121 | blazing; poor pitiful misery

In the Record Hall, the skies were always a pale blue, swiveled with twisting white clouds that streaked across like a painting. The flowers bloomed, petals curled happily as they basked under the tranquility of the space, suffused by calm.

That day, a man stood by the white marble stand, cushioned by pillows of various shapes. They'd been massacred, plumes of feathers dancing around his cold visage, a sword hanging from his curled fingers.

Around him, a fire blazed. The delicate flowers screamed, wilting and blackening as they fell into ashes.

Red had dyed the skies into a bloody hue, telling of the Record Hall's suffering and deep anguish. Before the man's feet, a woman lay on the ground, her pale hair billowed around her figure, an unraveled pink braid falling over her shoulder.

Holding her hand tightly, a woman with a matching face and a violent glare seethed at the man.

A slight of surprise had flickered over his face, so briefly and so easily disguised that it went unknown.

He turned his head to the burning lands, and she stared at the sharp line of his jaw, a steady gaze that reflected no emotion, framed by long but pale eyelashes.

"You shouldn't have refused my request." He sighed, turning back around. "And I would not have resorted to such methods."

"Don't pretend to be benevolent, human, when destruction follows your wake." The woman slowly reached out, cradling the limp body closely to her. She turned, lightly settling the other into the bed of pillows, strangely untouched by the fire. "Are you so certain that destruction will lead to success?"

"I've been taught that it does. Regardless, you will help me, Keeper of the Record Hall."

She snarled, flashing sharp white teeth. "I will do none of the sort—"

"And if you refuse, I will burn these lands over and over again. Every time the flowers bloom, I will return."

A normal human could do no such thing, but this man was different. The woman curled her fingers into the ground, the fires licking the fabrics of her flowing dress.

It was a mistake.

Allowing her dear sister to leave in and out of the human realm, even weakening herself for the sake of that sinner.

They exposed themselves to being caught—and for this man with eyes everywhere, finding an entrance to their land was not impossible.

Every time. It was a mistake to have anything to do with that human, destined for death.

She'd known.

And yet when those students wandered down, she indulged in her sister's whims, her desire to explore and provide help. She'd seen that man, pink-haired and covered in the repulsive stench of death, that this was a man already dead and yet living.

The abnormality should've been a warning.

She should've never let him enter their lands or allowed her sister to share her name. She shouldn't have helped his friends at that arranged festival that toyed with death.

Because a man who died once would likely draw death towards him again.

Then her sister, whose blessing reacted more sensitively than before. Reacting to the minor fluctuations, to the wailing flowers that burned.

Something had changed.

She had rushed to the records after the festival, unsettled, and opened the forbidden histories. A record keeper managed death and sought to help lost souls return to the afterlife, occasionally fulfilling regrets. But they were not to read the histories of the living.

She'd torn open the books, feeling her skin prickle and crack in warning. The records of Kaden Chauvet and the records of her sister.

Once upon a time, she read, Leonara tethered the planes of life and death. The records explained in detail, because every detail mattered in life and death, pulsing faint and delicate images surging through her fingertips.

How Adrianna visited the sinner in his death, sorrowfully gazing on the pitiful life that had been twisted by all those around him.

The emotions of regret had been intense, overwhelming her senses. How she'd noticed when the air changed, an abnormality in the twisting of time.

She had swung her head back to the corpse, the pale body of the lifeless sinner, in horror.

"For your sake, they have committed a taboo," the faerie whispered, floating over and falling at the feet of the body, her dress flowing around her. Her pale gaze prickled with tears. "Your soul never rests."

There was a flaw in the plan. Even if those people sought to save 'Kaden Chauvet' by turning back time, they would only be saving the him of a new timeline.

Not the one who had suffered, the one who had already died.

Adrianna decided, as the trees swayed around her, that the sinner deserved a second chance. A life of his own making, not dictated and directed by others. For the tragedy of all his life was far too pitiful to imagine.

If left alone, it was unknown what would happen to his soul that had been weathered and beaten through the years, tugged by the twisting time. Perhaps only pieces of his soul in the current timeline would travel into the repeated timeline.

But she did not want to send his wandering soul to the past, where the five others had traveled back to.

That was the mistake the ignorant faerie made.

