The air in the infirmary is thick with the scent of antiseptic and crushed herbs, cloying and sterile, but beneath it lingers something raw—sweat, blood, the sharp tang of something too clean trying to mask something too broken. Outside, the sun blazes high in the sky, drenching the world in golden light. Birds chatter in the courtyard, servants move about their midday routines, the estate hums with the quiet bustle of life continuing as if nothing has changed. But within these walls, time has frozen. The warmth does not reach here. The brightness of the day feels distant, a cruel mockery of the weight pressing down on my chest.

  I sit unmoving, staring at Lena’s still form. The only sounds in this room are the faint crackle of dying embers in the hearth, the slow, shallow breaths that barely stir her chest. Her body breathes. But is that enough? I flex my fingers where they rest against my knee, feeling the smoothness of my skin, the warmth of my pulse thrumming beneath. I wonder if she still feels warmth.

  The weight of the choice settles over me like a cloak of iron. I have made choices like this before. Too many to count. A whispered order on a battlefield, a precise strike in a quiet alley, the firm press of a blade beneath a chin. A clean cut, a swift end. I have taken lives in the name of justice, in the name of war, in the name of mercy. This should be no different.

  And yet.

  I look at her, at the way her body remains motionless. Not resting—just unresponsive, a puppet with the strings severed. Her face, once expressive, is eerily still, absent of the warmth that made her Lena. If she wakes, will she still be Lena? Or will she be something else—something hollow? Clara’s mother’s body might still breathe, but what if the woman within is gone? What if the only thing that wakes is an echo, a fragmented shell incapable of recognizing her own child?

  Is that mercy? Letting Clara cling to a husk, forcing her to watch her mother exist but never return? No laughter, no soft hands smoothing her hair, no quiet songs before bed—only vacant stares, broken thoughts. Would it not be kinder to let her go now, before that horror manifests? To let Clara grieve and heal, rather than live with the slow agony of waiting for someone who will never come back?

  I shift forward, elbows resting on my knees. My movements are fluid, unhurried. I must do this right. No hesitation, no emotion, just action.

  There are ways to make it painless.

  Poison—too obvious, too easily traced. The temple’s healers would suspect something, and whispers would spread.

  A breath-restriction spell—delicate, precise. I could ease her into nothingness, make it look as though the poison already in her had simply run its course. Her body would not resist. There would be no sign, no struggle, just the quiet slip from life to death.

  A simple break of the neck—clean, efficient, undetectable in her fragile state. One sharp twist, and she would be free.

  No one would know. No one would suspect.

  My fingers curl, steady. The room feels too small, the air too still. I take one slow breath, the kind I’ve taken before battle, before death. I exhale. The choice is made. I extend my hand—toward her throat, toward her pulse, toward the place where I can make this swift and painless. It wont take much magic to apply pressure to her carotid arteries. It will be easy. It would be kind. But am I sure?

  A taste of memory presses against the edges of my mind, unbidden and sharp. A different life, a different place. A damp forest, the air thick with the scent of rot and blood. A close companion—his name lost to time—struck down by a monster’s talons, his body mangled but alive. He had lingered, gasping, his breath a wet rattle. Every day was nothing but pain, his body a prison of agony. The healers had shaken their heads. There was nothing to be done. Nothing but mercy.

  So I had granted it.

  A spike of magic into his brain, a whisper of finality. His last words had been a quiet thank you.

  And months later, I had learned the truth. There had been a way to save him. The healers had simply not known yet. But by then, there had been nothing left to save. I had made the choice, believing I was doing what was right. And the weight of it had followed me into every life after.

  I inhale sharply, the weight of that regret settling in my chest like lead. I have made this choice before. I have carried the ghost of it across lifetimes.

  I do not need another.

  Mercy is for when nothing is left. And I do not yet know if nothing is left.

  I rise to my feet, fingers pressing against Lena’s forehead. Magic flickers at my touch, cold and sharp, sinking into her mind like a thread slipping through the eye of a needle. There are ways to see, to touch the depths of consciousness. Dangerous. Difficult. But possible. I will not make a choice without certainty.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

  I breathe in, focus—

  And step inside.

  The world shatters.

  At first, nothing. A vast emptiness stretching in all directions, without sky or ground, without horizon or anchor. Just void. Then, everything at once.

  A flood of too much—voices, memories, echoes of a life half-erased. They overlap, distort, repeat in endless loops. Some whisper so softly they dissolve before I can grasp them, others crash like breaking glass against my senses. Shattered images of places that do not fit together—a hallway with no doors, an open field of floating, broken thoughts, a child's bedroom stretching into infinity.

  I have no place to stand, no ground beneath my feet, yet I do not fall. There is no true gravity here, only a sensation of drifting, of being carried along by winds of whispered words and fragmented recollections. The remnants of Lena’s consciousness swirl around me, islands of memory untethered, floating on unseen currents.

  I steady myself, forcing focus. I have done this before. I have walked the corridors of shattered minds, threading sanity from ruin. I must assess the damage.

