<That's gross.>

As much as Alarion felt compelled to argue with Atra on the grounds of pure sibling rivalry, she had a point. Devouring an earthworm fresh from the muddy soil was gross.

He had been an odd child.

They were out in the garden on the evening of the seventh day. The last day.

It had rained for two days, and Alarion knew it would storm again before the night was over, though the skies above him were clear. The rain had cast a gloomy pall over the last few days, and Alarion's mother's face mirrored that gloom as she joined them in the garden. Her smile was thin, her shoulders slumped. The bags under her eyes told of late nights and worry. They left Alarion wondering how much of the story he missed every night when the child closed his eyes.

He knew his father hadn't come home the night before. His mother had danced around questions at the breakfast table. She'd told them not to worry, but when she was unsettled, they were unsettled. Something was wrong, and they all tried to ignore it as they went about their days.

<Alarion ate a worm,> Atra snitched, without a hint of shame.

<Alarion…> His mother scowled, but only a little. As though she didn't have the strength to get upset over something so petty. <That is disgusting. You are almost eight. Act like it.>

<Ha!>

<And you,> Nessa turned her icy tongue toward her daughter. <When I tell you to 'watch your brother', I do not mean just to stand there. For Mother's sake, stop him next time.>

The rebuke was minor, but that their mother had taken a tone with them at all had both children fidgeting in the dirt. Nessa was gentle at heart, more likely to use misbehavior as a teaching moment than one for scolding. They were too young to understand the source of the tension, but the impact leaked through all the same.

<Where is your sister?>

<She went to take a basket to the Shimo->

Nessa waved away the rest of Alarion's explanation. <Go and fetch her. Quickly. A storm is coming.>

Alarion cast an odd look to the heavens, then met his mother's steely gaze. Her intuition about these things was never wrong, but the boy was still dubious.

<Now,> she said.

He was off in a run, skirting between rows of tall fruit trees as he raced toward the orchard's northern boundary. It wasn't a pace he could keep up for long, but the boy was careful to sprint until he was out of sight.

The run left the real Alarion with plenty of time to think.

The last few days had been a blessing. Even with disaster ever on the horizon and the taste of a worm in his mouth, Alarion had immersed himself in his history. In time, he'd forgotten the callouses of his father's hands, the white-blue of his mother's eyes, Atra's shrill laugh, and Aina's terrible cooking. He burned them into his memory this time, cementing them there, hoping he would never forget.

He missed them.

It wasn't until he had them back that he realized how deep the wound inside him truly was. He'd bandaged it with Mira and Erda. With survival. With Elena, ZEKE, Sierra, and even Valentina. But there was no healing it. The damage was as raw as the night it was inflicted.

This night.

Alarion found his sister by the northern fence with a basket of fruit in her arms and a perplexed look on her face. She visibly jumped as Alarion called out for her and hurriedly waved him toward her.

<Mom says->

<Do you see that?> Aina interrupted him, gesturing out toward the Shimon homestead. <By the barn?>

<Mom-> Alarion started again, only to be cut off as Aina yanked him toward the fence with one arm and pointed with the other. <Is that… Ransom?>

Their cousin's silhouette was unmistakable, even at a distance. Though only a fresh-faced youth of eighteen, he stood a head taller than anyone in their extended community, while being as skinny as a fence post.

He was also part of an ongoing, sometimes violent feud with the Shimon family.

<Did they make up?> Alarion asked, squinting as he tried to make out any other figures on the property.

<Not that I know. Mom says he still had to take the long way to avoid walking near their farm,> Aina answered. Her voice was unsettled, her thumb unconsciously stroking Alarion's elbow where she held him. <But that isn't all. He isn't moving.>

Alarion narrowed his eyes once again, then frowned. <Maybe->

<I've been here for an hour,> Aina rejected her brother's hypothetical before he could fully voice it. <I got a lot closer before I saw him. He spooked me, and I ran back. But he hasn't moved since. Not a step. It is him, though. Not just a shape or a scarecrow. I think he's watching us.>

Alarion felt a chill go down his spine, and for once, the Awakened inside, the boy could not tell which version of him was frightened.

<We should go,> Alarion's voice was full of false courage. <Mom says it is going to storm.>

<With this?> Aina pointed to the cloudless sky.

Of course, his mother was always right.

