The first rule of walking away was don’t look back.

  Kael had broken that rule too many times to count.

  He stood at the edge of the hill, watching the smoke curl above the rooftops like a dying god’s final breath. Not thick enough to be an inferno—yet. But enough to draw attention. Enough to pull memories from the depths like barbed fishhooks.

  He could almost hear the screams already.

  Behind him, the child’s voice still lingered like an echo in his ears: “Are you going to save us again?”

  Kael grimaced.

  He wasn’t supposed to care.

  He’d decided that, hadn’t he? No more dying. No more dragging the corpse of hope behind him like a banner. Let the fire burn. Let it all burn.

  But his feet had already started moving.

  One step. Then another.

  Damn it.

  The town—Briarn’s Hollow, he remembered now—hadn’t changed much since regression #12. Still modest. Still scattered with thatched roofs and crooked stone fences, the kind of place that looked like it had been built more out of stubbornness than design. Livestock bleated nervously in their pens. A few villagers were already running toward the smoke with pails of water and panicked urgency.

  Kael passed them without a word.

  He didn’t rush. Rushing meant panic. Panic meant mistakes.

  The fire was in the far quarter, where the workshops stood—leatherworkers, smiths, the odd apothecary. Not a bad place for a fire, strategically speaking. Low civilian density, easier to isolate.

  He reached the edge of the square just in time to see a burst of flame lick the side of a timbered building. Someone had tossed oil. This wasn’t an accident.

  “Arson,” Kael muttered, kneeling beside a water barrel. He dipped his fingers into the water, not to cool them, but to trace a quick glyph on the rim.

  The liquid shimmered. The weave responded.

  Time to cheat.

  He flicked his hand upward—and the water burst into the air, dividing mid-flight into a dozen small serpents of steam and pressure. They curled, hissed, and slammed against the flames like living whips, smothering the fire’s hunger just enough to slow its spread.

  Villagers shouted in surprise, some in awe, some in fear.

  Kael didn’t wait for thanks. He moved.

  A cry rang out from behind the burning building. Not fear—rage.

  He rounded the corner and found three men in cloaks, half-masked and armed. One held a torch. Another was dragging a girl—sixteen, maybe—by the arm. The third raised his blade when he saw Kael.

  Wrong move.

  Kael didn’t speak.

  He simply stepped into the weave.

  The world thinned around him. Time slowed, colors blurred. His right hand pulsed with a spell older than language—one he’d learned in regression #7 and perfected in #54. A single movement, a twist of wrist and will.

  The man with the sword flew backward, crashing through a stack of crates.

  The one with the torch dropped it, flames sputtering on the ground.

  Kael walked forward. “Leave.”

  The man dragging the girl hesitated. “You don’t know who we are.”

  Kael’s expression didn’t change. “You’re about to be corpses.”

  He let the magic rise behind his eyes, just enough to show them a glimpse of what he was—what he had been. Not the man. The myth. The Lightbringer.

  They ran.

  Good.

  Kael knelt beside the girl, who was shaking and clutching her arm.

  “You’re fine,” he said. “Go home. Avoid alleyways.”

  She stared at him like he’d sprouted wings. “You—you saved me.”

  He rose. “Tell your friends I didn’t.”

  The fire was dying by the time Kael reached the square again. Villagers had rallied. Someone had started a bucket chain. There were soot-streaked faces, coughing children, frantic voices.

  And amid them—her.

  The widow.

  Kael’s breath caught despite himself.

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  She was helping an elderly man toward a bench, her skirts dusted with ash, sleeves rolled up. That same steady calm in her posture, even here. Even now.

  She looked up.

  Their eyes met.

  For a moment, the world dared to soften.

  Kael turned away.

  He wasn’t here for this. He hadn’t come back.

  “Ardan,” a voice called.

  Kael stiffened. Not hers.

  A familiar weight behind the words.

  He turned and saw Varn stepping through the thinning smoke, cloak thrown back, eyes sharp.

  “I told you I was leaving,” Kael said.

  “You walked straight into a burning town. That’s not leaving.”

  Kael didn’t answer.

  Varn surveyed the wreckage, then the townspeople. “You did this?”

  “I stopped it.”

  “I meant the fire.”

  Kael gave him a look. “No. But I’ve done worse.”

  “I know,” Varn said quietly. “That’s what worries me.”

  Kael stepped past him. “Don’t follow me.”

  But Varn did.

  They left the square together, walking until the road curved out of sight, back toward the forest’s edge. Only then did Kael speak again.

  “You said you’re remembering things. More now?”

