The war camp sat in a clearing between three hills, ringed by sharpened logs and guarded by boys too young to shave and old men too stubborn to die. Grog knew this. He'd known it the first time, forty years ago, when he'd stumbled through these same trees with a bloody head and a confused heart.
Knowing it didn't make walking through the gates any easier.
Every face was a ghost.
There—Sergeant Borin, mending a bridle outside his tent. He'd die at the Siege of Ashford, cut down by a Vargr war chief while covering a retreat. Grog had found his body three days later, propped against a tree with his sword still in his hand. The Vargr had left him that way. Out of respect, or mockery, Grog never knew.
There—Finn the One-Ear, sharpening knives by the cookfire. He'd survive the border wars, make a fortune as a mercenary, and drink himself to death in a tavern twenty miles from home. Grog had carried his coffin.
There—Marta, the camp healer, arguing with a supply officer about moldy bandages. She'd outlive them all, Grog remembered. Would live to be ninety, surrounded by grandchildren, and die in her sleep. He'd attended her funeral. Wept at it, actually. She'd been kind to him when kindness was scarce.
Grog stopped walking.
Lira turned back, annoyed. "What now?"
"Nothing." His voice sounded strange to his own ears. "Just—give me a minute."
She crossed her arms, clearly impatient, but she waited. Lira had always been like that—sharp edges hiding something softer underneath. It had taken Grog years to learn that. Now he knew it from the start.
He looked at the camp again.
They're all alive, he thought. Borin and Finn and Marta and a hundred others. All alive. All breathing. All going about their day like nothing's wrong.
Because nothing was wrong. Not yet. The Vargr raids were annoying but manageable. The harvest had been good. The king was healthy. The hero was still just a farm boy with dreams too big for his station.
The world hadn't ended yet.
Only Grog knew it would.
The weight of that knowledge pressed down on his shoulders, heavier than any axe. He wanted to scream. Wanted to grab Borin by the collar and shake him, shout You're going to die in six years if you don't change everything—if YOU don't change—
But Borin wouldn't believe him. No one would.
And even if they did—even if the whole camp somehow accepted that a sixteen-year-old barbarian had lived forty-one years and died in a cave and come back—what then? What could any of them do?
Aldric was seventeen. Innocent. The corruption hadn't touched him yet. Killing him now would be murder. Saving him might be impossible. Warning him—
"Grog."
Lira's voice cut through. She was standing right in front of him now, close enough to poke his chest.
"You're doing the staring thing again. And your ears are red. And you're breathing weird." She tilted her head. "Are you having a fit? Should I hit you?"
"No." He blinked, focused on her face. Young. Suspicious. Alive. "I'm fine."
"You're a terrible liar."
"I'm not lying."
"You just did. Twice." She poked him harder. "Look. I don't know what happened when your head got rattled, but you've been acting strange since you woke up. Strange like I-found-out-my-mother-was-a-Vargr strange, not strange like I-took-a-mace-to-the-helmet strange." She dropped her voice. "So I'll ask once. What's wrong with you?"
Grog looked at her.
He could tell her. She was smart. Sharp. Skeptical. If anyone might believe the impossible, it would be Lira. And she deserved to know—deserved a warning, at least, after what happened last time.
But last time, she'd died first.
If he told her, would that change? Would she live longer, or would knowing put her in more danger? Could he protect her better if she knew, or would she do something reckless and get herself killed even sooner?
He didn't know.
He hated not knowing.
"I can't," he said finally. "Not yet."
Lira's eyes narrowed. "Can't or won't?"
"Both."
She held his gaze for a long moment. Then, to his surprise, she nodded.
"Fine." She turned and started walking again. "But I'm watching you. And when you're ready to talk, you talk to me first. Not Aldric. Not the captain. Me. Understood?"
Grog followed. "Understood."
They walked through the camp in silence.
---
The cookfire was busy.
Midday meal meant soldiers crowded around the flames with tin plates and wooden spoons, trading gossip and complaining about the food. Grog smelled rabbit stew—thin on meat, heavy on roots, but hot. His stomach growled.
