The vision came without warning.
One moment I was sitting beside Elena, watching refugees shuffle past. The next, I was somewhere else entirely—standing in a grand hall of white marble, surrounded by people in formal military dress.
A ceremony?
No. A funeral.
The casket at the center of the hall was draped in the Imperial flag, and the face of the person inside was frozen in peaceful death.
Lyra Ashenvale.
I recognized her silver hair, her sharp features. But where the woman who'd saved me had been vital and dangerous, this corpse was empty. A puppet with its strings cut.
"She died protecting the convoy," someone said—a man in general's insignia, his voice heavy with false grief. "The demon ambush was beyond anything we expected. There was nothing anyone could have done."
"Lies."
I spun around. Another person stood in the hall, invisible to everyone else—a ghost, like me.
But this ghost had my face.
Future me.
He looked exactly as I had at the moment of my death—twenty-three years old, battle-scarred, eyes dead with exhaustion. He stood beside Lyra's casket, one translucent hand resting on the polished wood.
"She died because Rylen wanted the Silver Blade's authority for himself," future-me said. "He arranged the ambush. Paid off the intelligence officers. Made sure she would be in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Rylen killed her?
"She knew about the regression. About me." Future-me's voice cracked. "She was the only one who could have helped us. The only one who might have believed the truth about what Rylen was becoming." He looked up, and his dead eyes met mine. "Don't let her die this time, past-self. She's more important than you know."
The vision shattered.
I was back in the camp, gasping for breath, Elena's worried face hovering over me.
"Kael? Kael! What happened?"
"I'm fine." I wasn't fine. My head felt like it was splitting open, and my heart hammered against my ribs. "Just... a headache. The wounds must be affecting me more than I thought."
[FUTURE ECHO COMPLETE]
[INFORMATION RECEIVED: LYRA ASHENVALE — ASSASSINATION TARGET IN ORIGINAL TIMELINE]
[ESTIMATED DATE OF DEATH: FOUR YEARS FROM CURRENT POINT]
[WARNING: CHANGING THIS EVENT MAY HAVE UNFORESEEN CONSEQUENCES]
Unforeseen consequences?
I already changed Elena's death. The timeline was already off the rails. One more change wouldn't matter—especially if it gave me a powerful ally instead of a corpse.
But the vision raised questions I couldn't answer. How did Lyra know about regression? What had she discovered that made Rylen want her dead? And why had future-me failed to save her, when I had years of advance warning?
Because I didn't know, I realized. In the original timeline, I trusted Rylen. I believed his story about the ambush. I never questioned it.
Until the end, I had been completely blind to his true nature. All those signs I'd noticed in retrospect—they'd been invisible to the naive, trusting version of me who wanted so desperately to believe in heroes.
Never again.
"There's something I need to do," I said, helping Elena settle back. "A military recruiter is going to come looking for me soon. I'm going to accept their offer."
"But—"
"I know it's dangerous. I know most recruits die." I met her eyes. "But it's the only way I can get strong enough to protect you. To protect us. And I have advantages they don't."
"What advantages?"
I smiled—a thin, cold expression that felt wrong on my young face. "I know things, Elena. Things that haven't happened yet. Things about people who haven't made their choices yet."
She stared at me for a long moment.
"You're scaring me, Kael."
"Good. You should be scared." I squeezed her hand. "This world is terrifying. It eats people alive and doesn't care about justice or kindness. The only way to survive is to be more terrifying than everything else."
"That's... really dark."
"I know." I stood up, ignoring the pain in my back. "But it's also true. Now come on—I need to find that sword saint before she loses interest."
Lyra found me first.
I was walking through the camp's central area, looking for the military command post, when a shadow fell across my path. I looked up to find violet eyes staring down at me from impossible height.
"You walk like a soldier," she said without preamble. "Careful steps, constant awareness of your surroundings, hands positioned for quick response. Where did you learn that?"
"Self-taught."
"Impossible. That kind of muscle memory takes years of drilling." She circled me slowly, like a predator examining prey. "You also keep your injured side protected without seeming to think about it. Another trained response."
"I'm a fast learner."
"No one is that fast." She stopped in front of me, and I realized she was testing me. Every word, every movement—she was looking for reactions that would reveal the truth.
Fine. Let's see how much you really know.
"You've encountered regressors before," I said bluntly.
Lyra's expression didn't change. But her hand twitched toward her sword hilt—an unconscious tell that told me everything I needed to know.
"That's a dangerous word, boy."
"I'm a dangerous person." I held her gaze, refusing to back down. "You know what I am. You've probably known since you saved me. The question is: what are you going to do about it?"
For a long moment, we stood in silence. The camp bustled around us—refugees going about their broken lives, guards patrolling the perimeter—but we might as well have been alone.
Then Lyra smiled.
It wasn't a warm smile. It was the smile of someone who had just discovered a new toy, something rare and precious that she intended to take apart and examine.
"Come with me," she said. "We have much to discuss, Regressor."
[CRITICAL PATH UNLOCKED]
[ALLIANCE WITH LYRA ASHENVALE — IN PROGRESS]
[WARNING: THIS INDIVIDUAL HAS HER OWN AGENDA]
[WARNING: TRUST MUST BE EARNED, NOT GIVEN]
Perfect.
This was exactly what I needed—a connection to someone powerful, someone who knew about my situation, someone who might have answers to questions I hadn't thought to ask.
But I wasn't naive anymore. Lyra had her own goals, her own secrets. She wasn't helping me out of kindness.
That's fine, I thought as I followed her through the camp. Use me. Try to control me. See how well that works.
I've already died once. I'm not afraid of you.
I'm not afraid of anyone anymore.