The edge of the blade bit into my throat, cold and final. I had lost. Years of blood, sweat, and obsession—all of it reduced to this single, pathetic moment of failure.
The word hammered against my skull. I hadn't crawled through hell for years just to fall short of the summit. I wouldn't let it end like this. I will achieve my goal, even if I have to tear the world apart to do it. Than, the world tore first
The cold steel didn't slice; it vanished. The copper tang of blood in my mouth replaced by the sterile scent of cheap linoleum and old paper. The roar of the battlefield died into the hum of a flickering fluorescent light.
I wasn't dying. I was sitting in a classroom, my hands trembling over a desk that had been burned to ash ten years ago. My throat was intact, but my mind was still stained red.
Good, I thought, gripping the pen until it snapped. I needed more time anyway. As i started dozing off i heard a
voice didn't belong to a general. It wasn't the raspy command of a dying ally or the cold sneer of my executioner. It was sharp, nasal, and painfully mundane.
"Wake up, Ren! Or is my lecture on Civic Virtue putting you to sleep?"
The world snapped into focus. Gone was the smell of ozone and the weight of the blade. I was staring at a chalkboard covered in dusty white equations. Mr. Aris stood over me, his wooden pointer tapping against my desk like a ticking clock. The rest of the class was snickering, waiting for me to stumble.
"Since you're so comfortable," Aris continued, leaning in, "tell us: What is freedom?"
The word felt heavy in my mouth. Freedom. I had seen men die for it. I had seen nations burn it to the ground to stay safe. I had used the promise of it to manipulate entire divisions into marching to their deaths.
I looked at the teacher. He wanted a textbook answer—something about rights, or the absence of chains. But my mind was still stained by the summit. I knew the truth: Freedom was the most dangerous lie ever told.
I had to be careful. If I spoke the truth—that freedom was just the distance between a master's fingers and a slave's throat—they'd think I was a psychopath. I needed a mask.
"Freedom," I said, my voice sounding steadier than a teenager's should. I leaned back, my eyes locking onto his. "Freedom is the ability to choose your own master before the world chooses one for you."
The laughter in the room died. Mr. Aris blinked, the pointer in his hand hovering mid-air.
"That's... a cynical way to put it," he stammered, his brow furrowing. The bell rang, a shrill sound that set my nerves on edge. In the old world, a sound like that meant incoming artillery. Here, it just meant lunch.
I didn't pack my bags. I watched.
As the students filed out, I spotted him. Kaelen. Right now, he was just a boy with frayed sleeves and a permanent hunch, trying to disappear into the shadows of the lockers. In five years, he would be known as the "Iron Butcher," the man who hung ten thousand rebels from the walls of the capital.
He was the perfect blade. He just didn't know he was made of steel yet.
I caught up to him by the stairwell, where the shadows were deepest. Two older students—nobles by the look of their silk-lined vests—had him cornered. They were laughing, tossing his notebook back and forth over his head.
"Give it back, please," Kaelen's voice was thin, reeking of a weakness that made my skin crawl. "My father... he'll be angry if I lose it."
"Your father is a stablehand, Kael," the taller boy sneered. "What's he going to do? Smell at us?"
I stepped into their circle. I didn't yell. I didn't posture. I just leaned against the locker next to them, my expression as flat as a grave.
"He won't smell at you," I said softly.
The bullies froze, turning toward me. "Who invited you, Ren? Get lost before we—"
"I was just thinking about your father, Marcus," I interrupted, my eyes locking onto the tall boy. I let a small, knowing smile touch my lips. "The Duke's treasurer, right? It would be a shame if the Duke found out about the second ledger your father keeps under the floorboards of his study. The one with the missing grain taxes."
The color drained from Marcus's face so fast it was almost poetic. It was a secret I had uncovered years from now, during an interrogation. In this time, it was his father's deepest, darkest sin.
"How... how do you..." Marcus stammered, his hand trembling. The notebook dropped to the floor.
"I have a habit of knowing things," I said, stepping closer until I could smell his fear. "Pick up the book. Give it to Kaelen. Then, forget he exists. If I see you near him again, I won't just tell the Duke. I'll tell the creditors your father owes money to. And they aren't as 'civilized' as the law."
They didn't wait. They shoved the book into Kaelen's chest and scrambled down the hall as if the Devil himself was chasing them.
Kaelen stood there, clutching his notebook, staring at me with a mixture of awe and terror. To him, I was a savior. To me, he was a long-term investment.
"Why did you do that?" he whispered. "You don't even know me."
I reached out, straightening his collar with a slow, deliberate motion—a gesture of ownership masked as kindness.
"I know exactly who you are, Kaelen," I said, my voice dropping to a predatory hum. "And I know what you're capable of. You just need someone to show you how to stop being the dirt, and start being the shovel."
I turned to walk away, but stopped, looking back over my shoulder.
"Meet me behind the old chapel at sundown. If you want to stop being afraid, I'll show you how to make the world afraid of you instead."I left him standing there, a boy of clay waiting for a sculptor. As
The rest of the day was a blur of tedious normalcy. I walked the halls of the academy like a ghost haunting his own past, watching faces that I knew would eventually rot in trenches or burn in the Great Purge. To them, I was just Ren—the quiet boy who sat in the back. They didn't see the phantom of the warlord I had become, nor did they feel the weight of the secrets I carried like a hidden dagger.
As the sun began to dip, bleeding a bruised purple across the horizon, I made my way toward the old chapel. It was a crumbling ruin on the edge of the campus, a place the teachers ignored and the students feared after dark.
The air grew cold. I leaned against a weathered stone pillar, watching the shadows lengthen. I didn't have to wait long.
The crunch of gravel announced his arrival. Kaelen appeared, his silhouette small and trembling against the fading light. He looked like a lamb walking into a wolf's den, but as he stepped into the moonlight, I saw the notebook from earlier gripped so tightly in his hand that his knuckles were bone-white.
"You came," I said, my voice cutting through the silence.
"I... I had to," Kaelen whispered. He looked up at me, his eyes searching mine for a kindness I didn't possess. "What you said to Marcus... how did you know? And what did you mean about the shovel?"
I walked toward him, my boots clicking rhythmically against the stone. "The world is built on hierarchies, Kaelen. Most people spend their lives looking up, terrified of the boot above them. But a few learn that the boot is only heavy because the person wearing it is afraid of what's underneath."
I stopped inches from him, towering over his slight frame. I reached into my coat and pulled out a small, blackened iron ring—a relic I had kept hidden in my desk since the 'regressions' started. It was etched with runes that shouldn't exist for another decade.
"I can give you the power to never bow again," I murmured, holding the ring between us. "But once you take it, the boy who cried in the hallway today will die. There is no going back to the dirt."
Kaelen stared at the ring, his breath hitching. He reached out a shaking hand, his fingers hovering just inches from the iron.
"Is this... magic?" he asked, his voice cracking.
"No," I replied, a cold smile touching my lips. "It's a revolution."
Just as his fingertips brushed the cold metal, a voice drifted from the darkness of the chapel's arched doorway—a voice that turned my blood to ice.
"It's a bit early for recruitment, don't you think, Ren?"
I spun around, my hand instinctively reaching for a blade that wasn't there. Emerging from the shadows was a girl with hair as white as bone and eyes that held a terrifying, familiar glint.
She shouldn't have been here. In my past life, she was the Saint of the Western Front—the only person who had ever come close to matching my cruelty. And she was supposed to be ten years younger, a mere child in a distant kingdom.
She tilted her head, her smile sharp enough to draw blood.Than she said to me did you think you were the only one who got a second chance?"