The sky was covered by an ashen mist, as if the world itself breathed the same emptiness Caelum felt in his chest. The cobbled streets of Valtherion, the capital of the kingdom, were nearly deserted. A cold drizzle slid down the walls of dark stone, mixing with the scent of rusted iron from the weapon forges.
Caelum walked slowly, his worn boots dragging through the mud. He had spent eight years in that body—eight years since he'd woken up in the room of a boy who had decided to hang himself.
"Why did I save this body?" he asked himself for the thousandth time. It hadn't been out of courage, but because of that foolish hope that, somewhere in this world, she was breathing under the same sky.
He had no family. No friends. Only the blacksmith workshop, where he forged swords for others—weapons that would send men to die the way he once had.
The smell of gasoline and burnt flesh hit him suddenly.
—"Caelum, run!"
Alyssa pushed him hard—just as the missile struck.
The world burst into flames.
He fell, dazed, but he saw her—he saw her fly through the air, her body torn apart by shrapnel.
—"ALYSSA!"
He crawled toward her, ignoring the bone piercing his arm, ignoring the blood filling his mouth.
He found her—dismembered.
Half of her face was still intact. Her eyes—those green eyes he had loved so much—were still looking at him.
—"P-promise me..." she whispered as life escaped her in spasms.
—"No! Don't die! NO!"
But she only smiled, red tears running down her cheek.
—"Live... for me."
And then, her head fell to the side.
And Caelum screamed until his throat tore.
A shout pulled him from the memory.
—"Caelum! Stop staring at the clouds and get inside!" —his boss, a burly man with war scars, called from the blacksmith workshop.
The forge smelled of sweat and metal.
—"Caelum. You."—
His boss pointed to the men in blue robes.
—"He'll do."—
One of the recruiters, a man with black magic scars on his hands, looked at him like one looks at a sick dog.
—"Age?"—
—"Twenty-three."—
—"Family?"—
—"None."—
The man grinned, revealing rotting teeth.
—"Perfect. Disposable meat."—
He threw a contract stained with dried blood.
—"Sign. Or die right here."—
Caelum didn't hesitate. What did it matter anymore?
He picked up the quill and signed.
The recruiter laughed.
—"Welcome to war, boy."—
Before leaving, Caelum looked at his anvil—the swords he would never wield.
—"Again..." he whispered.
The rain had turned into icy needles when Caelum reached the Raven Gates. Hundreds of young people stood waiting, soaked, under the watchful eyes of soldiers wearing helmets that hid their faces.
—"FORMATION! SILENCE!" —a captain bellowed, holding a spear dripping something red.
Among the crowd, a boy no older than seventeen trembled.
—"I... I don't want to go," he stammered, stepping back. "My mother's sick, I just—"
A sharp crack.
The captain's spear pierced his neck before he finished the sentence.
Blood splashed on Caelum's face.
—"The next coward who speaks will be flayed alive," —the captain declared, yanking the spear from the corpse, which collapsed like a sack of meat—. "Understood?"
Silence.
Caelum didn't look away from the body. It was easy to imagine Alyssa lying like that, in another world, in another life.
—"GET IN!" —another soldier ordered, pointing to the black carriages pulled by eyeless beasts.
Caelum climbed into the carriage. The interior reeked of vomit and fear. Through the bars, he saw another, more luxurious carriage—for nobles.
And then... he saw her.
A slender figure, cloaked in gray. Silver hair like the moon on a starless night.
But it was her neck that froze him:
A fleur-de-lis pendant.
The same one.
Exactly the same one he had buried with Alyssa in his past life.
—"You!" —he shouted, banging the bars.
The girl turned slowly.
Her eyes were green.
Green like hers.
But before their eyes could meet, a whip cracked near his ear.
—"Shut your mouth, trash!" —a guard dragged him back—. "Commoners don't look at nobles!"
The girl's carriage began to move.
—"Wait!" —Caelum roared, but the sound of wheels over bones drowned him out.
Was it my imagination? he thought.
The cold of the bars seeped into his bones. Caelum clenched his fists until his nails dug into his skin, but the pain was a distant echo, drowned beneath eight years of silence.
The other recruits smelled of fear. One sobbed in a corner. Another mumbled a prayer.
Then, he saw her again.
Not in the noble's carriage. Not in this world.
In the fogged glass in front of him.
Alyssa, in her torn military uniform, dried blood on her cheek, smiling at him like that day before the explosion.
"Are you going to let me die again?" her ghostly mouth whispered in the reflection.
Caelum shut his eyes tightly.
When he opened them, there was only mist.
Had he really seen her?
Just like now, as the convoy moved, seated beside him in the carriage, her feet passing through the wooden floor like a ghost.
—"This world hates us" —she murmured, playing with a strand of silver hair that didn't reflect light.
—"Are you real?" —Caelum asked in a voice so soft only the dead could hear.
She smiled sadly.
—"I'm whatever you need me to be."
And then she vanished—just as the recruit next to him gave him a puzzled look.
—"Who were you talking to?"
Caelum didn't reply.
The building was a scar on the landscape: towers like blades, battlements like teeth ready to chew them up.
As he stepped down, the wind carried a whisper to his ear:
—"This is where it all begins again."
Caelum turned.
No one.
Only the echo of his madness.
Or maybe...
The first sign that this world was just as broken as he was.
As he crossed the drawbridge, he saw a figure atop the walls.
Silver hair.
White dress.
Raising a hand in warning.
But when he blinked...
There was only a black banner swaying in the wind.