Page 60

Skye could feel it in every fiber—the sharp senses monitoring his every move, every flicker of breath. He locked his body down, forced his pulse to remain steady, refusing to give anything away as the mechanical drone of machinery marked the passing seconds.

beep, beep, beep

An alarm sounded. “Ah, just one moment.” The other-him approached the wall of consoles, and then Skye realized—they were tracking him .

Those were his vitals, his pulse in real time.

beep, beep, beep

On one screen, the lines spiked with each breath.

Another monitor displayed a rotating, translucent model of his body, sections highlighted in crimson, though he had no idea what it was scanning for.

A third streamed endless data—his temperature, blood composition, arcane resonance levels, even fluctuations in his aether.

As the keeper silenced the alarm and tapped at the console, Skye noticed more differences between them. His other self was taller, his frame more built out. He had the weight and muscle Skye had always struggled to retain.

And where his shirt sleeves rolled back to reveal muscled forearms, through the gap in his collar—literally on every bit of visible skin beneath his face—thick, mottled patches of scars covered his body.

beepbeepbeep

Of everything so far—the table, the vats of blood, the ever-rising dread of exactly where this was all going—those scars unsettled him the most. Not just marks, but imprints of all the agonizing chapters of a life gone horribly wrong.

His life. Or close enough that the weight of it pressed like ice against his ribs.

“What-what happened to you? Or… to us?” Skye whispered, his voice barely audible over the roar of his heart, the shriek of the monitor, and the awful churning glug of the vats.

“The cost of power and sacrifice.”

Fantastic, more riddles.

The keeper folded his arms, the dense muscle in his forearms tensing, highlighting the intricate web of scars etched across his skin. “You’re probably wondering why I brought you here. At least, I’m assuming Cori left that detail out.”

“That assumption would be correct,” Skye answered dryly.

“You and I are going to have a conversation.”

Skye barked a laugh, brittle and restrained. “Right. Because nothing says friendly discussion like waking up strapped to an operating table.”

“I needed you to listen. I can only keep the mimic contained for so long, and while you’re busy getting lost in the weeds of whether I did or didn’t strap you to an operating table, you’re missing the larger point. I’m not the enemy here. I want to help you… or help you, help us .”

“Let me save us both some time,” Skye bit out. “I don’t need this kind of help.”

“Sure. Tell yourself that. Denial is a great coping mechanism. And when shit hits the fan—and trust me, it will —you’ll be hung out to dry, bare-assed and alone, wondering why you didn’t listen.”

Other-him looked to Cori. “And don’t count on her to swoop in and save the day either.

As you can see, she can’t even help herself.

Time mages, they like to meddle, and nudge, and change the position of a glass 3 degrees on the table and then stand back to watch where the ripples land.

Then they tell you a riddle and fuck off to who knows where.

“You and I, however,” his other-self went on, tapping a finger to his temple. “We’re not time mages. We know words and subtlety can’t always win. That the world rewards power . And there is only one way for us to become stronger.”

Skye understood—how could he not? Because they were the same person, weren’t they? Just divided by time, experience, and choices.

“You mean bloodcrafting, don’t you?”

A snort and a derisive look at the mad bloodmage’s laboratory around them. “Obviously. Which begs the question—why are you still acting like this is a choice? I looked beneath the hood and… nothing. No improvements to your body.”

“I asked Ivain to train me,” Skye said tightly. “He said no.”

“And you accepted that?” A scoff. “By the Six, you’re just as pathetic as I remember—always looking for permission, always too afraid to step up.”

“Hey, it’s not like I’m just sitting around. Ivain has been teaching me—”

“Tricks? Yes, I remember. How’s that going by the way? Moved past wiggling your fingers yet?”

“Fuck you,” Skye snapped.

“ Think, genius .” He jabbed two fingers against Skye’s forehead, hard. “You really think you can master morphing in, what, a few months? A couple of years? It takes decades —decades that you don’t have. Bloodcraft may kill you, that’s true, but it won’t waste your time.”

Those eyes—his eyes—inspected him, critical in the way a person can only be of themselves. “You’re going to lose her.”

The frantic rhythm of the monitor faltered.