The second Keeper of the Record Hall stole his wisping soul and transferred it across time, history, and realities. To a world where those who harmed him could never find. To a world where perhaps, he could find happiness.

The decision had been irrational and her act was far more complicated than she imagined. In disobeying the laws of the world, the faerie named Leonara perished, experiencing something akin to a Reversal, left in a state that was neither dead nor living.

The soul of the dead Kaden Chauvet accidentally entered a living body pre-disposed for misfortune. With the combination of the unfortunate body and the tragic soul, it was a soulless life.

The original occupant of the body had already died in mind and not body.

Eventually, due to the lack of assimilation between the body and soul, Kaden Chauvet's soul began to wander distantly again.

The man's mental state was never good, at the edge of collapse. He lived a life that could barely be called living, refusing to adjust to the new reality. His past haunted him, manifesting in voices that echoed in his head.

It was unknown whether these voices were his hallucinations of the faraway desires of those who loved and lost.

But they were enough to pollute a deteriorating mind.

Kaden Chauvet, led astray by his thoughts, leaped off a bridge and died. His soul, which should've fled into the afterlife but had been sent to another realm, existed in a state between life and death.

Therefore, this soul without a body searched for a body to assimilate with. Because to die, the soul had to truly become 'living' and then experience 'death'.

But there were no compatible realities, no compatible bodies that could endure the battered remains of his soul.

No bodies but his own. No realities but his own.

And thus, his third life began.

The faerie was not her kind-hearted sister, nor obedient and gentle. She harboured no love or curiosity for humanity.

Despite the scorn boiling in her body, she gritted her teeth and swung her head up. "Ask me your questions, human. If I know the answer, I will tell you. Nothing more, nothing less."

The blue-eyed man nodded. "First. How much time is left for the man called Kaden Chauvet?"

"It would've been years," started the faerie venomously, purposely twisting her words. "But your recent plays had whittled it away to mere months."

He stepped forward, his sword dragging against the burning around. She held out a hand in warning, the fire reflected in her burning gaze.

"Do not take another step, human, or I will burn with my sister and you will never get any answers."

"If you had the courage—"

"I would've done so already?" She laughed mockingly, shaking her head as her straight, flowing hair fell around her wildly. "It's certainly not preferred. But if we feared death, we would not be Keepers of the Record Hall. Death is not a fearful thing."

She brushed her sister's hair gently, the harshness of her expression softening a fraction. "His death would've been due in months. But something has happened—his life has been extended."

"Impossible." The man shook his head furiously, voice rising as madness took to the coldness of his gaze. "If there were an option to do so—"

"Oh, do not be so arrogant. It's unbecoming. There are ancient wisdom and magic that even the wisest of your kind may never encounter in a dozen lifetimes. And you certainly are not the wisest."

"What happened? Where is he? How did his life extend?"

The faerie regarded him, her violent gaze flickering to the burning field of flowers and her collapsed sister. She had no loyalty to the other species.

The world of the Record Hall was the only thing she sought to protect.

She answered his questions honestly, her words laced with mocking.

"One life has been shortened, one life has been extended. This is the magic of an ancient dragon, one both forbidden and unwise. Your dear brother whom you treat so kindly, is blessed with a human's ten years."

Bewilderment and relief flashed in the man's eyes and she sneered.

"Ten human years for a member of the Blessed who uses up their lifespan faster than the regulars—how long do you think that is?"

"8 years? 5? Or perhaps for that fool who is struggling against you... a year? Less than? The irony of your delight at his extended life, human, is hypocrisy.

"When it is you that is killing him."

A sword drew, its deadly blade gleaming among the burning flames, and sliced down. The faerie fell back, a chunk of her hair pinned to the mass of pillows behind her.

Her eyes flickered sideways indifferently and she scoffed, feeling the burn of the blade drawing blood against her head.

The man loomed over her, but she felt no fear for the pathetic husk of a frightened fool. Dressed in noble attire, regal in every stitch of existence save for his mind.

How miserable. How pathetic.

The man was made of all the ingredients suited for tragedy and foolishness–but only Leonara would sympathize with such an individual. His questions continued, carrying an increasing desperation, and the violet faerie almost laughed in mocking.