The storm was the worst of the season, with heavy rain driven by howling winds that sounded like the wails of banshees between the orchard's branches. Even tied tightly in place, the shutters clapped and slammed with each new gust of wind; the clatter dominated only by the occasional crash of thunder nearby.

Dinner was delayed, as had become routine, but as darkness fell with no sign of Bas-Rhin, Nessa was forced to relent. Eventually, the children were sent to bed with full bellies and uncertain hearts.

For once, the boy could not sleep. Alarion stared at the ceiling and tried to recall what his younger version had been thinking. His recollections came up empty, but he could guess. Alarion had always been worried about his father at that age. Sure that his father would meet some ill fate in battle or on the road. Frightened that he'd never come back.

If only he'd been so lucky.

It was late in the evening when he heard the door open. The wind's cry whipped through the common room and sent items flying before the men could shut it behind them. There was something behind the wind as well. A noise so quiet that Alarion wondered if he'd heard it at all.

Voices.

His mother had slept in the common room, waiting for Bas-Rhin's return, and she was quick to interrogate him. <Where have you been?>

<Wake up the kids,> his father said, ignoring her question. <It has to be now. It must be done tonight.>

<Who are all those people B->

<Nes, I will->

<What have you->

<Nes! I will explain everything, but you need to wake up the kids.>

<No! You will explain everything right now or->

Alarion strained his hearing, but their back and forth was drowned by the howl of wind and the crack of thunder. He caught one word in every ten, nowhere near enough to make sense of the flow of the conversation.

Then there was a different sort of crash—the splintering of wood. The thump of a body followed by four emotionless words.

<The time grows near.>

A minute later, Alarion felt the gentle touch of his father's hand on his shoulder. He'd pretended to be asleep, out of fear of being caught awake.

He'd forgotten so much about his family. The scent of his father after a hard day on the farm, the scratch of stubble when he hugged him. But Alarion remembered that sad expression all too vividly.

<Alarion. Wake up.>

<Mm?> he asked. He rolled to face his father, then sat up. <What's wrong?>

<Nothing,> his father lied. <Nothing is wrong. I need you to wake your sisters. Then get dressed, quickly. I have something you need to do.>

The boy obeyed while Alarion raged inside him. He'd fought for control in earlier parts of his memories, but never with this level of vigor. He strained his consciousness, perhaps his very soul, to take some control over his younger self. To alter even the slightest detail of the next few minutes.

But there was only one thing he could change.

"Alarion-Talon…" The young man murmured his unfinished keyword as he woke his sisters. They were deeper in sleep and harder to rouse, but one look at his face told them that the situation was serious. This night was important, and it wasn't the time to argue. They dressed in the dark and followed their father into the common room.

<Mom!> Alarion shouted at the sight of his mother's body sprawled in the corner. He managed two steps before his father intercepted him, scooping him off the ground and setting him back down in front of his sisters. <She's okay. She just fell. She'll be fine. Now listen! This is important.>

<She's hurt!> Alarion protested, the firelight glinting as it flickered off the blood that stained her hair.

<Don't look at her,> Bas-Rhin demanded as he moved to place his body between the children and their mother. <She will be fine. I need you to focus.>

The true Alarion took his father's words to heart, drinking in every bit of the scene as his father tried to console the boy and his sisters. There had been a fight, but not much of one. Nessa's worst wound was to the back of her head, a blow from behind that had sent her sprawling through one of the low tables, leading to the rest of her injuries.

The source of that violence hovered impatiently nearby. The sharp-nosed Eloim stood next to their dining table with a scowl. His bludgeon was hooked to his hip, a small clump of hair, flesh, and blood still stuck to a gap in one of its dull iron studs.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The man seemed taller, and it took Alarion a moment to realize that he was standing straight for the first time since his arrival. The new posture left him with a domineering, imperial look and set Alarion's teeth on edge. It reminded him of the governor. It was as though the man had been playing at being inconspicuous and forgettable, but had now molted into a form that demanded attention.

He looked at his mother again. Blood was pooling beneath her. With adult eyes, Alarion knew that the brow had been intended to kill her.

<Alarion!> his father shouted, snapping both versions back to reality, <Do you understand?>

<Y-yes,> the child lied. He hadn't heard a word of his father's demands. He'd been petrified. Absorbed in the nightmare laid out before him.

