Thirteen days.

  The number sat in the corner of my vision like a stain I couldn’t blink away.

  [WORLD QUEST: FIRST HOWL IN THE DARK]

  [Time Until Erasure Event: 13 Days, 04 Hours, 17 Minutes]

  I dismissed the window, but the weight of it stayed behind my eyes.

  Greymaw Hollow.

  In the old timeline, it had been a line in a report, buried under polite phrasing:

  “Minor disturbance in a frontier settlement.

  Possible bandit activity.

  Casualties within acceptable range.”

  Nothing worth diverting the Hero of Humanity for.

  Now the System had taken that footnote and nailed it to my skull.

  I stepped back from the arched window. Outside, the twin silver falcons of House Ardyn snapped in the winter wind, bright and proud on their banners.

  Once, that sight had stirred something like pride.

  Now it just made my teeth itch.

  I called the interface back with a thought.

  [Class: Void Sovereign (Lv. 1)]

  [Unique Skills:]

  – [Void Echo (Locked)]

  – [Genocide Timer (Bound)]

  The text under Void Echo pulsed faintly.

  [Requirement to Unlock: Claim the first soul in this Worldline as Void Sovereign.]

  The first soul.

  Not as “Hero.” Not as “Sword of Humanity.”

  As what I was now.

  In the old timeline, no one had cared who my first kill was. Some nameless bandit in a skirmish near the frontier, maybe. A monster in the training pits. It had blurred into the rest.

  This time, the System was keeping score.

  I closed the panel and opened the wardrobe.

  The mirror on the inside of the door showed me the same nineteen-year-old face everyone else saw: lean, sharp-boned, dark hair falling over my brow, eyes like cooled steel. A little softer in the jaw than the man who’d walked to the gallows, but the bones were the same.

  The man in the mirror looked back, unimpressed.

  “You’re really doing this,” I murmured.

  He didn’t argue.

  Inside the wardrobe, Ardyn colors hung in neat rows: silver-trimmed coats, deep navy tunics with embroidered falcons, formal doublets suited to Cathedral audiences and court ceremonies.

  Hero costumes.

  I pushed them aside until my fingers brushed what I wanted at the back—a plain, weather-stiffened traveling coat, charcoal grey. No crest. No embroidery. The sort of thing a minor retainer might wear on patrol.

  I pulled it on. The weight settled on my shoulders like a decision.

  From the lower shelf, I took a small lockbox and flipped it open.

  My sword lay inside.

  Not the ceremonial blade the Dominion would one day present on the Cathedral steps; that was still months away. This was older—Ardyn steel, simple, unadorned, the leather of the grip worn smooth where my fingers had shaped it through years of training.

  I buckled the scabbard at my hip.

  Somewhere deeper in the manor, the bell that had rung earlier sounded again. Three measured notes, echoing off stone.

  A summons. The escort for the capital assembling on schedule.

  I opened my door.

  The corridor outside was busy, full of the quiet efficiency that made House Ardyn run. Servants moved in smooth lines with trays and brushes and polishing cloths. Two junior knights strode past in half-plate, Ardyn falcons stitched over their hearts.

  Their eyes flicked to the sword at my hip.

  “Young Master,” one of them said. “The escort’s gathering in the east courtyard. Lord Ardyn requests—”

  “I heard the bell,” I said.

  I didn’t slow down.

  They stepped aside automatically. They were used to me walking with this much purpose—just not in this direction.

  I took the stairs two at a time. On the landing, a knot of servants parted with small bows. The faint scent of lilies reached me before I saw her.

  “Rael.”

  I stopped.

  Celine stood by a tall vase of white winter lilies, a folded cloth in her hands. Her dress was the plain dark fabric of the household staff, her gray hair pinned back in its usual bun. Her face was as calm as ever.

  Her eyes, though, were searching.

  “You’re armed,” she said quietly.

  “I’m traveling,” I answered.

  “To the capital?”

  “Eventually.”

  Her fingers tightened a fraction on the cloth. Anyone else would have missed it. I’d grown up speaking Celine’s language of almost-movements.

  “In the old timeline,” the thought slid through me, “you watched me leave for the Cathedral and never asked a single question.”

  “Your father will expect you to go with the escort,” she said. “The Church expects you at the Cathedral before the next high service. You know this.”

  “I do.” I held her gaze. “Things change.”

  We looked at each other for a heartbeat too long for servant and lord.

  Then she lowered her eyes.

  “Will you be taking anyone with you?” she asked.

