Memories

  Bent over her bedroom desk, chin resting on her treasured notebook, Ty felt like death. Recalling all her previous nightmares was a more painstaking task than she had originally bargained for, especially when she could still picture how sad Callie looked upon hearing about the details of the Spell Cleanse.

  What was the book like? Callie had asked her, eyes burning with curiosity and apprehension.

  Thin. A dark chestnut brown. Its cover was decorated and ornate, kind of like a children’s book.

  Oh? she had beamed, eyes sparkling.

  And then, painfully sad that she could not bring herself to tell her the entire truth of what she knew, Ty had mentioned the spear.

  Callie’s smile immediately dropped.

  I’m not very good at it, she had responded with a meek, forced smile.

  You’re getting better, Ty had tried to reassure her to no avail, feeling the uncertainty in Callie’s eyes infect her with even more guilt and trepidation.

  That had been it. Callie went on her way, saying that she recalled something she had to do, and Ty had returned to her room where she was now.

  The accursed list.

  Sitting up and counting the lines she had made in her notebook, she had seen six of her classmates die, assuming none of them repeated.

  The one with the spear—who she now believed was Callie—the recent one with the sword, one in the rain, one with the piercing cries, one where she had killed Theo again and again, and finally the one where she had to deliver the news to her dead classmate’s father.

  Knock, knock.

  She perked up and immediately headed over to her door. “Yes?”

  “Hey, it’s me,” said Theo’s voice from the other side. “But before you open—”

  She opened it anyway, revealing more than just Theo on the other side.

  “—the door, you should know that Luci is here,” Theo finished anyway, his expression screaming, I wish you hadn’t done that.

  “I wish I hadn’t done that,” echoed Ty perfectly before turning to the other tactician. Their game of cat and mouse was finally at an end. “Hi, Luci.”

  “Hi Ty,” he grinned back, full of delight. “Oh, I’ve missed you so much.”

  “Yes, seeing as you used my physician to get into my class dorms,” Ty tried to say with as much impartiality as she could, taking a moment to eye Theo beside him. “Especially given his disdain for you, I’m sure there’s a good reason why you’re here.”

  “Of course, of course,” chirped Luci, clasping his hands together. “Well, you see, I seem to have caught your students in a bit of an incident and thought you would want to know.”

  Just as Ty was about to ask what had happened, certain that it couldn’t have been that bad, Theo averted his eyes.

  Oh no.

  “What did you do, Theo?” breathed Ty.

  “Well, actually it wasn’t all him,” corrected Luci, craning his head in front of the dismayed physician so he could get his attention. “Faris and Cyril were a part of it, too. Right, Theo?”

  “W-well—”

  “Alright.” Appalled by the fact that she was taking Luci more seriously than her own classmate, Ty quickly gathered her cloak and notebook before ushering the two boys out into the middle of the hallway. “Let’s hear it. Where are they?”

  “Well, uh,” Theo began nervously, eyeing Ty slightly fearfully, dragging his words, “well, you see…you see…”

  Ty turned to Luci and snapped, “Talk.”

  Luci compassionately patted Theo on the back, face full of pity. “It’s okay, you can tell her she’s got to pick up two more students from the Headmistress’s office.”

  “Oh, no.” Ty heard herself groan. “Theo, no.”

  “It was bad, Ty. I don’t know how it…I’m sorry,” mumbled Theo pathetically, burying his face in his hands.

  At a loss for how to deal with an event she had absolutely no additional information on, Ty gestured to Theo and asked Luci, “Does he need supervision?”

  Luci shrugged, craning his head again. “I’m pretty sure she said that he was okay to go, but I’m having so much fun taking advantage of him after what he did to me in the courtyard last semester that I don’t know if I want to stop.”

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Ty had to summon every ounce of strength she had not to bite the fish Luci had dangled in front of her, turning to leave instead. “Alright, then Luci and I are going to go to the Headmistress’s office while Theo—” She turned her head around and gave the remaining student a stern glare, “writes me a report for when I get back.”

  “Oooh, good idea. Was thinking the same thing,” gushed the incorrigible troublemaker-tactician, running after Ty without giving Theo a second thought. “You’ve got to tell me about what you did over the winter break.”

  “You,” she quietly seethed once they were out of the class dorms and walking along the main Academy path over to the lecture halls, “are going to tell me what happened. Now.”

  Luci couldn’t be happier to oblige. “Ah, well, I don’t know all of it, but your cute little students were caught breaking into my room.”

  As stunned as she was, Ty kept walking, quickening her pace. Hoping he was stretching the truth, hoping her students had a good reason for what they did.

  “They did a pretty good job of it, really,” chuckled Luci nonchalantly. “They got Theo to distract me while they went in, citing something about visiting another student, and then they undid the seal on my room. Very easy business. Took no more than a minute, I’d say. Very efficient, your caster.”

  And then the inevitable question as they ascended the stairs: “So what went wrong?”

  “Unlike you, I’ve got more than one seal on my room. I noticed it got triggered almost immediately, because Theo was doing such a poor job.” He laughed out loud, ignoring the glances he attracted. “It was hilarious, us walking in and seeing Faris and Cyril bickering at each other for getting locked in. No contingency plan at all, imagine that!”