<Good boy. Girls, go first. It won't hurt.>

There were four items on the table in front of Eloim. A feather quill rested next to a short knife; its dull iron tinged darker still, with a hint of red. Next to it was an open scroll written in blood and marked with hundreds of signatures and corresponding thumbprints. Lastly, there was a book, and Alarion retched at the sight of it.

It was a foul thing. Even at such a young age, his body rejected it. Loathed it. Hated it. The closest comparison to his mind was that of the revenant Lamesh, but even that paled in comparison. He balked and tried to pull away, but his father was there behind him, shepherding his children toward it.

Oddly, the girls did not have the same reaction. If they felt any of Alarion's revulsion, they made no show of it. They were afraid and uncertain, always looking to their father for reassurance, but they did not have the same visceral hatred for the thing.

Aina was first. Eloim took the blade and opened her thumb with a flick of his wrist, cutting her with the dispassionate ease a butcher took with his animals. Once his work was done, he stood impassively, waiting for the child to follow the instructions that Alarion had been too distracted to hear.

Ever the most obedient child, Aina pressed her bleeding thumb to the parchment, then dipped the quill into her blood. Of the three, she was the only one who could write, and she quickly scrawled her name onto the document. She shivered once, then a strange look came over her.

It was hard to describe what was out of place. To anyone else, his sister would have looked normal. But she was his sister, and his sister did not stand quite like that, or move with that much elegance. It looked like her, but… better? As though there were more sheen to her hair and a fraction more energy in each weary step.

Atra came next and was far more difficult.

<Your hand.> Eloim demanded. It was his third such request, and though the words were no different, it was clear that there would not be a fourth. The soldier was looming large, his hand tight on the knife as Bas-Rhin came to his daughter's side. Alarion's father whispered soft words to his child and ran a soothing hand through her hair as he urged her to obey.

When she finally did, the cut was quick and precise, but deeper—a punishment. Atra cried out, and Alarion reached out for her, only to be stopped as Eloim turned the blade toward him, mere inches from his throat.

<This is not for you,> the tall man said as Alarion's father reassured Atra. <Bas-Rhin. The time grows near.>

Whatever his father said, it was enough. Atra found her space on the scroll through weepy eyes and cried out again as she pushed her wounded thumb against it. Eloim produced a fresh quill, and his sister marked her X.

The same change came over Atra, but Alarion had no time to dwell on it. It was his turn.

Take that blade and stab him. Alarion commanded his younger self, to no avail. Brave as only a boy child could be, he felt the slice on his thumb an instant before Eloim's body shattered through a cabinet full of his grandmother's heirlooms.

<Get away from my son!> Nessa shouted, her fist still outstretched and covered in blood.

<The Power…> The thing that was called Eloim growled in surprise as it extracted itself. Bits of wood, glass, and porcelain pierced its body in a dozen places or more, but those were the least of its injuries. Its back was shattered, its whole upper body hanging to the left at a sharp angle. Its face was even worse, its cheek caved in where his mother had struck it, bone protruding from the open wound. There was no way it should be capable of speaking, but it did so all the same. <Unexpected.>

<Alarion. Run.>

<Mom.>

<Run!> she shouted as the thing set upon her.

Alarion cast a glance at his father. He saw the fear. Sorrow. Anger. His father was not here to help him, and in that moment, the spell coercing the young man fell away in a moment of clarity. This was wrong—all of it.

He needed to run!

Alarion balled his hands into fists and ducked beneath the table with the speed and flexibility that only a child could boast. His father scrambled after him, clutching at his ankles, but failed to get a hold of his son before Alarion was out the other side, up, and running.

But to where?

Their house was small, only a few rooms. There was no place to hide, let alone with his father on his heels, and no locks on the interior doors. He had to go outside. He'd lose him in the storm. In the orchard's darkness. There were places out there where not even his mother could find him when he didn't want to be found.

A gust of wind blew the door open the moment Alarion turned the lock. The sudden impact sent Alarion sprawling, but his mother saved him again as her scrap with the Eloim-thing momentarily cut between father and son. Whatever force drove Bas-Rhin to this madness had left him enough sanity not to step into the middle of a sloppy brawl between two Awakened, which left Alarion enough time to run out into the storm.