  Varn nodded. “It’s not just dreams anymore. I knew where the well would be. I recognized the innkeeper’s face. I remembered your name before you gave it.”

  Kael exhaled. “That’s dangerous.”

  “I know.”

  “And the others?”

  Varn shook his head. “Not yet. But I don’t think I’m the only one.”

  Kael stopped walking. The trees around them whispered, uneasy.

  “Something’s broken,” he murmured. “The weave isn’t just fraying—it’s snapping.”

  “Why?”

  Kael looked up at the sky. “Because I didn’t follow the script.”

  He didn’t explain. Varn wouldn’t understand. Not really. How could he?

  The system had rules. Each regression followed a path, sometimes looser, sometimes rigid. But this time—Kael hadn’t played his part. He hadn’t taken the sword. He hadn’t assembled the party. He hadn’t fought the first monster or answered the call to prophecy.

  He’d left.

  And the world was starting to notice.

  They made camp just beyond the treeline, where a stream curled between mossy rocks. Kael didn’t ask Varn to stay—but didn’t make him leave, either. He lit a fire with a flick of his hand. Varn cooked a small rabbit he’d snared along the way.

  It was the closest thing to peace Kael had felt in years.

  And he hated it.

  “You could have let them burn,” Varn said eventually, breaking the silence.

  “I know.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  Kael didn’t answer right away.

  The fire crackled. A log shifted, collapsing into glowing embers.

  “Because I’m tired of pretending I don’t care,” he said softly. “Even if I want to.”

  Varn studied him. “That girl—the one in Avelryn. Liora. She’s part of it, isn’t she?”

  Kael tensed.

  “Another ‘chosen one.’ Like you were.”

  “She’s nothing like me,” Kael muttered.

  “No? She’s got the Blessing. People are rallying to her already. She believes in heroes. Sounds like regression #1 all over again.”

  Kael laughed bitterly. “Regression #1 was a lie.”

  “Maybe. But it mattered.”

  Kael looked away. “It killed me.”

  They sat in silence again. Crickets had started chirping.

  Kael felt the weight of his years pressing down—not physical, not even magical. Just… time. A thousand lifetimes stacked on his back like gravestones.

  “You could help her,” Varn said. “Just enough. Just this once.”

  “No.”

  “She’ll die.”

  Kael looked at him. “Then she’ll learn.”

  That night, Kael didn’t sleep.

  The stars overhead felt too familiar, too close. He traced constellations he’d named in lives long lost. He remembered the night sky from a battlefield in regression #18, blood drying on his chest. He remembered the stars from a wedding in #22. From a funeral in #67. From a prison window in #90.

  Too many nights. Too many regrets.

  He whispered to the darkness: “How many more?”

  The weave didn’t answer.

  But the wind shifted—and he felt it.

  A presence.

  Kael sat up sharply, eyes scanning the woods.

  And then—he saw her.

  Not a figure. Not a woman.

  A shimmer in the air. A ripple in space, like heat above stone. No features. Just a feeling.

  The Watcher.

  Kael’s heart froze.

  He rose slowly. “I know you’re there.”

  The shimmer pulsed.

  A voice—not spoken, not heard. Felt.

  "You are off-path, Lightbringer."

  “I’m not the Lightbringer anymore.”

  "That is not your choice to make."

  Kael’s jaw clenched. “Is this your doing? The echoes? Varn’s memories?”

  "The pattern degrades. Consequence bleeds. You refused the call."

  “I refused you,” Kael snapped.

  Silence. The shimmer wavered.

  "Then the end accelerates."

  Kael stepped forward, defiant. “Let it.”

  "You may not like what follows."

  “I’ve never liked what came after.”

  The shimmer faded.

  Kael stood alone, the firelight behind him dying to coals.

  He didn’t sleep the rest of the night.

  By morning, Varn was gone.

  Kael wasn’t surprised. The man had said his piece. And maybe—somewhere in that fractured memory—he’d found enough to act on.

  Kael packed his things, doused the fire, and started walking again. Always walking.

  The path wound east now. Toward the mountains. Toward old scars.

  He wasn’t sure what pulled him anymore.

  Duty? Guilt?

  Habit?

  But the road remembered him.

  And he—despite himself—remembered it.

  Somewhere, a statue still stood in a chapel that should’ve burned.

  Somewhere, a girl still believed in heroes.

  And somewhere, far behind him, a town still whispered his name like a prayer.

  Kael Ardan.

  The Lightbringer.

  The man who refused to save the world.

  And yet—walked toward the fire anyway.