The first death had been a spear.
The second, a choice.
Aleksi did not even try to resist the Codex this time. He read the first syllables aloud, felt the letters brand themselves into the air like molten iron. The throne room shook, courtiers screaming as unseen hands dragged at their shadows. The Empress's laughter pealed through the chaos.
And when the Codex's hunger turned its eye toward him, Aleksi stepped forward willingly, welcoming it.
The pain came swift and merciless. His flesh seared. His mind cracked. The world shattered—
And he woke again.
His bed. His chamber. Morning light bleeding through the shutters. Birds singing. Merek knocking on the door.
The same moment. The same place.
Aleksi pressed his hand to his chest. The phantom pain of burning still lingered, but the wound was gone. The faint hourglass symbol flickered once beneath his skin before vanishing.
He sat in silence, breathing hard.
So it was true.
Death did not end him. Death returned him.
But not without cost.
He reached for his ink and parchment with trembling fingers. He needed a record, a way to chart the pattern before it broke his mind.
---
**Observations:**
1. Upon death, I awaken in my scholar's chamber, morning of the day I am summoned.
2. Memories of each death remain intact. Body unmarked, but phantom pain lingers.
3. The mark appears each time I return. Hourglass. Burned into the chest.
4. No limit… yet.
He hesitated before writing the last note. There had to be a limit. Every law of magic, every fragment of ritual he had ever studied spoke of balance. Nothing infinite could exist without consequence.
And already he felt it. The second death had not been as clean as the first. His thoughts blurred at the edges, a faint static whispering at the corners of his memory. It would not take much for his mind to splinter.
How many times could he endure before he was no longer himself?
---
The summons came as before. The guards. The Citadel. The throne room. Elara waiting, draped in silk and madness.
But this time, Aleksi did not touch the Codex when she offered it.
"Majesty," he said instead, forcing his voice steady, "there are dangers you do not see. The words in this scroll are not power, but chains. Once spoken, they do not serve—they command."
Elara's eyes sharpened.
"And you would deny me?"
"I would protect you."
A ripple of shock swept the court. No one had dared to speak of protecting her. The Empress needed no protection.
But she only smiled, slow and terrible.
"Protect me?" she whispered. "Or protect yourself?"
Aleksi did not answer. He could not.
Because he had already made a choice.
---
That night, after the court had dismissed him, Aleksi tested the curse again.
He climbed the scholar's tower and stood at the edge, the wind howling against his face. The city sprawled below, glittering with a thousand lanterns.
His stomach churned. His hands trembled. But he needed to know.
He stepped forward.
The stones rushed to meet him. His body shattered against the cobblestones. Pain bloomed in every limb. His final breath came ragged and broken—
And then he awoke.
The chamber again. Morning light. Birds singing.
But something was different.
His head pounded. Blood dripped from his nose. The mark on his chest flared hot and angry before sinking back beneath his skin.
And when he tried to write the memory down, his hand shook uncontrollably. The words blurred, sliding across the page. He could hardly hold the quill.
The curse had rules.
He sat back, breath ragged, forcing the facts into order.
---
**Further Observations:**
1. Return point fixed: morning of the summons. Cannot shift it.
2. All memories carried over, but each death leaves residue—phantom pain, weakness, mental strain.
3. Excessive repetition risks collapse of self. The mark strengthens with each death. Possible sign of limit.
4. Cause of curse linked to Codex, but motive unclear. Accident? Or design?
---
Aleksi pressed his palms against his eyes, trying to steady his thoughts. Already, the world felt thinner at the edges. Reality itself bent around the curse, pulling him back again and again like water dragging a drowning man under.
But for all its cruelty, there was one undeniable truth:
This ability gave him a weapon no scholar had ever wielded.
Knowledge was power. And now, he had the chance to gather knowledge no mortal could ever dream of—through trial, through failure, through death.
He could test paths others would never dare tread. He could learn from mistakes that would kill anyone else. He could face the Empress again and again, and still return with every secret she tried to bury.
Aleksi laughed, though it came out broken and bitter.
If Elara thought she had collected him like a trinket, she was wrong.
He was not hers.
He was a storm bound to her empire.
And he would use this curse—this Hourglass Curse—to unravel her.
The mark on his chest pulsed once, almost as if it agreed.
---
But then came the voice.
Late that night, when the candles guttered low and his eyes burned from writing, he heard it. A whisper, soft and cold, curling out from the shadowed corner of his chamber.
"You are ours," it said.
Aleksi froze. His quill dropped to the floor.
The shadows rippled. The same faint glow that had clung to the Codex flickered there.
The voice repeated, slower this time, as if savoring each syllable.
"You are ours."
Aleksi's chest flared with searing heat, the mark blazing bright enough to burn through his tunic.
He clutched at it, gasping, as the whisper coiled around him like a chain.
And for the first time, Aleksi realized—
The Codex had not cursed him accidentally.
It had chosen him.