  “No.”

  Not entirely true. The Void came with me whether I wanted it or not. But that wasn’t a subject you opened over lilies.

  She stepped closer and offered the cloth.

  “Then take this,” she said.

  I unfolded it. Inside was a small bundle of dried herbs tied with thin twine. The scent was sharp and clean—travel ward, fever ward, a hedge against bad water and colder nights.

  In the old timeline, she’d pressed the same bundle into my hand before a march eastward, long after Greymaw Hollow was already ash. I’d tossed it into a brazier on a dare from another officer.

  This time, I closed my fingers around it.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Her mouth thinned. “The roads to the frontier are not safe, Young Master.”

  “They never were,” I said. “We just pretended otherwise.”

  The System stirred at the edge of my awareness, sensing the deviation. No new window appeared. Not yet.

  I nodded to her and continued down, through the lower hall and toward the side of the manor.

  The air changed as I neared the outer doors. The warm mix of polish and incense gave way to cold stone and the faint bite of winter pressing through the cracks.

  Then a different sound cut through the usual noise of the household.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  A sharp crack, like leather splitting the air.

  Then another.

  And a muffled, bitten-off cry.

  I changed direction without thinking.

  The side courtyard was smaller than the grand one visitors saw, all function over display. The stone was scuffed from crate corners and wagon wheels. Two carts stood near the archway, half-loaded with chests stamped with the Dominion’s sigil.

  In front of them, a little scene the Dominion would never bother to record.

  A young beastkin girl knelt on the cold stone, hands flat on the ground. Her rabbit ears were matted and trembling. A thin servant’s tunic hung off her small frame, useless against the winter air. A red welt burned across the back of one hand.

  Above her, a man in Ardyn half-plate raised a slim leather switch again.

  “I told you,” he snarled, “you don’t touch the requisition crates, animal. You smudge so much as a seal, they dock my pay for it—”

  The switch came down with a crack.

  The girl flinched, a small sound tearing out of her throat, but she kept her hands where he’d ordered. No dodging. Dodging made it worse. She’d learned that already.

  I’d seen this before.

  Not this courtyard. Not this man. Not this child. But the pattern was the same in a hundred garrisons and estates.

  Humans above. Everyone else beneath their boots.

  His arm drew back again.

  “Stop,” I said.

  The word wasn’t loud, but the courtyard was quiet enough to hear the strain in it.

  The guard froze. He turned. His gaze ran over my plain coat, caught the sword, then hit my face.

  Recognition flickered. He straightened, saluting with the hand that held the switch.

  “Apologies, Young Master,” he said quickly. “Discipline had to be given. The little beast dropped a sealed crate. If the Dominion’s inspectors see a scratch on one of these, they’ll—”

  He said “Dominion” with the same mix of worship and fear I used to feel.

  I stepped closer. The girl’s ears flattened against her skull. Blood beaded on her hand, bright against gray fur.

  “How old are you?” I asked her.

  Her head jerked up, eyes wide. She hadn’t expected to be addressed at all.

  “I… I don’t…” She swallowed. “T-Twelve, sir.”

  [Target: Beastkin – Unregistered Servant]

  [Status: Non-Combatant / Minor]

  [Threat: None]

  “You’re beating a twelve-year-old,” I said, turning back to the guard.

  His jaw tightened. “With respect, Young Master, she’s property, not—”

  The air between us dropped a few degrees.

  The System answered my mood. A translucent outline shimmered around him, edged in gray and red.

  [Target: Human – House Ardyn Guard]

  [Status: Armed / Mildly Anxious]

  [Alignment: Dominion-loyal]

  [Threat to Quest Objectives: Minor → Escalating]

  “Property,” I repeated.

  In the capital, priests had used that same word for beastkin dragged into labor camps. On the frontier, soldiers said it about the people they burned out of their homes.

  Later, much later, the Dominion had called me something similar. Not property. Not human. Just a “threat” to be erased.

  I looked back down at the girl.

  Thirteen days until Greymaw Hollow.

  A village full of children like her, turned into a line in a report.

  The first soul, the System had said. Claim it as Void Sovereign.

  I straightened.

  “What’s your name?” I asked the guard.

  He blinked. “Sir?”

  “Your name,” I repeated. “If I’m going to sign off on your ‘discipline,’ it seems polite to know whose work I’m endorsing.”

  A little pride crept into his posture. “Garron, sir. Second squad. East wing detail.”

  “Garron.” I tasted the name. “Tell me something, Garron. When the Dominion inspects these crates… do they bring you along?”

