DEVON
I stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling mirror in my quarters, adjusting the collar of my black dress shirt. My movements were fluid, practiced over a thousand lifetimes. I looked younger, sure. The heavy scars of the Great War hadn't etched themselves into my skin yet, and the silver at my temples was gone. But the eyes—the eyes were the same. Cold. Ancient. Hungry.
"You're staring again, sir," Zane said from the doorway. He was hovering, as always.
"I'm admiring the view, Zane," I replied, my voice like grinding stones. "It's rare to see a dead man looking so fit."
Zane laughed nervously, thinking I was making a joke about the Northern Front. He had no idea I was talking about the version of me I'd seen disemboweled in a timeline he would never remember. To him, I was the hero Beta who had just secured our borders. To me, I was a ghost that would die more than a dozen times, murdered by the love of his life.