The night was pitch-black, with the moon hidden behind layers of angry clouds. Only the open door provided a hint of illumination, and Alarion outran that quickly as he stumbled toward the treeline, with footsteps in hot pursuit. He had to get away. He had to hide.

It was a dangerous thing, running in the dark. In a storm, in the mud. Anywhere else, and Alarion would surely have broken his ankle. But this was his home. He knew the slopes that would flood, the roots that could trip. Each flash of lightning helped to guide him. He could escape.

"Alarion-Talon-Valentina…" He was shouting the words as he ran. Over and over. Daring himself to stop this while he could.

Even with the benefit of a second set of eyes, even with the benefit of hindsight, of knowing they were out in the darkness, Alarion didn't see the man until he struck him at a full run.

They both fell, stumbling around in the rain and the mud, as they tried to get their footing.

<Help!> Alarion gasped as his father shouted behind him. Surely, this stranger would help him. Someone had to help him.

Lightning crashed, and the boy realized his error.

There were dozens of them. All firmly upright. All with that same empty gaze.

The sky lit up again, and they weren't all strangers this time. The woman to his right was the town shopkeeper, Shireen. Beside her, one of the local boys who used to bully Alarion. They made no move toward him, but to his horror, they did move to stop him when he tried to circle past them, never threatening, only impeding.

With his father quick on his trail, Alarion started running alongside the human wall, looking for gaps, but to no avail. The line was haphazard to account for terrain, but the otherwise impassive villagers were frightfully quick when he tried to slip past them. Worse, they were slowly closing ranks, shrinking the circle a step at a time.

Try as he might, Alarion could not follow his mother's order any further. There was nowhere to run.

<Alarion!> his father shouted as he finally saw him under the glow of an oil lantern. Bas-Rhin wasn't surprised to see the mob. He'd known these people were here. He'd known Alarion couldn't get away, that there was no need to rush. <We can't leave this undone.>

To the boy's horror, there was a scroll in his father's free hand.

<Mom->

<Your mother will understand,> Bas-Rhin said in a soothing tone, <all of this will make sense, but you need to trust me.>

<Dad… I-> Alarion didn't know how to finish what he'd started. He was scared. He was cold and bleeding and wanted this to be nothing more than a terrible nightmare.

Inside his head, the older Alarion wanted nothing but the same.

<It is okay, son. I promise, everything will be okay.> Bas-Rhin dropped to one knee as he spoke, <We just need to finish what you started.>

The way he said it almost made sense. Even inside this retelling, Alarion felt the pull of the coercive magic. The argument was absurd, but the way he said it. The tone, the stretch of each syllable. Alarion felt compelled to obey. His thumb was still bleeding as his father unrolled the scroll and gestured to the open space.

<The time grows near.>

The words woke Alarion from his stupor like a glass of well water. He stumbled back and tore the tail end of the scroll away with him as he went, staring incredulously at his father all the while.

Realising his mistake, Bas-Rhin sighed and closed his eyes. He lifted a hand, calling for peace as he focused on whatever inner power allowed him to manipulate the children. <Alarion->

He didn't finish his thought. Alarion struck him in the mouth with everything he had. Admittedly, that wasn't much, but Alarion had the element of surprise. And anger.

Fury, really.

He struck his father again. And again. He pushed the man off balance and forced him into the muddy ground. They toppled, and the lantern broke. For an instant, they were plunged into darkness. Then the blaze roared with new intensity as spilled oil caught fire.

<Enough!> Bas-Rhin shouted as he finally caught hold of the flailing child's wrists to restrain him.

Alarion was having none of that. He kicked, scratched, and bit, using every tool at his disposal to dislodge his father, until the man threw him aside as one might a rabid animal.

<You are my son, and you will-> Bas-Rhin started, before he realized what was missing. What Alarion was holding.

The boy did not know what it was; only that his father valued it and that it was important. Important enough to stop the man in his tracks. That it, and Eloim were the source of the family's strife.

<My son->

Looking at his father was enough to break Alarion's heart. The mantra he'd murmured a dozen times a day for the past week fell away, forgotten. He didn't want this, but wouldn't turn away from it either.

This was what happened. Not what he wished would have happened.

His father was a pathetic cultist, willing to enslave or sacrifice his family because he was too much of a coward to fight a losing war or face the consequences of refusing to fight. He sold his neighbors and his family out to that thing, Eloim. And for what?