  He frowned. “No, sir. Only the quartermaster and the priest-inspector go near the seals. We just load the wagons.”

  “So if there is a mark,” I said, “whose failure is it? The twelve-year-old servant, or the full-grown soldier in charge of watching her?”

  Color rose up his neck. “With respect, Young Master, the beast should know its place. They get careless if you don’t remind them.”

  My hand closed slowly around my hilt.

  The Genocide Timer pulsed, a cold heartbeat in the background.

  [Genocide Timer (Bound)]

  [Time Until Great Erasure: 365 Days.]

  [Time Until First Marked Erasure Event: 13 Days.]

  “You’re standing in House Ardyn’s courtyard,” I said quietly. “Wearing our sigil. Using our authority to vent your temper on a child who can’t fight back.”

  “I—” He swallowed, then rallied. “Your father’s ordered harsh discipline before, sir. We’ve all seen him. You know how he—”

  “My father,” I said, “isn’t here.”

  The words landed heavier than the tone.

  The bustle around the carts thinned into stillness. Servants and guards had gone still without realizing it, eyes fixed on us but carefully blank.

  The Rael they knew would have laughed this off, maybe told Garron to strike lower so the bruises wouldn’t show when the inspectors came.

  The man standing here had watched an entire world burn.

  I took one step closer until we were nearly chest to chest.

  “You just told me,” I said, “that a twelve-year-old girl is property. An animal. That hurting her is acceptable if it makes your life easier. That’s your position?”

  His eyes darted once to the others, to the girl, back to me. “Yes, sir,” he said finally. “That’s… the way of things.”

  “Good,” I said softly.

  His shoulders loosened by a fraction, as if I’d just agreed with him.

  “At least we’re clear on who thinks like an animal,” I finished.

  Confusion flickered, then irritation. “Sir, with respect, I’ve always—”

  I drew my sword.

  Steel clearing leather cut across the courtyard like its own kind of bell. Every conversation died mid-word. Even the carts’ wheels seemed to stop creaking.

  Garron stared at the blade, then at me.

  “Y-Young Master?” His voice cracked. “What are you—”

  “The Dominion taught me something useful,” I said. “If pain is such an excellent teacher, we should always start with the ones most capable of learning.”

  Understanding hit him.

  Fear followed.

  “You can’t—your father will—”

  “My father will hear whatever version of this story I decide he hears,” I said. “The Dominion will hear what I allow to reach their priests.”

  The System’s outline around him deepened, red overtaking gray.

  [Target: Garron – Human – House Ardyn Guard]

  [Status: Armed / Afraid]

  [Hostility: Neutral → Potential]

  [First Soul Candidate: Valid]

  Behind him, the girl made a small, involuntary sound. She half-reached toward me, then snatched her hand back, as if afraid even that gesture would earn punishment.

  “Sir, please,” Garron rasped. “I was just doing what we all do. What we’ve always done. You can’t kill a man of your own house over—over this.”

  “That’s the problem,” I said.

  For a heartbeat, the courtyard blurred. In its place I saw a village under snow and ash, beastkin bodies lying where they’d fallen, Dominion banners flapping above them. A boy sobbing over his sister’s corpse until his voice broke. Human soldiers laughing as they lit another house.

  I saw myself, sword warm in my hand.

  You don’t fix a world like that by asking politely.

  “You’ll find,” I said quietly, “that ‘what we’ve always done’ is exactly what I came back to change.”

  The tip of my sword rested just below his sternum.

  His lips moved soundlessly.

  The System’s prompt slid into my vision, cold and patient.

  [Warning: First Soul Selection Imminent.]

  [Confirm Action as Void Sovereign?]

  [Consequence: Path Divergence – Minor → Moderate.]

  If I stepped back now, I could wait. Pick something easy. A bandit on the road. A monster in the woods. Something clean that no one would miss.

  But Greymaw Hollow wouldn’t burn because of bandits.

  It would burn because of men like Garron, carrying out orders for houses like Ardyn, under blessings from priests of the Dominion.

  If the first life I took in this worldline wasn’t human, what exactly was I fighting?

  “Yes,” I said.

  [Confirmation Registered.]

  The text sharpened, lines burning with pale light.

  [Action will be recorded as: First Executed Soul – Human.]

  [Title Progress: Enemy of Humanity (Hidden) +1%.]

  [Void Echo Unlock Condition: Met on Kill.]

  Garron saw the change in my expression and finally understood.

