Kaelen bolted upright, his lungs burning as if he’d been underwater for an eternity. He wasn't on the bridge. He wasn't wet.
He was face-down in a pile of fresh hay, the pungent smell of horse manure and leather filling his nostrils. The morning light was streaming through the stable doors—the same bright, disgusting gold from before.
"Kaelen! Wake up, you lazy dog!"
The voice hit him like a physical blow. Kaelen spun around, his hand instinctively reaching for his sword, but his hip was empty. Prince Valen stood there, looking infuriatingly healthy, holding a wooden practice sword and wearing a tunic that hadn't been shredded by jagged rocks yet.
"The Oracle is coming!" Valen cheered, swinging the wooden blade with terrible form. "I can feel my destiny calling!"
Kaelen stared at him, his mouth hanging open. His mind was a frantic mess of gears grinding against each other. "Highness? You... the bridge. You fell. The horse... the eye..."
Valen tilted his head, a look of mild concern crossing his handsome, empty face. "Fell? Kaelen, have you been hitting the ale in the barracks again? We haven't even left the city. The procession starts in twenty minutes. Now come, I want to practice my 'Radiant Flourish'—I think I’ve finally mastered the footwork."
Kaelen didn't move. He looked down at his hands. They were trembling. He looked at his "System" window, which was now pulsing with a steady, eerie glow.
[ATTEMPT #2] [USER STATUS: MENTAL FATIGUE - 5%] [SKILL UNLOCKED: 'VETERAN OF THE VOID' (RANK F)] Description: You remember what others forget. Barely.
He spent the next hour in a fugue state, following the Prince through the same motions as before. He watched the servant polish the same greaves. He heard the same jokes. He realized, with a growing sense of horror, that this wasn't a dream. It was a reset.
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"We aren't taking the Bridge of Sighs," Kaelen told the caravan leaders as they reached the city gates. His voice was sandpaper-rough.
"What? But Captain," one of the guards protested. "The Bridge is the fastest route to the temple."
"I don't care. We take the Low Road through the forest. There are bandits on the bridge. I... I have intelligence."
"Intelligence?" Valen pouted from his horse. "But Kaelen, the Bridge is so much more photogenic! The commoners will be waiting!"
"The Low Road, Highness. Or I resign right here."
The caravan turned. Kaelen felt a surge of triumph. He had changed the variable. He had outsmarted the "Destiny" that had claimed Valen's life. As they entered the canopy of the forest, he rode at the front, his eyes darting between every tree, every shadow. He was a man possessed.
They reached the midpoint—a peaceful, sun-dappled clearing where the Low Road met a small stream.
"See?" Valen said, dismounting and pulling off his helmet to wipe sweat from his brow. "No bridges. No arrows. You’re just being paranoid, Kaelen. Look at these flowers! My mother used to say the Sun-Lilies only bloom for—"
Snap.
Kaelen’s head whipped up. A heavy, dead branch—rotted through by a season of storms—had been hanging by a single fiber fifty feet up. It wasn't an assassin. It wasn't a monster. It was gravity.
It struck Valen directly on the crown of his head while his helmet lay in the grass.
The Prince didn't even have time to scream. His knees buckled, and he collapsed into the lilies.
Kaelen was on his knees beside him in a second, his fingers pressing into the Prince’s neck. Nothing. No pulse. Just the distant sound of a woodpecker and the mocking rustle of the leaves.
[PARTY MEMBER DECEASED.] [WORLD STABILITY: 98%] [RESTARTING...]
The world dissolved.
"Kaelen! Wake up, you lazy dog!"
This time, Kaelen didn't stand up. He stayed in the hay. He looked at the horse manure and felt a strange, dark urge to laugh.
"Kaelen?" Valen’s boots appeared in his field of vision. "Are you alright? You look... different. Did you have a nightmare?"
Kaelen looked up. His eyes were no longer the eyes of a disciplined Captain of the Guard. They were the eyes of a man who had just realized he was trapped in a cage with a golden-haired idiot, and the universe was the one holding the key.
"Highness," Kaelen said, his voice a low, dangerous growl. "Today, you aren't going to touch a horse. You aren't going to touch a flower. You aren't even going to touch the air if I can help it."
Valen beamed. "Wow, Kaelen! Such dedication! I knew you were the right man for the job!"
Kaelen put his face in his hands and whispered a prayer to gods he no longer believed in.
