The taste of copper was the last thing I knew.
It was a thick, metallic coating that clung to the roof of my mouth, mixing with the grit of dirt and the smell of charred pine. My breath came in ragged, wet stutters. Every time my lungs expanded, it felt as though a jagged piece of glass was being dragged across my ribs.
So, this is it, I thought. There was no grand revelation. No light at the end of a tunnel. Just the cold mountain wind howling through the pass, carrying the screams of dying men and the rhythmic thud of heavy boots on stone.
I lay in the ruins of a supply wagon, my legs pinned beneath a splintered axle. Above me, the sky of my old world was a bruised purple, choked by the smoke of a battle I never wanted to fight. I had been a "Contracted Strategist"—a fancy title for a mercenary with a knack for numbers and a coward's heart. I had sold my mind to a Duke who promised me safety, and in return, he had sent me to this gods-forsaken pass to die as a distraction.
Betrayed. Again.
"Please..." I tried to croak, but the word died in a spray of red.
A soldier in blackened plate armor walked past me. He didn't even look down. I wasn't an enemy to him; I was just part of the landscape, like the broken wheels and the dead horses. I watched his cape flutter in the wind until my vision began to tunnel. The edges of the world turned gray, then black. The screaming faded into a dull hum, and then, finally, into a silence so absolute it felt heavy.
I died a broken man. I died a tool.
Then, the silence broke.
It didn't shatter; it dissolved. The suffocating weight of the axle on my legs vanished. The searing pain in my chest cooled, replaced by a strange, tingling numbness.
I felt a sensation of falling—not a drop from a height, but a slow, rhythmic descent through a sea of ink. And then, light.
It hit my eyelids with the force of a physical blow. I recoiled, my senses screaming. I expected the smell of smoke, but instead, my nostrils were filled with the scent of damp earth, wild clover, and something... electric. Something that made the very hairs on my arms stand up.
I forced my eyes open.
I wasn't in the mountains. I was lying in a field of tall, vibrant grass that shimmered with an unnatural, silver-green hue. Above me, the sky was a brilliant, impossible blue, streaked with clouds that looked like they had been painted with a brush dipped in liquid gold.
"Ugh..."
The sound came from my own throat. It was higher than I remembered. Clearer. I sat up abruptly, and my head spun. My hands flew to the ground to steady myself, and I froze.
I stared at them. My hands.
In the mountain pass, my hands had been gnarled, scarred by ink burns and old frostbite, the skin papery and pale. These hands were smooth. The fingers were long and nimble, the skin unblemished. There were no scars. No tremors.
I scrambled to a nearby stream, the water crystal clear and humming with a low, melodic vibration. I leaned over the bank, my heart hammering against my ribs—a steady, strong rhythm I hadn't felt in decades.
The reflection staring back at me wasn't the cynical, forty-year-old man who had died in the mud.
It was a boy.
Dark hair, messy and windblown. Sharp, high cheekbones. And eyes—eyes that were too old for the face they sat in. I was sixteen again.
"How?" I whispered. The word felt like a secret.
As I spoke, a sudden, violent pulse throbbed in the back of my skull. It wasn't just a headache; it was an intrusion. Images flashed before my eyes: ancient stone circles, men in robes chanting in a tongue that sounded like grinding glass, and a shimmering veil of crimson light.
Magic.
In my old world, magic was a myth—a story told to children to make them behave. Here, I could feel it in the air. It felt like a weight, a pressure against my skin. And as I looked at my reflection again, I saw a faint, crimson glow flicker in the depths of my pupils before vanishing.
The memories of my past life surged forward, crashing against the shores of my new mind. The betrayal of the Duke. The faces of the men I had sent to their deaths with a stroke of a pen. The crushing loneliness of a life spent as a shadow.
I collapsed back onto the grass, gasping.
I had been reborn. Reincarnated. Whatever the word was, the reality was the same: I was in a new world, a younger body, and I was utterly alone.
Fear, cold and familiar, gripped my heart. Was this a reward for a miserable life? Or was this a cruel joke by whatever gods ruled this place? I had died a pawn. If I stood up and started walking, would I just find a new master to serve? Would I just find another Duke, another war, another muddy grave?
I gripped a handful of the silver grass, pulling it from the earth.
"No," I hissed, the sound lost in the vast expanse of the fields.
I remembered the cold of the mountain pass. I remembered the indifference of the soldier who walked over me. I would not go back to that. If this world was filled with magic and power, then I would take it. I didn't care about destiny. I didn't care about "second chances."
I only cared about one thing: never being the one in the mud again.
I stood up, my legs feeling light and powerful. In the distance, I saw the smoke of a village, rising thin and white against the golden sun.
Adam Hilt was dead. He had died a coward in a mountain pass.
I didn't know who I was yet, but as I took my first step toward that smoke, I knew who I would become.