  “P-please—” he choked. “Mercy—”

  In the old world, mercy had been the leash that led me to the gallows.

  I met his eyes.

  “You’re right,” I said. “Someone here needed a reminder of their place.”

  Hope flickered.

  “It wasn’t her,” I finished.

  I moved.

  His hand jerked toward his own sword, too late. The flat of my blade slammed against his wrist; bone cracked. His sword clattered to the stone.

  He gasped, half in pain, half in disbelief.

  I stepped in, driving my shoulder into his chest, pinning him back against the side of the cart. The wood groaned.

  The girl scrambled away on hands and knees, out of the arc of the blade.

  “Rael—” he choked. “Young Master—”

  I drove the sword up beneath his ribs.

  His breath left him in a wet rush. His eyes went wide, then glassy.

  For a second, the world narrowed to familiar sensations: steel sliding through flesh, the resistance of bone, the heat blooming along the blade.

  Then the System roared.

  [First Soul Claimed.]

  [Recording Entity: Void Sovereign.]

  [Void Echo: Unlocked.]

  [Skill Gained: Void Echo (Lv. 1).]

  Cold rushed up my arm, not physical, but heavy. The space around Garron’s body blurred, as if something was peeling away from inside his outline.

  A faint, translucent version of him snapped into existence half a step to his left—eyes empty, features slack.

  Then it lunged—not at me, but into me. Into the quiet, black well at the back of my mind that hadn’t been there in the last life.

  A whisper skimmed the edge of my thoughts. No words. Just… habits. Fragments. Instincts.

  I pulled the sword free.

  Garron slid down the cart, leaving a smear of red.

  Silence slammed back into the courtyard.

  Every face was turned toward me now—servants with frozen hands on crates, guards with knuckles white on spear shafts, a stable boy gripping a bridle so tightly the leather creaked.

  The beastkin girl knelt off to the side, hands over her mouth, ears trembling.

  No one moved.

  Somewhere deeper in the manor, another bell began to ring—not the slow, ceremonial chime of a planned summons, but a sharp, repeating alarm.

  House Ardyn’s alarm.

  I wiped my blade on Garron’s cloak and sheathed it.

  A new window hovered at the edge of my vision.

  [Void Echo (Lv. 1)]

  [Effect: User may manifest a spectral echo of a slain being, gaining access to fragments of their skills, instincts, or presence for a limited duration.]

  [Current Available Echoes:]

  – Garron, Human Guard (Basic Martial Instincts / House Ardyn Protocols)

  House Ardyn protocols.

  That would be useful later.

  I looked around the courtyard. Every pair of eyes that met mine dropped almost immediately, as if I had become something unsafe to look at directly.

  “Pick him up,” I said, nodding at Garron’s body. My voice came out calm, almost bored. “Tell my father that House Ardyn lost a guard today because he couldn’t tell the difference between discipline and cowardice.”

  Still no one moved.

  “Now,” I added.

  That broke the paralysis. Two guards lurched forward, lifting Garron’s corpse with pale faces.

  I turned to the girl.

  She flinched reflexively, then froze, caught between fear and the memory of what I’d just done on her behalf.

  I crouched so we were at eye level.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  She hesitated. “M-Mira, sir.”

  “Mira.” I nodded. “From now on, if anyone in this house raises a hand against you, you tell them Rael Ardyn said they can come explain to him why.”

  Her throat bobbed. “I… yes, sir.”

  “Good.” I straightened. “Then stop kneeling. You’re more useful standing.”

  She pushed herself to her feet, legs unsteady.

  The alarm bell rang again, louder now. Shouted orders echoed faintly from inside the manor.

  The Dominion’s script was finally starting to notice its missing pages.

  I adjusted the sword at my hip and glanced once toward the main doors. I could already hear the clatter of more boots, the rising confusion as the house realized something had cracked.

  Then I turned toward the side gate that led to the road east.

  Thirteen days to reach Greymaw Hollow.

  Thirteen days for the Dominion to realize their hero had chosen his first enemy.

  And it wasn’t the monsters.

  I started walking.

  The System slid one last notification into my vision.

  [Path Divergence: Locked.]

  [Status: Traitor of House Ardyn – Pending Recognition.]

  For the first time since the rope tightened around my neck in the last life, something like a real smile tugged at my mouth.

  “Good,” I said.

  Behind me, the manor’s alarm rose into a full, echoing scream.

  I didn’t look back.

  I stepped through the gate and left House Ardyn to catch up.