Vyan froze for a mont as the whisper slithered through his mind like smoke laced with caution.
"Don't do it."
His eyes snapped wide, wine-red irises flashing with a flicker of rage. "Don't do what?"
"Don't go into the past and try to change it."
A bitter laugh escaped him. It echoed in the stillness around him like a mockery of hope.
"Oh, now you speak?" he snarled. "Now you decide to grace with your divine wisdom? I've been calling for you—begging—for days. Screaming into the void, into the church, while ti slipped through my fingers like sand and nothing changed. And suddenly, here you are... just because I'm doing sothing forbidden?"
"Where were you," he whispered, voice cracking, "when the dark mages were slaughtering innocent people for their rituals? When villages burned and people bled in the na of dark power? You didn't stop them. You didn't stop Jade or Sienna—so why ? Why now? Just because I want to save soone?"
There was a pause, as if the goddess herself had the decency to sigh.
"First of all," Hecate said, voice silken with an exasperated sort of calm, "the reason I haven't been responding to you is because I was busy. Believe it or not, we gods have our own... affairs to manage."
Vyan rolled his eyes so hard it nearly hurt. "Of course. Bureaucracy of the divine."
"Secondly," she continued with a prim sort of coolness, "I don't control dark mages. That domain belongs to the god of hell. I am the goddess of magic—pure magic. My jurisdiction ends where his begins. Don't confuse our roles."
"Oh, how wonderfully convenient."
"Thirdly..." Her tone dropped, a warning veiled in quiet authority. "When you change the past, you don't just tweak a thread, you unravel the entire weave. The tiline doesn't bend; it breaks. A new one forms in its place, and in that mont of fracture, the self you were—the one that existed in both tis—rges. Past and future collide, mories overwrite, and you beco sothing... altered. Continuity is preserved, but your identity is rewritten and this tiline might cease to exist."
"I'm a mage, but that doesn't an I don't understand science," Vyan muttered, eyes narrowing. "I know what all of that can do."
"Then you understand the weight of it," she said sharply. "It's not just a butterfly flapping its wings anymore. It's a storm collapsing on itself. The person who travels back fuses with who they were. And when that rge happens, the world adjusts. The consequences ripple outward—irreversible and untaable. That's why I can't let it happen."
His jaw clenched. "Yes. I know you can't allow it." His voice dropped to a low growl, layered with resolve. "But I read it already in this book—the clause. That the gods will allow it... only if the price is paid."
His eyes glowed fiercely.
"And I'm willing to pay."
Whatever the price may be, he was willing to pay it. For her heart to beat once again.
There was silence for a beat.
And then, a soft laugh—faint, amused, and strangely sad—echoed in his mind.
"What are you going to offer now, my child?" Hecate asked, almost gently. "You've already given ten years of your life."
"About that…" He had a question he had wanted to ask her for a long ti. "The ten years of my life you took. If my ti has run out, why am I still alive?"
"Who told you your ti has run out? I never said you were ant to die this year, did I?"
"I know about an alternate tiline," he muttered, rubbing his temples. "In that one... apparently I died. Nine days ago."
"Ah, that," Hecate said with a whisper of acknowledgnt, "that tiline has no bearing on this one. It's true that it existed. But there's nothing tethering you to that version of events. Nothing is compelling you to carry it forward."
Vyan tilted his head toward the ceiling, the weight in his chest loosening ever so slightly. That ant, all their worries for the last few days had been aningless.
"And when I said I'd take ten years of your life," she continued, her voice clearer now, "I ant from the end of it. From your natural lifespan. The age you were destined to die of old age, not at the hands of a third party. If soone kills you before your natural life, that's on them, not . So don't bla , my child."
He was taken aback, glad that he could still live a long life with Iyana once she were to wake up. "So... whatever Leila knew about that alternate tiline, it's irrelevant. We're not tied to that path, right?"
"That's right."
Her tone suddenly sharpened, edged with the weight of her divine authority.
"But you are bound to this tiline. And if you alter it... there will be consequences for you in the new one. The price will be steep, my child. So, what is it going to be?"
His throat tightened. "I'll give up the blessing you gave ."