  Is she broken? Or destroyed?

  I reach for the memories that remain. Some are faded, worn thin by time and trauma. Others are sharp and raw, too intense, the colors too bright, the sounds too loud. A child’s laughter ripples through the air like a warm breeze. Clara’s name, whispered like a prayer, echoes from nowhere and everywhere. A lullaby sung in the dark twists upon itself, the melody beautiful but wrong, notes bleeding into one another in a way that makes my teeth ache.

  Then there are the voids—gaps where memories should be but are not. They are not simply missing; they have been hollowed out, devoured by the damage left behind. They yawn like open wounds, jagged edges twisting inward, the fabric of her mind unraveling at their borders. They are hungry. And I do not know if they can be refilled.

  I drift toward a clearer memory, one of the last intact ones. Lena stands in the nursery, looking down at a newborn swaddled in her arms. Me. Her grip is careful, but there is hesitation in the way her fingers brush against the blanket. Her lips are pressed into a thin line, her body rigid with uncertainty. The room around her is stable, unlike the others—no shifting walls, no unraveling details. This moment is real.

  A voice behind her. Isla.

  Lena turns slightly, eyes wary, cautious. Isla steps forward, her expression unreadable, her posture one of quiet precision.

  “You will watch him?” Lena asks, her voice quiet but firm.

  “Yes.”

  Lena studies Isla for a long moment, then exhales, slow and measured. “He’s different.”

  A flicker in the memory—like a ripple through water. The scene stretches unnaturally, warps, distorts. Isla’s features flicker between calm and unreadable, her words dissolving into a mess of sound. The memory twists upon itself, time fraying at the edges, then snaps.

  The island of recollection shudders and begins to fall apart. I step back as the fragments break away, dissolving into the void. Another memory gone.

  I follow the remnants that remain. I cannot restore what is lost, but I can pull the frayed edges closer together. Still, a flicker of frustration coils in my chest, sharp and unwanted. This should not be so difficult. She should not have been left to break like this. I can lay the foundation for her to find her own way back.

  Kneeling in the endless emptiness of her mind, I whisper words she cannot yet hear:

  "Come back. Clara is waiting."

  "If you are strong enough to fight for her, come back."

  Nothing happens. I didn't expect it to, not yet.

  No miraculous awakening. No sudden spark of awareness.

  Only silence.

  I exhale, slow and measured.

  It will take time.

  It has been hours.

  Time does not move the same way within the fragmented ruins of a mind. Here, there is no sun, no sky, no firm ground beneath me—only a vast and shifting emptiness, an abyss broken by drifting islands of thought and memory. They twist and shift, caught in unseen currents, whispered voices rushing past in bursts of sound, half-formed words and echoes of the past.

  I have spent hours here, stitching together what I can, tracing shattered pathways, reconnecting fragments that still hold their shape, bypassing those that have turned to nothing but distortion. It is delicate work, fragile, exhausting. I cannot restore her. The damage is too deep, the poison too cruel. But I can make it possible for her to find her way back. She is not a destroyed thing. She can become whole again—but in a different way, a way that will take time and effort, a way that will not be easy.

  I see flashes of memory as I work. Lena holding Clara for the first time, tears slipping down her face as tiny fingers clutched at hers. The first time she met Isla, the day after my birth—how cold and detached the woman had seemed to her, a shadow without warmth. A stretched, distorted vision of the estate, walls bending inward as if caving under pressure. My own face, blurred at the edges, caught in a moment she barely remembers, a quiet sense of watchfulness from when I was too small to be noticed. Some memories are warped with time, others fractured from the poison's cruel touch.

  I push forward, deeper, weaving threads of connection between the whole and the broken. It is not perfect, but it is enough. Enough for her to have a chance.

  And then, at last, I cannot give any more.

  A violent pull wrenches me away, and my body jerks as I snap back to reality. My vision blurs, my limbs heavy, trembling with exhaustion. Sweat beads at my brow, soaking into my clothes as I force myself to my feet. I sway, my muscles refusing to obey me for a long, terrible moment.

  I cannot collapse here. I must ensure she is not alone when she wakes.

  I push through the haze, dragging myself forward, every step an effort. My breath comes in shallow, uneven pulls as I force my sluggish body toward the infirmary door. My fingers barely brush the handle before it swings open.

  Isla is waiting.

  She studies me, her sharp eyes taking in the paleness of my face, the unsteadiness of my stance, the way my breath comes too short, too fast. She does not ask what I did. She knows it was something.

  I take a breath, force my voice steady even as my vision flickers. "Have Marla bring Clara."

  "She should be here when Lena wakes."

  Isla inclines her head, the barest flicker of something unreadable crossing her face. "Yes, my lord."

  I take a step forward.

  Darkness crashes over me.

  The last thing I hear before I slip into unconsciousness is Isla’s sharp intake of breath, the whisper of her movement as she catches me.

  Then, silence.