She was standing by the window. She always stood by the window when she didn't want people to see her face.
"Your Grace," Dr. Halvern said carefully, "I understand this is difficult, but we must be realistic. The curse has taken both of his brothers. The symptoms are advancing at the same rate."
"I don't care." My mother's voice was shaking now. "I don't care about your charts or your realism or your—" She stopped. Took a breath. "Just... just keep him comfortable. That's all I'm asking. Can you do that? Can you at least do that?"
"Of course, Your Grace. We'll do everything we can."
"Everything you can," my mother said bitterly. "Yes. I've heard that before."
I counted to five in my head, then opened my eyes. The ceiling came into focus. I'd been staring at this ceiling for seventy years. Well, technically fifty. Six lives times ten years minus the unconscious bits.
Close enough.
"He's awake!" Amara-or-Amelia gasped. Her hands flew to her mouth. "Oh God, oh thank God, he's—Young master? Young master, can you hear me?"
I turned my head slowly to look at her.
She looked like shit. Eyes red and swollen, face blotchy, hair falling out of her bun. She'd been crying for days maybe.
"You look terrible," I said. My voice came out like gravel. "Have you slept at all?"
Her face crumpled. Fresh tears started streaming down her cheeks. "You're awake. You're actually—oh God, I thought—we all thought—"
"That I was dead?" I tried to sit up. "Not yet. Give it another five years."
"Ashrahan."
My mother's voice cut across the room like a whip. I looked at her. She'd turned from the window now. Her face was perfectly composed again; no tears, no cracks in the mask but her hands were clenched tightly. She was wearing black. Full mourning dress, even though I wasn't dead yet.
"Mother," I said flatly. "That's a nice dress."
Her jaw tightened. "Dr. Halvern, Amara—leave us. Now."
They scrambled out like rats fleeing a sinking ship. The door clicked shut.
My mother stood there, perfectly still, staring at me. I stared back. "You've been unconscious for three days," she said finally. Her voice was very calm and controlled. "Three days, Ashrahan. Do you have any idea what that was like?"
"That I was dying. Yeah, I got that part." I leaned back against the headboard. It took more effort than it should have. "They said the same thing about Cael. And about Theron before him. How'd that work out?"
Her face went white.
"Don't," she whispered. "Don't you dare talk about your brothers like that."
"Like they're dead?" I looked at her. She was thirty-two years old but looked fifty. "They are dead, Mother. Both of them. Same curse, same symptoms, same shitty ceiling to stare at while they died. And I'm next. We both know it. So why are we pretending?"
"Because you're my son." Her voice cracked. "Because I have already buried two children. I refuse to bury another. Do you understand me? I refuse."
"That's not really up to you, though, is it?"
She flinched like I'd slapped her. I immediately felt... nothing. Because I couldn't feel anything. No guilt, no regret, no satisfaction. Just a vague awareness that I'd said something cruel and that normal people would feel bad about it.
But I wasn't normal. I hadn't been normal for seventy years.
My mother turned back to the window. Her shoulders were shaking. "You used to be such a sweet child," she said quietly. "Before the fever started. You used to laugh." She stopped. "What happened to you?"
I died six times, I thought. I watched you bury me over and over. I watched you cry yourself to sleep every night for ten years straight, six times in a row, and then I woke up and did it all again. "I grew up," I said instead.
She didn't turn around. "You're five years old."
"Yeah. Funny how that works."
She stood there for a long moment, not moving, not speaking. Then she walked to the door. "The Duke will be home by nightfall," she said without looking at me. "He'll want to see you. Try not to... try to be kind to him. Please. He's barely holding himself together as it is."
She left. I stared at the closed door for a while. Then I looked back at the ceiling. One year until my sixth birthday. One year until the first seizure. One year until she showed up.
The woman with no name, who'd saved me sixth timeline and abandoned me also. The woman who smelled like something I'd never smelled before because I'd lost my sense of smell by age seven in every previous timeline.