———+++———

Outside the entrance, a cave located by the luminescent shores of a pure white beach, Lux waited.

His reluctant companion emerged, clothes tattered and a wild madness in his stare. His sword hung on its side, slicked with a light gleam of dark red.

The red-haired prince looked up. "Aren't you looking rather charming today, dear prince?"

"We're leaving."

Lux blinked in surprise as Reed stalked past him without looking back. A frown quickly flipped his leisurely smile, and he hurried after the other.

He reached out, grabbing the man's wrist and forcefully tugging him around.

In the sudden action, the water spilled over their feet before receding again. Fragments of glowing blue prickled over their leather shoes.

"I'm not your dog, Reed. We're leaving where? What is with your hurry, your lack of answers? What did you hear in that cave?"

"Kaden will die."

The words hung in the air, cold and steady. But Lux heard the tremour of fright behind those words, the fear in that prince's expression. Emotions that flowed with such terror, Reed could not withhold them.

He stiffened, his grip painfully tight around the other. "What do you mean, Reed?"

"His life has been temporarily extended. However, an extension will not cure him." In his panic, words flowed freely from Reed's mouth. "He cannot be cured in that matter. His ability, it's too unpredictable, it eats him and corrodes him from the inside—"

"Reed. You already knew that he would die soon. You knew that his ability was killing him, and you allowed him to use it regardless."

"I assigned you to his case because I assumed you would manage some control over him—"

"Don't go blaming me," gritted Lux viciously.

Certainly, he'd attempted to help Kaden in their missions, but the fool was stubborn and mistrustful. He would slip out on his own, and act as he pleased.

Had Lux not been restraining himself, had he known Kaden's identity—

He did not have the right to be miserable about all that he didn't do.

He understood it naturally, held to a standard for a royal title assigned to his name from birth. A title he never desired.

He knew best what it was to be seen for a label and not himself.

Lux had finally found his brother.

And before they could even meet, the chance to reunite had already been severed by his own hand.

How could he tell Kaden that over the helpless sinner who barely ate for three years, he chose the identity of his younger brother whom he barely knew?

Even if they were the same, Lux had chosen to abandon Kaden Chauvet.

Reed gained a sense of rationale, tearing himself from Lux's grip. It left a forming bruise over his skin—that hard-headed companion of his never knew how to control his strength.

Or perhaps he didn't care to when the one opposing him was Reed.

The choices he made, and the resolution he came to in his youth were unraveling before his present. But even if he regretted anything, he could not turn back time.

The only thing Reed could do was continue forward.

Forward, until retribution came at the hands of the only one he would accept. He had built his ship using broken planks, and now it was sinking.

He would sink in that ship.

He'd produced enough results—enough to create the one percent chance to fulfill his desire.

He wanted to make that one percent reach a hundred.

After all, he'd succeeded in turning zero into one, didn't he? Even at the consequence of all the lives in his hands. All the futures he could've had.

Another option had been presented before him, a slight chance of extending Kaden's life.

The Dragon's Treasure.

It was an insane option. One that somehow, Reed knew the ending to.

A deathly look glazed over his eyes, a paling blue that lost its saturation by the day, and he smiled.

Lux stared back in horror.

"I suppose," said Reed dreamily, his voice taking an exhausted, faraway tone like a man who'd lost his mind. "We'll be playing the roles of thieves, sneaking into their Treasured lands."

Lux's eyes widened. He understood it in moments—it was a despicable thing, really, how easy it was to translate Reed's cryptic sentences into meaning.

"You can't mean—even for you, Reed, that is foolery. It's a forbidden place, it's not the same as even entering the Record Hall! You were lucky the faeries left traces—but those dragons? Any traces they leave behind are erased."

"The dragon's injuries were severe. They are likely there."

"And? They'll hide themselves away, unless you somehow set a tracking on them, which I know you haven't—"

Reed turned away, his back facing Lux's protests. He lifted his head to the skies. The moon was full and round and beautiful, a single circle in the darkness.

The ocean waves splashed against his shoes again, chilling his ankles.

"I don't," he agreed. "But there is something we have that they will want back."

"What are you talking about?"

"My little brother has imprisoned something very important to me." Reed lowered his gaze to his hands, pressing his fingers against his palm.

Something important, indeed.

"It's time we let her free."