…

beepbeepbeep

“What?” Skye rasped, the word catching in his throat.

“That feeling in your gut that Taly is somehow already slipping away—that’s not paranoia. That’s your instincts telling you that something horrible is coming, and you’re not prepared for it. You’re not strong enough to save her.”

Skye’s jaw tightened. “You can’t know that.”

“But I do. ” There was a haunting clarity in those words, filled with the ghosts of decisions made in desperation. “I’ve been in this tower for millennia. I’ve seen every iteration of this timeline play out.”

A few quick steps carried his other-self to a desk, where he pressed a button.

Above Skye, the air fractured. A million ghostly images flickered to life, layering over each other in an overwhelming, shifting storm of light and motion.

Scenes played out in rapid succession—all of Taly. A million different versions.

Taly arguing, bargaining, bleeding, breaking. Her face twisted in determination, in desperation, in defeat. In one moment, she stood before a council, fire in her eyes. In another, she knelt in a pool of blood—hers or someone else’s, he couldn’t tell.

“You lose her,” the keeper said, voice cutting through the chaos of lights. “That’s how this always ends.”

The images blurred, merged, rewound, some freezing mid-motion, others dissolving as new ones took their place. The sheer weight of it pressed down on Skye, the enormity of it making his breath catch.

“For what it’s worth, it’s not your fault.” His other-self leaned back against the desk, watching him. “This story was written long before you were even born.”

He pressed another button. The air fractured again. More images poured in.

Taly running, fighting, pleading, falling.

“Cori—Shards bless her stubborn little heart—has been throwing everything she has at the problem, trying to fix it.”

Another tap, another sweep of projections—this time, Cori appeared. Older, her face set in concentration, in frustration, in fear.

One moment, she whispered to a stranger in the dark. In another, she stood in the wreckage of a city, smoke curling around her.

“She’s repositioned every cup, aligned every knife, and fussed over every damn place setting.

And yet to no one’s surprise except her own, moving around the tableware doesn’t solve any fucking thing other than to spoil Ivain’s dinner and break some glasses.

Because ripples don’t rewrite history. They just shift who bears the weight of it. ”

The chaotic blur of images halted, leaving only a single frame of Cori’s face. She looked tired, not just physically, but in the way that settled deep.

“That’s the thing about Taly,” the keeper went on, low and grim.

“And no matter what she tells herself, Cori is Taly. Just with more pain. She’s predictable.

Left to her own devices, she will always choose sacrifice .

It doesn’t matter what we do. Me. Ivain.

Sarina. Hell, Azura went through thousands of iterations fine-tuning this trap, yet Taly never changes—not truly.

She will always be loyal to the people who stand by her, and she’ll trade herself away to keep them safe.

Even if it means she becomes the monster… ”

For a moment, he stared at nothing, jaw tightening, before letting out a slow breath.

“I don’t know if it’s destiny or if the Universe just has a sick sense of humor, but things that are meant to be always find a way.

I still became a bloodcrafter, despite my initial reluctance.

Only instead of doing it to save her, I did it to end her life instead. ”

Skye’s throat closed. He tasted bile.

No.

He rejected it on instinct.

No, no —he could never. He would die first.

“You could if there was no other choice.”

“Get out of my head,” Skye snapped.

“You could if it was a mercy .” The keeper’s eyes closed against the memories.

“Believe me, among all the possible futures I envisioned for myself, I never thought my life’s work would be figuring out how to kill the one person I never wanted to live without.

Taly, she… she always had a way of surprising you.

Her power expanded far beyond the limits of what any of us could have foreseen.

I watched her tear through armies like they were made of paper.

She was a force of nature. And to stop her…

I had to become something just as terrifying. ”

There was a sound like flesh ripping. The squelch of blood echoed from all around.

The keeper’s eyes, luminous with aetheric power, were the only thing that remained static during the transformation.

“From sinews to synapses, I remade myself.”

His features melded and reformed, and the contours of his body flowed like molten metal.

“I saved her, in the only way left to me. And let me tell you, no amount of whiskey washes away that kind of blood from your hands.”

He hadn’t moved from his position in front of the desk, but he was expanding out into the room—his body, his presence—like a dark shadow rising.

Skye stared up. And up. And up.