Young Alarion didn't give Bas-Rhin another chance to coerce him. His thoughts were simpler. Whatever the scroll was, whatever the reasoning behind the night's terrors, it was corrupt. Nothing good came from a creature like Eloim or that foul book it carried. Nothing good would have led his father to hurt his mother. Nothing good required that Bas-Rhin terrorize his children.

Alarion threw the scroll into the fire.

For a moment, there was nothing—just a defeated expression on his father's face.

Then, distantly, came the sound of a body slumping into the mud.

She had been a young woman, barely older than Aina. She had a crush on the neighbor's boy but was betrothed to a man twice her age. She cried when her father put down her horse, and stood dazzled under a travelling merchant's firework display on the new year. She was frightened when the strange man asked her to sign her name, but she'd obeyed.

She died face down in the mud, a puppet with her strings cut.

Then there was another thud.

This man was old, with one foot in the grave already. He'd buried his wife and all his children. Those memories were bitter but tinged with a lifetime of love. He pushed his wife's face into a cake. He killed a lord he didn't know while fighting in the army of another he didn't know. He played with his friends, dreaming of one day going to war, for glory and honor. He fought mock battles with his children, then urged his last son not to follow his brothers to their early graves.

He died face down in the mud as another body fell.

The deaths were endless, their lives blurring together in Alarion's mind as he passed from one to the next. There were hundreds, each snuffed out as their names caught fire. He lived through lovers' quarrels and sibling spats. He created works of art and shoveled shit. He saw the wonders of the world and the same quarter mile of farm a thousand times over.

Bas-Rhin was in love with a woman he had no right to, dancing at a harvest festival. Somehow, she thought he was funny. They fell into each other's arms deep in a hayloft, whispering secrets and promises that could never be kept. He saw war, a brutal conflict he could never explain to his children. A man disembowelled. Another burned so badly by magical fire that nothing was left but charred meat. Meat that screamed until Bas-Rhin put a sword through its heart.

He heard whispers of origins. Of secrets, not lies, for they were never the same thing and only the latter was immoral. He made promises he kept, even in his death throes.

He saw desperation, the agreement. The tome. Six Hundred and Ninety-Seven. A horrific name spoken into his ears that vanished when he heard it, and a three-fold name that overlapped in ways he could not understand.

It Who Was All, Kol Seras.

It Who Was Not All, Kol L'Seras.

It Who Was Nothing, Kol Tiras.

Alarion saw himself in a crib. She'd been so excited for a brother. She already had an older sister, but a boy to boss around? That would be fun!

There was so little of that last life. Cut short as it was.

Alarion drew a deep gasp as the moment passed, as though he'd lived six hundred lifetimes without a breath. He was himself again. His father lay dead in the mud before him. Six hundred and ninety-four lay in the mud surrounding their home. One lay dead inside.

Two, if you counted the thing that was Eloim.

Alarion did not.

He plucked the scrap of parchment from the mud where it had fallen. For years, he'd wondered why Aina had died while Atra survived. He'd blamed himself. The magic. The gods. Anyone and everything.

He hadn't even realized he'd torn her name away. He thought he'd burned it all. That small scrap of parchment probably remained buried in the mud outside his former home—the difference between Atra's life and death.

A shimmering portal had opened nearby, and Alarion started toward it without a second thought. He'd be lost if he took even a step toward his home. He'd never leave, not unless he were forced.

Would that be so bad?

"You made it," Valentina's voice was soft silk as he re-emerged in her private chambers. No food or drink awaited him, no smarmy once-God or her opinions on his success. She was quiet, almost apologetic.

Alarion said nothing. Tomorrow he could speak. Tomorrow, he could deal with others. Not yet. He turned and pulled open the door of his sleeping chamber and was surprised to see Sierra waiting for him, book in hand.

"Took you-" the girl started to chide him, then stopped as she caught his expression. She watched as the young man moved to sit on the nearby bed, his back to the wall, knees up to his chest. Then she asked, "Are you okay?"

Alarion drew a shallow breath through his nose, about to reply. To tell her yes. To ask her to leave. To beg her to stay. To say anything at all. Then his eyes stung and began to blur.

"No," he said at last, before the sobs overtook him.

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