Lira snorted. "There. Normal bodily functions. You're still human."
"I'm always human."
"Debatable."
She led him to a log near the edge of the fire circle, away from the densest crowd. Grog sat gratefully. His legs still felt wrong—too light, too quick to tire. In his old body, he could march all day and fight all night. Now he'd walked half a mile and wanted a nap.
Forty-one years in a forty-one-year-old body, he reminded himself. Then dead. Then sixteen again. Give it time.
A tin cup of stew appeared in front of his face.
He looked up.
Aldric stood there.
Seventeen. Gangly. His too-big sword was propped against a nearby tree, and his too-wide smile was spread across his too-earnest face. He looked like a puppy bringing a stick to a stranger.
"You're awake!" Aldric thrust the cup into Grog's hands. "I was so worried. Lira said you'd probably wake up, but she says a lot of things, and half of them are lies, so I didn't know what to believe, and then Captain Voren wanted the reports, and I had to do them because Theron was still out with the scouts, and—"
"Aldric." Lira's voice cut like a knife. "Breathe."
Aldric blinked. Took a breath. Grinned sheepishly. "Sorry. I just—I'm glad you're okay. You took a hard hit."
Grog stared at him.
The stew was warm in his hands. Aldric was warm in front of him. Alive. Young. Uncorrupted. The same boy who'd taught Grog to read, who'd shared his rations, who'd called him brother.
The same boy whose face had smiled down at him while Grog bled out on cold stone.
"Aldric." Grog's voice came out rough. "Sit down."
Aldric's grin faltered. "What? Why? Is something wrong? Is your head—"
"Sit. Down."
Lira shot Grog a sharp look but said nothing.
Aldric sat. Cross-legged on the ground like a child at story-time, looking up at Grog with those earnest, trusting eyes.
Grog's chest ached.
He hasn't done anything yet, he reminded himself. This isn't the monster. This is just a boy.
But the monster was in there. Waiting. Growing. Twenty-five years from now, those same eyes would burn red.
"You saved my life," Grog said slowly. "Carried me half a mile. Lira told me."
Aldric's ears went pink. "It wasn't—I mean, anyone would have—you're heavy, by the way, really heavy, I thought my arms were going to fall off—"
"You saved my life," Grog repeated. "Thank you."
The words felt strange. He'd thanked Aldric a hundred times in the old timeline—for teaching him, for trusting him, for being his friend. He'd never thanked him for this. This moment hadn't happened yet.
Aldric's grin returned, brighter than before. "You're welcome! I mean—you don't have to—it's what friends do, right?"
Friends.
Grog looked down at the stew. It was thin, mostly water, with a few pathetic chunks of rabbit and some floating roots. It smelled better than anything he'd eaten in twenty-five years.
He took a bite.
It was terrible. Underseasoned, the rabbit tough, the roots undercooked.
It was the best thing he'd ever tasted.
---
They ate in companionable silence for a while.
Lira produced a hunk of bread from somewhere and tore it into thirds, handing pieces to Grog and Aldric without comment. Aldric talked—he always talked—about the skirmish, about the Vargr, about a dog he'd seen in the supply tent that looked just like his childhood pet. Lira rolled her eyes and made sharp comments. Grog listened.
It was ordinary.
It was beautiful.
This is what I'm fighting for, he realized. Not revenge. Not even survival. This. Right now. Stupid conversations and terrible stew and people I love being alive.
"Grog?"
He looked up.
Aldric was watching him with concern. "You're crying again."
Grog touched his face. His cheeks were wet. He hadn't noticed.
"Stew's hot," he said. "Burned my tongue."
Lira snorted. Aldric looked skeptical but let it go.
The afternoon stretched on.
---
Night fell faster than Grog expected.
The camp settled into its evening rhythm—guards changing, fires burning low, soldiers drifting toward tents and bedrolls. Grog found himself assigned to a small tent near the edge of camp, shared with three other young fighters he vaguely remembered from the old timeline. They were polite enough, introducing themselves with the awkward formality of boys trying to act like men.
Grog nodded along, said the right things, and remembered which of them would survive the next five years.