Silence again for a beat. A curious stillness.
"By that," she said carefully, "do you an you're going to give up your magic?"
Vyan scoffed, shaking his head. "As if I'd make myself totally defenseless. If I did that, every enemy I've made on the day of coronation would sll blood and they'd co to tear apart in seconds."
"Then, what exactly are you offering ?"
"The most powerful kind of magic to ever exist," he spoke up firmly. "My destructive power. I'll give it up. All of it."
"What if I say that's not enough?" Her voice curled in his mind, soft but heavy, like a velvet dagger. "What if I ask for all of your powers, my child? What if I decide... I do want to leave you defenseless?"
Vyan didn't flinch. There wasn't even a pause.
"Then if that's what you want," he said, steady as stone, "I'll give it to you."
His voice was calm, resolute, almost frighteningly so.
"I'll find a way to defend myself. Because with or without magic, I'm still the Grand Duke of Ashstone." He lifted his chin, pride glinting faintly in his wine-red eyes. "And money doesn't lie."
A long silence followed, then a thoughtful hum ca from the goddess.
"This would an," she warned gently, "that you would have nothing left to pass down. No legacy. No inheritance. Your children would have nothing of your power to hold onto."
Vyan let out a dry, humorless laugh. It was the kind of laugh people gave when they'd already accepted how much they'd lost.
"What legacy?" he asked, his tone laced with quiet devastation. "If Iyana isn't there… you already know I'm not going to marry soone else. Least of all have children, which, mind you, I already am not a fan of."
Hecate chuckled in amusent. "And here I thought you would have changed your mind about children by now."
"I might, if Iyana were here. But if she's gone… this bloodline might as well end with ." His gaze dropped to the floor, fingers curling slightly. "So yes, I'm willing to put everything on the line for her. Powers, legacy, future. I'll walk through hell barefoot if that's what it takes."
Hecate chuckled again, this ti sounding more impressed. "You know what?" she murmured, "Your resolution has convinced ."
Vyan arched an eyebrow.
"I was only testing you, actually. I never ant to take all of your powers." Her voice surprised him how much warmth it held. "Because you see, my child... I do adore you, sowhat. You're twisted and driven. And I like that. You're the kind of chaos this world needs sotis."
"I always thought it was unfair... how you lived the first fifteen years of your life with no mana. Born into magic, yet locked out from it."
"So I'll be kind. I'll accept what you offered initially."
"I'll take your destructive powers, and in return, I'll allow you to change the past."
Vyan closed his eyes. His heart beat hard once, then slowed. Relief didn't co rushing in, but it seeped in like a steady stream of sunlight. He nodded.
But then, her tone shifted again.
"However," she said, voice like the rustle of old pages in a long-forgotten spellbook, "you must understand that changing the past of a tiline warps everything. The present will beco unstable, and you cannot stay in the past and continue from that point, because these nine days have already passed. Either way, tilines will have twisted. It won't be easy to return to the new present you'll have created. You might lose your way. You might get lost in ti itself."
Vyan opened his eyes, and they glead like burning garnets.
"That's fine," he said. "I'll find a way back ho."
"What if you don't?"
He breathed out slowly. "I'll still take my shot."
"Fine," Hecate relented, her voice sounding almost like a sigh of fond defeat. "So be it. I will now take away your destructive powers."
She paused, and there was a twinge of lancholy in the divine air around him.
"It's a sha, really. Just when you'd finally mastered it."
Vyan looked down at his hand, flexing his fingers. He could already feel the slow, inevitable unraveling—the strange quiet where sothing wild used to hum. The destructive force that once pulsed in his blood was beginning to fade, like smoke dissipating into a sky before dawn.
He did feel sad. It had taken him the most effort to ta that violent storm. Months of failures to make it his own. And now, it was gone.
But none of it—none of it—compared to the hollow ache that clawed at his chest every ti he thought of Iyana's absence.
He had lived most of his life without that power.
He could live the rest of it without it, too.
But he couldn't live without her.
So now, with nothing left to lose and only her to gain, Vyan turned toward the path of impossibility.
Ready to change the past and welco a future where Iyana would be smiling.
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