Rei didn't remember collapsing.
One moment he'd been in his room, the crystal's hum rising to a fever pitch, light blazing so bright it seared his retinas. The next,
Nothing.
Just the void. The space between heartbeats where consciousness went to die.
When his eyes finally cracked open, the world had changed again.
A low, steady beeping filled his ears, rhythmic, mechanical, wrong. The sharp bite of antiseptic clung to the air, chemical enough to make his throat burn with each shallow breath.
Everything was white.
White ceiling tiles, water-stained and cracked. White walls, paint peeling at the corners like dead skin. White sheets beneath him, rough and threadbare, the kind found in underfunded clinics that asked no questions and kept no records.
I'm in a hospital.
A cracked screen above his bed blinked weakly, showing a line of text that made his breath hitch.
Date: March 17th, 457 AR Location: Varen District Medical Ward, Western Territory
Through the half-shuttered window, he could see the silhouette of the ruined skyline,
But not the past. The light above him flickered, once, twice, three times, in that particular pattern he remembered too well. Power rationing. The kind the Order implemented in outer districts to "optimize resource distribution."
Rei turned his head slowly, every muscle screaming in protest, and looked out the small grimy window.
Mechanical birds perched on the ledges outside.
Sentinel Flock.
Their bodies were grotesque hybrids, steel frames wrapped in synthetic flesh that never quite looked right, wings that moved with too-perfect synchronization. Glass eyes glowed with faint blue light as they scanned the streets below, recording everything, transmitting constantly to Order surveillance hubs.
Half metal. Half blood. All surveillance.
The Order's eyes across every capital.
Rei's stomach dropped.
I went to sleep in my room. In the past. Five years before any of this.
And now I'm back. In the future. In this broken body. In this dying world.
The irony twisted through his chest like a knife finding old wounds.
So this is my life now. Wake up in the past, die in the future. Over and over. A loop with no escape.
The door creaked open.
The man who entered moved like a soldier pretending to be a civilian.
Broad-shouldered, barrel-chested, with the kind of controlled movements that came from years of combat training burned into muscle memory. He wore a plain white hospital coat that hung awkwardly on his frame, too small in the shoulders, too short in the sleeves.
His left cuff was torn, revealing a glimpse of his forearm.
And tattooed there, faded but unmistakable, was a lion crest split cleanly down the middle.
Rei's breath caught.
The House of Varen.
Rulers of the Western Territories. The noble family that had governed the iron mines and trade routes before the Order's expansion. In the past, in his past, the one he'd just left, Count Aldric Varen still held power, still commanded respect, still controlled wealth that made merchants salivate.
In this future, that house was dead. The territories absorbed. The wealth redistributed to Order-approved merchants and puppet nobles.
And this man, this survivor, is the missing link between the two timelines.
The man froze mid-step when he noticed Rei staring at the tattoo. His hand moved instinctively to cover it, then stopped, realizing he'd already given himself away.
"You've got sharp eyes," he said finally, his voice low and tired, carrying the weight of too many losses. "Most people don't notice."
Rei's lips curved into a faint, knowing smile despite the pain. "Most people aren't supposed to."
The man exhaled something that might have been a laugh once, before the humor got beaten out of it. He pulled up a battered metal chair and sat heavily, studying Rei with the kind of assessment soldiers gave potential threats or allies.
"Name's Darius Vale," he said after a long moment. "Used to be personal bodyguard to Count Varen. Now I patch up scavengers in back-alley clinics and pray the Sentinels don't run my face through their recognition software."
Rei stayed silent, letting the information settle, his mind already racing through implications and possibilities.
Darius Vale. Personal bodyguard means he was in the inner circle. Trusted. Privy to financial records, political alliances, trade agreements. And he survived when the house fell, which means,
"You weren't there when it happened," Rei said quietly.
Darius' eyes sharpened. "When what happened?"
"When they came for the Count. When the Order's agents walked into the estate under the banner of a merchant who'd bought your master's debt. You were away. On assignment. Or maybe sick. But you weren't there to die with the rest of them."
The color drained from Darius' face. His hand clenched into a fist on his knee, knuckles going white. "How the hell do you"
"Because you're still alive," Rei interrupted, his tone matter-of-fact. "If you'd been there, you would have died defending him. That's what loyal bodyguards do. The fact that you survived means you carry that guilt like a second spine."
Silence crashed between them, heavy enough to suffocate.
Darius stared at him, this broken boy in a hospital bed who shouldn't know any of this, who was reading him like an open book written in blood.
"You're not from around here, are you?" Darius finally asked, his voice carefully neutral.
"Something like that."
Darius leaned back, the chair creaking under his weight. "I pulled you out of the river twodays ago. You were more dead than alive, knife wound between your ribs, severed nerves in your spine, hypothermia setting in. Should have been a corpse."
Rei looked down at his legs. Bandaged heavily. Numb. Useless.
twodays. I've been here twodays while my consciousness lived nights in the past. Time moves the same in both. But my body exists in both simultaneously, whole in one, broken in the other.
"Who runs this place?" Rei asked, changing the subject.
Darius' expression closed off immediately. "Depends who's asking."
"Someone who knows the Eternal Order's reach doesn't end with the cities." Rei met his gaze evenly. "And someone who knows Count Varen's house didn't fall by accident."
The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.
Darius went very still, the kind of stillness predators adopted before striking. "You talk too easily for a cripple who should be grateful to be breathing."
Rei smiled faintly, unbothered. "And you hide too carefully for someone who's just a nurse."