I didn't know what she'd done. Didn't know why she'd done it. Didn't know who the fuck she was or why she always looked so tired. But I knew one thing for certain:
This time, I wasn't going to let her disappear without answers. This time, I was going to figure out what the hell was going on. And if I had to manipulate my parents, lie to the guards, and trap a mysterious blood-soaked healer in my family's estate to do it?
Well. I'd done worse things.
The door opened again. I didn't look. "I told you to leave me alone."
"Well, that's a hell of a greeting for your father."
I turned my head. Duke Casimir Ashvale stood in the doorway, looking like he'd aged ten years in three days. His hair was a mess. His coat was wrinkled. There were dark circles under his eyes that could've been bruises. He looked like shit.
"You look bad," I said.
He let out a short, broken laugh. "Yeah. Yeah, I know." He walked over slowly, like he was afraid I'd disappear if he moved too fast. "How are you feeling?"
"Like I've been unconscious for three days."
"Smart." He sat down in the chair next to my bed. It creaked under his weight. He was a big man; tall, broad-shouldered, built like a soldier but right now he looked small. "God, Ash. You scared all of us. When the letter came, when they said you weren't waking up, I thought I was going to lose you. Just like Cael and Theron."
"I'm not dead yet."
"Yet." He looked at me. His eyes were red."You're five years old and you're talking about dying like it's a certainty. Do you have any idea how wrong that is? How unnatural?"
"Do you have any idea how wrong it is to watch your father cry every time you get a fever? How unnatural that feels?"
He flinched. We sat there in silence.
"I'm sorry," he said finally. "I'm sorry you have to go through this. I'm sorry I can't fix it. I've tried everything. Every doctor, every priest, every mage in the kingdom. I've spent fortunes. I've begged the God. I don't know what else to do."
I looked at him. He was a good man, a good father. In timeline one, I'd loved him. I think. It was hard to remember what love felt like.
But I remembered that he'd held me while I died. All three times—me and my brothers. He'd held us and whispered that it would be okay, that we wouldn't be alone, that he loved us. He'd lied.
We died alone anyway, drowning in our own bodies while our senses shut down one by one. But he'd tried.
"There's nothing you can do," I said quietly. "The curse is... it's not something you can fight. You can't bargain with it."
"I don't accept that."
"Father." He stopped. I met his eyes.
"I'm going to die," I said. "Probably in five years, maybe sooner. And there's nothing you can do about it. So stop trying to save me and just... just let me have whatever time I have left. Okay?"
He stood up abruptly, chair scraping against the floor. Walked to the window, stood there with his back to me, shoulders shaking. I watched him cry but felt nothing. After a while, he wiped his face and turned back around. His eyes were red but his voice was steady. "Is there anything you need? Anything I can get you?"
I thought about it. "Yeah," I said. "There is. In one year, on my sixth birthday, a woman is going to show up at the gates. The guards will try to arrest her. Don't let them."
He stared at me. "What?"
"She's a healer. A mage. She'll say she can help me and she can. So when she shows up, I need you to bring her to me. No questions asked. Can you do that?"
He looked at me for a long moment, trying to figure out if I'd lost my mind. "Is that... is that a symptom of the curse? Having visions?" He murmured.
"Yes," he said finally. "Yes, if she shows up, I'll bring her to you. I promise." He nodded slowly. Walked to the door. Stopped with his hand on the handle. "Ash?"
"Yeah?"
"I know you can't feel it anymore. The doctors said the curse takes that away. But I need you to know it. Even if you can't feel it. I love you. Okay?"
I looked at him. "Okay," I said.
He left. I stared at the ceiling again then closed my eyes. I wandered about her. This time I wasn't letting her go.
I smiled in the dark. Let's see you run from a child who knows every move you're going to make. Let's see you disappear when I've already planned the cage. Three hundred and sixty-four days. I could wait. I'd waited seventy years already. What was one more?