Chapter 4: The Third First Day

Chapter 4: The Third First Day

A scream, strangled and hoarse, was ripped from Kaelen’s throat as he clawed his way back into existence.

He jolted upright in bed, his hands flying to his chest, expecting to find shredded robes and a gaping, bloody wound. But there was only the thin fabric of his nightshirt and smooth, unbroken skin beneath. The phantom agony was excruciating, a memory of cold steel grinding against his ribs, a final, wet gasp as his own blood filled his lungs. It was a sharp, visceral pain, so different from the soul-dissolving horror of the Void Walker. The two deaths warred within him, two ghosts haunting the same body, their phantom pains a dissonant symphony of torment.

He was back. Back in his room. Back on the first day.

The sunlight streamed through the window, warm and golden. The familiar smell of parchment and wax filled the air. But there was no comfort in the familiarity now. It was a lie. A beautiful, meticulously crafted stage for a tragedy doomed to repeat.

His breathing was a frantic, ragged mess. He looked around the room, but not with the disorientation of the first loop. This time, he looked with the sharp, twitching paranoia of a cornered animal. The stacks of books were no longer comforting sources of knowledge; they were silent, useless witnesses. The half-finished letter on his desk was a monument to a life that no longer existed.

His gaze fell upon his left hand, resting on the covers. The glyph of the open eye in a broken circle pulsed with its soft, silver-blue light. It wasn’t a miracle. It wasn’t a gift. It was the engine of his curse, the mark of his damnation. Every time he died, this power would drag his fractured soul back to this exact moment, forcing him to relive the final days of Aethelburg again, and again, and again.

Rage, cold and pure, burned through the terror. The memory of Rhys’s face swam before his eyes. The calm, resolute expression. The twisted sense of duty. The betrayal that cut deeper than the sword. “This is for the good of the city, Kaelen.”

Kaelen’s jaw tightened until his teeth ached. He would not be a lamb led to the slaughter a third time.

His eyes locked onto the writing desk. The quill and inkpot he had vaporized in his first loop sat there, pristine and whole. He extended his glowing left hand, his fingers trembling not with fear, but with contained fury.

Last time, he had reached out with desperate hope and unleashed chaos. This time, he reached out with purpose. He channeled the memory of steel, the sting of betrayal, the agonizing weight of his foreknowledge, and focused it all into a single point of will.

Lift.

The quill trembled. It wobbled on the desk, then slowly, grudgingly, rose a few inches into the air. It shook violently, surrounded by a faint, crackling aura of silver-blue energy. It was a clumsy, brutal form of telekinesis, fueled by nothing but pain and rage, but it was controlled. He held it there for a second, two, then let it drop back to the desk with a soft clatter.

He was learning. The price of the lesson had been his life, twice over.

A new clarity cut through his emotional turmoil. His first plan had been to trust. He had trusted the one person he believed was incorruptible, and that trust had earned him a blade in the chest. Rhys, and by extension the City Guard, was not an ally. They were an obstacle, a potential executioner hiding behind a friendly face.

He couldn't go to the Magi Council; they would see his untamed power and the fracture in his soul and either lock him away for study or destroy him as an anomaly. He couldn't warn the public; he’d be dismissed as a lunatic, inciting the very panic Rhys had killed him to prevent.

He was utterly, completely alone.

The realization wasn't despairing this time. It was liberating. If he could trust no one, then he was beholden to no one. He didn't have to convince anyone, plead his case, or prove his sanity. He just had to act.

His old desire—to find his family—surfaced again, but now it was sharp and clear, no longer clouded by the city-wide panic. The Void Walkers, the end of the world… it all started a week after Arch-Scribe Elara and his daughter vanished. It couldn't be a coincidence. The disappearance wasn't just a piece of the puzzle; it was the first piece. It was the source.

And the source of that mystery was in one place: the Arch-Scribe’s forbidden workshop. The place the Guard had sealed, the place Rhys had forbidden him from entering.

This time, he wouldn't be a Scribe seeking help. He would be a hunter seeking answers.

Kaelen moved with a cold, deliberate speed. He dressed in his darkest robes, pulling the hood up to shadow his face. He strapped a small satchel to his belt, filling it not with books, but with practical items: a flint and steel, a coil of rope, a small, sharp letter opener that now felt woefully inadequate.

He slipped out of his room and into the hallowed halls of the Great Library. The morning quiet was the same, the scent of old knowledge was the same, but Kaelen was a stranger here now. He saw the other scribes shuffling past, their faces buried in scrolls, and felt a profound sense of alienation. They were living in a world that was already a ghost to him. He was a specter moving through his own memories.

He avoided the main halls, sticking to the dusty, little-used servant corridors he had discovered as a boy. Every footstep was silent, every corner checked before he rounded it. His senses were on fire, his paranoia a sharpened shield. The face of every passing Guard patrol sent a jolt of icy adrenaline through his veins. Was that the man who held him down? Was that the one who watched, impassive, as Rhys delivered the final blow? He couldn't know. So he treated them all as enemies.

Finally, he reached the corridor leading to the Arch-Scribe's private wing. It was just as he’d expected. The heavy oak door to the workshop was sealed with a thick band of silver parchment bearing the official sigil of the City Guard, stamped in dark blue wax. A magi-lock, a complex weave of light and energy, pulsed softly over the keyhole.

He was analyzing the lock, his mind racing through arcane theory to find a weakness, a way to brute-force it with his raw power, when a soft voice spoke from the shadows.

“It is warded against raw mana. You would bring the whole wing down before you opened it.”

Kaelen spun around, his left hand flaring with silver-blue light, his heart hammering against his ribs.

Leaning against the opposite wall, shrouded in the gloom between two sconces, was the silver-eyed woman. She stood with an impossible stillness, her dark clothes blending into the shadows, her gnarled star-metal staff held loosely in one hand. She wasn't surprised or alarmed by his hostile reaction. She looked… expectant. As if she had simply been waiting for him to arrive.

Her pale, luminous eyes met his, and he saw an unnerving flicker of understanding in them, perhaps even approval.

“Seeking help didn’t work,” Lyra said, her voice a calm, level whisper in the silent hall. “So you seek answers instead. A wise, if painful, lesson to learn.”