17th Veyra, 495 IC, Dawnsworn
The first thing Alden registered was the air. Clean. Cold. Laced with incense.
"This is... my room." The words escaped as a gentle whisper.
His eyes opened to velvet curtains and familiar stone. Not frost. Not lava.
It had worked.
He counted his breaths while pushing himself up. One. Two. Three. They all came the same—easy going in, easy coming out.
He could feel his chest, his hands, his legs. Everything intact. But the strangest sensation was the absence of pain. He closed his eyes again, bracing for the phantom burn of fire or the bite of frost. It didn't come.
Smooth, youthful skin stretched over his knuckles as he flexed them. The joints worked perfectly. Silent. Effortless. As if they'd never spent eternity grinding against themselves.
His hand reached blindly toward the bedside table, seeking a weapon that should have been dust by now.
His fingers closed around cold steel.
It was there.
Without hesitation, he drew the blade across his finger. Crimson welled from the slice, and he watched with something close to fascination as the flesh refused to knit back together.
"This is it," he mumbled.
He snatched the calendar from the nightstand, nearly knocked over the water glass in his haste. His eyes locked on the red circle: Seventeenth Day of Veyra, Year 495.
He stared at the numbers and whispered, "Dawnsworn Era."
A date from before the curse. Centuries behind the last one he'd seen.
He let out a quiet, breathless laugh. "Finally... I am back."
Back in the Emerald Castle. Back to the time before everything burned. And before... her.
His hand sought the pendant at his throat. It pulsed crimson, and as his fingers brushed the stone, the curtains and walls dissolved into memory—the day it all started.
---
She had sat upon the throne. A crown of frost and flame rested on her brow.
"Alden Alger de Leonhelm. Death would be a mercy you do not deserve."
Her lip curled. "Every human you dare to love, every person you hold close—they will die in agony. And as for you..."
She rose from the throne and walked past him, her voice cold. "You will burn and freeze for eternity. No sleep will bring you comfort. No food will sate your hunger."
Then, silence.
Alden had knelt in the wreckage of the palace as the horizon turned violent orange. Slowly, he'd stood and moved through the halls, his boots stepping over the corpses of everyone he had ever cared for.
The Empire had burned. She had vanished. And he had started dying.
He'd gotten rather good at it.
---
The knock on the door broke the silence, pulling him out of reverie.
"Your Highness? Are... are you awake?"
Alden noticed a loose thread on the curtain hem. Red silk. Probably cost more than a farmer earned in a year. He wrapped it around his finger until the tip went white.
"The Empress..." The servant's voice cracked.
Elara. He remembered her name. That seemed important, somehow.
"She... she passed. In the night."
The thread snapped.
Alden looked at the broken fiber on his finger. Then at the door. The wood had a knot in it shaped like an eye. He'd stared at that knot in his youth, imagining it was watching him. Protecting him.
His mother was dead.
He thought he should check—press his palm to his chest, see if anything was broken in there. But his hand just hung at his side.
The servant was crying. He could hear the wet, hitching sounds through the door.
Alden walked over and opened it.
Elara stood there, face swollen, eyes red-rimmed. Clutching a velvet robe to her chest, she took in his appearance—barefoot, dressed in thin nightclothes.
"Your Highness, you must—the chill—" she stammered, holding out the robe.
Alden walked past her. Didn't look at the robe. Didn't feel the chill.
He moved down the corridor, bare feet silent on cold stone. The corridor parted before him. Servants pressed their backs against the walls, heads bowed, making space for the Prince.
Alden stared at the back of a young guard's neck. In the fires of the capital, he had seen that bone snapped. Now, the skin was smooth, pink with blood and life.
He walked past ghosts that breathed. They looked at him with pity, their eyes wet. They were mourning.
He took his carriage to bridge the distance between the Emerald Castle and Arabella Castle, then made his way to where his mother lay. His body guided him, muscle memory taking over even as his mind drifted.
The air outside smelled of blooming lilies and damp earth—cloyingly sweet.
He pushed into the Empress's bedchamber. The scent here was different: stale medicine, old lavender, and the metallic tang of finality.
He approached the bed. For a moment, his mind reached for a memory—a feverish night, a cool hand on his forehead, a voice whispering stories of angels. But the image was faded, eroded by the relentless flow of years.
Then he looked down, and the blur sharpened into painful clarity.
She lay still. Lips gray, the lines of pain around her mouth smoothed out.
Alden reached out. His fingers brushed her cheek. Cold. The warmth was gone.
In his first life, this cold had burned him. He had thrown himself over her body, screaming at the ceiling, bargaining with deities who weren't listening.
Now, Alden stood straight, pulling a chair to the bedside. Sat.
Hours passed. The sun climbed, shifting shadows across her face. Servants came in with water, with linens, whispering about protocols.
When the room emptied, leaving him in silence, he leaned forward.
"I'm sorry, Mother."
The words were barely a whisper. "It has been so long... I forgot what you wanted me to become."
He turned his head toward the window, staring out at the blue sky that stretched over the empire. His eyes were dry.
"But Mother..." He stood up, the chair scraping harsh against the floor. He didn't look back at the bed. He turned away from the dead, his gaze fixing on the horizon.
"I hope you understand."
---
In the Imperial Chapel, Alden stood beneath vaulted arches, boots rooted to stone. His knees throbbed, but he kept his eyes locked on the space ahead. Threads of conversation drifted through the low hum of the crowd, and he picked them apart one by one.
"...swordmaster or not, look at him. He is just a boy."
"...motherless now. The seat is empty."
"...won't be empty for long. The Emperor has needs, and a harem full of women..."
"Shh. He might hear."
The words washed over him as he watched the priests chant.
Behind him, the presence of the Four Dukes was constant—pillars of the realm, already weighing new foundations. He didn't need to turn around to know they were exchanging glances.
Further back, the rustle of fabric announced the arrival of his half-siblings, Jeremy and Jenna. They had come at the last possible minute to perform their sincerity, only to turn and leave moments later.
"Now that she's dead," Jeremy whispered, voice sharp. "Shouldn't Father renounce the heir already?"
Alden stared at the silver handle of the coffin and the priest's golden brush as it swung. Droplets of holy water hit the dark wood—tap, tap, tap.
"Patience, brother," Jenna replied softly. "It's just a matter of time."
But Jeremy wasn't convinced. His gaze fixed on another half-sibling: Aran. The boy of fifteen stood with his head lowered.
"Look at that, sister..." Jeremy spat. "I didn't see Alden look at him even once today..."
"Ignore him. He's just a leech," Jenna's voice drifted from the shadows. "Alden is too blind to see it."
Aran.
The name struck a chord deep in Alden's spine. A sharp, brief light flickered in his eyes before vanishing.
The chant reached a crescendo. A heavy thud shook the floor as the coffin began its descent. Alden looked at his mother's still hands for the last time.
The casket hit the bottom of the grave. Alden exhaled.
"Goodbye, Mother," he whispered.
He turned from the grave without looking back. Inside his sleeve, his fist clenched until the leather of his glove groaned under the strain.