(One. Only one.)
When they finally slept, Grog lay awake.
The tent was dark. His tentmates breathed softly around him—one snoring, one muttering in his sleep, one completely silent. Outside, an owl called. Somewhere distant, a wolf answered.
Grog stared at the canvas above him and thought about caves.
About cold stone. About blood. About Lira's hand reaching toward him, not quite close enough.
He thought about Aldric's face—young and open and good—and tried to reconcile it with the crimson-eyed thing that had twisted a sword in his guts.
Twenty-five years, he told himself. You have twenty-five years.
But twenty-five years wasn't forever. And somewhere in that time, something would happen to Aldric. Something would change him. Something would turn a farm boy with a big heart into a vessel for an ancient evil.
Grog needed to find out what. When. Why.
And then he needed to stop it.
Assuming it could be stopped.
Assuming he could get close enough to try without alerting whatever was watching.
Assuming—
A sound.
Grog's eyes snapped toward the tent flap. His hand found his axe—the training axe, dull and light, but an axe—before his brain fully caught up.
The sound came again.
Footsteps. Slow. Careful. Pausing outside.
Then a whisper:
"Grog? You awake?"
Aldric's voice.
Grog didn't move. Didn't breathe.
"I know it's late," the whisper continued. "I just—I couldn't sleep. And I thought maybe you couldn't either. After the hit you took. Sometimes I can't sleep after fights. My ma used to say it's normal, but—" A pause. "Anyway. If you're awake. I'm by the big oak. Where we ate dinner. I'll be there for a while."
Footsteps again. Fading.
Grog lay still for a long count of fifty.
Then he rose.
His tentmates didn't stir. The camp was quiet. The moon was half-full, casting pale light across the clearing as he made his way toward the big oak.
Aldric sat with his back against the trunk, knees drawn up, staring at the sky.
He looked small.
Grog stopped a few feet away. "Couldn't sleep."
Aldric startled, then relaxed when he saw who it was. "Yeah. Me neither." He patted the ground beside him. "Sit. If you want."
Grog sat.
For a while, neither spoke. The owl called again. The wolf answered—closer now.
"Can I ask you something weird?" Aldric said finally.
Grog's gut tightened. "Go ahead."
"Do you ever think about the future? Like—far future. What you'll be doing in twenty years. Thirty years. Who you'll be."
Grog's hands clenched on his knees.
Yes, he thought. I think about it constantly. I've already lived it. We all died.
"Sometimes," he said.
Aldric nodded slowly. "I think about it a lot. Being a hero. Saving people. Having a party of my own—people who trust me, who'd follow me anywhere." He glanced at Grog, then away. "Stupid, right? Kid dreams."
"No." Grog's voice came out rougher than intended. "Not stupid."
Aldric smiled—that same open, hopeful smile. "You think so?"
Grog looked at him. At the boy who would become a hero. At the hero who would become a monster. At the monster who had murdered everyone Grog loved.
Not yet, he reminded himself. Not yet.
"I think," Grog said carefully, "that dreams aren't the problem. It's what happens when they come true."
Aldric frowned. "What do you mean?"
Grog didn't answer.
Because how could he explain? How could he warn this boy that his greatest dream would become his greatest nightmare, would become everyone's nightmare, without sounding like a madman?
He couldn't.
Not yet.
"Just—" Grog stopped. Started again. "Just be careful what you wish for. That's all."
Aldric stared at him for a long moment. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed.
"You're weird, Grog. You know that? Really weird." But he said it fondly. "Thanks for sitting with me."
Grog nodded.
They sat together under the oak, watching the moon, listening to the wolves.
And in the darkness, just at the edge of hearing, something whispered.
Grog stiffened. Turned his head.
Nothing there. Just trees. Just shadows.
But for a moment—just a moment—he could have sworn he saw two points of light among the branches. Red as dying embers.
Then they were gone.
Aldric hadn't noticed. He was still staring at the sky, dreaming his dreams.
Grog's hand found his axe.
And for the first time since waking up in the past, he wondered if he was already too late.