  Faris’s involvement was understandable given his recent volatility, but Cyril—Ty tried to wrack her brain.

  “Anyway, a professor was on his rounds and came in to check—maybe one of your students used a big spell. I personally would have kept it between you and me, but they insisted that the matter be brought to the Headmistress.”

  It certainly sounded straightforward from his perspective—the question was whether it was going to be that easy when in front of the Headmistress.

  Not to mention I haven’t spoken to her since she dropped off the paper.

  “You’re not going to ask me what they wanted to see in my room?” Luci smirked, raising a hand up to pat Ty, which she deflected with an annoyed swipe. “You know I’d do anything for you; you just have to say it.”

  That’s it.

  Ty stomped up onto the tenth floor and stood aside so she wasn’t blocking the way. “What are you doing?”

  “What do you mean, what am I doing?” His expression was carefree as ever as he stepped to the side with her.

  She eyed him critically. “You know exactly what I mean.”

  “Isn’t this how I always am?” He cocked his head innocently.

  “Yes, and that’s the problem,” replied Ty acidly.

  And then, just as he did in the practice courtyard during the first semester, his entire facade seemed to slip off as he corrected her for the second time that day. “Actually, I wasn’t always like this.”

  She forgot how unsettling he was when he was serious. “Then when?”

  Luci’s eyes glimmered with remembrance, as if reliving the moment with pleasure. “It was Theo. The Paranimi. Do you remember?”

  Her stomach dropped. Of course she did. “I knew I missed something.”

  He leaned in close and spoke equally softly, “That’s right. I remember. Who you are. What you’re supposed to do.”

  As his face contorted, twisted into a maniacal grin, Ty glared at him bitterly. “No, you don’t.”

  “Oh yes I do,” he smiled, shaking his head. “I saw it in my dreams. I watched Professor Moriya tell me I wasn’t crazy when I came looking for you in the tactician’s courtyard. I heard it from the Headmistress. The Thirteenth Circle.”

  “That was a different life,” she uttered, stomach churning with unease, of a past she must have lived. “It was once.”

  “Once?” He shrugged wondrously, that same insane smile on his face as he seized her hands in his. “I’ve loved you my entire life, all fifteen repeats and even now. I would die again and again for you, redo everything for the rest of time, if it means I could be with you.”

  Somehow, she knew. She knew he meant every word, that no lies had escaped from his lips. And she knew he would not listen to her, no matter what she said.

  One thing, however, remained unanswered from back then. “Your legs,” she croaked. “Why did your legs give out?”

  As if a button had been pressed, Luci grasped her hands so tightly it hurt, pulling her closer as he laughed and laughed. “You don’t remember? You don’t remember him? All those books?” he practically cried. “You and I, we’re here to prove the Earth Mother wrong, to prove to everyone that we can’t just be taken advantage of and tossed aside for the sake of others. You’re what I’ve been looking for all this time, my reason, my escape, my sav—”

  “Luci,” she whispered, petrified. “Luci, calm down, I—”

  But he wasn’t listening anymore, his eyes wild with desperation and rage. “I’ve lived my entire life as a puppet, preened to perfection. If I can’t have you, then why am I here, to prolong my suffering? Why are any of us here if all we’re going to do is suffer? What’s the point of living? What if the point is for me to suffer, for us all to just keep on suffering and suffering until there’s no more? I can’t live without you. I don’t want the pain. I can’t live without it. It’s all I’ve ever known. It’s all I’m good for. What’s life if I can’t feel? What’s life without you? My legs, my legs hurt. I can’t feel my legs. Please don’t hurt me.”

  The burning wrath in his eyes suddenly died out, replaced with a hollow, forlorn look.

  “I don’t feel a thing,” he said once, then again weeping, still clutching onto Ty and falling to the ground as his voice became a whisper. “I…I don’t want to feel a thing.”

  Lowering down to her knees with him, all the fear and doubt now gone, she reassured him softly, “No one here’s going to hurt you, Luci. It’s…it’s going to be okay.”

  “I…I don’t want—” he whispered through the wracking sobs of a child. “I don’t want to be hurt. I don’t want to be alone.”

  And then, despite everything, she regretted nothing as she said the same words that had damned her every circle, the same words he would remember forever, even after a lifetime of resets—not because she knew it was the right thing to say, not because it was the truth, and not because she knew Theo would have done the same for her in every timeline, but because she knew they would be his beacon of hope in the darkness, much like her classmates would be for her: “I’m here, it’s okay. You’re not alone. I won’t hurt you. You’re safe here.”

  Yes, that’s it, she knew now. That’s it, that’s why.

  What had it been? The be-all-and-end-all. The great equalizer, the thing that could not change, would not change, the great victor of time itself. The one thing the Earth Mother bestowed upon the world in infinitude, the one thing that remained the same all this time, throughout the years of pain and death, of blood and endless turmoil.

  Of endless turmoil.

  Luci wept into her hands as she knelt in front of him, as if he had been saved by her.