{Malachi Novastia.}
I looked up from the bed, draped in covers as the pale morning light poured through the seams of the tent.
I wiped my lips and scowled.
It was always irritating, waking to the sound of battle, waking to the shrieks of dying men cutting through the last remnants of sleep.
Kivana slept beside me, soundly, curled in on herself and naked.
I wrapped her in the covers with a tired hand, watching her breathe as if she existed in a world untouched by blood or ruin, a world my hands had long since forfeited.
I summoned my clothes with a thought and stepped down from the bed, letting the cold air settle across my skin.
Piece by piece, I donned my armor, each plate locking into place with a familiar judgment, as though it condemned me for removing it the night before.
When I finally strapped my blade to my side and stepped outside, the screams hit me fully.
I supposed it was my fault.
Far across the endless plane, beyond the lines of tents and broken barricades, the battle churned like a wounded animal.
My soldiers clashed with the enemy in a storm of steel, spellfire, and desperate conviction.
We had set camp in front of a massive fortress of black stone, and the siege had lasted through the night.
Yet despite the urgency of war, despite the necessity of duty, temptation had dragged me backward into her arms.
I sighed and forced myself to strip away the faults sitting heavy in my chest, rebuilding the mental barriers I had shattered the night before.
When they finally rose, cold and precise, I let out a long breath and stared across the field at the castle.
The battlefield burned.
Fire crackled across collapsed siege engines, and craters smoked like open wounds in the earth.
Arrows streaked through the sky like starving locusts.
Bodies lay half buried in mud, twisted beneath the weight of their final mistakes.
The stench of iron clung to the wind, thick enough to choke thought.
My soldiers climbed the fortress walls with grappling hooks while volleys of magical spells roared toward the battlements.
Lightning cracked the sky.
Arcane sigils burst like dying stars, and aether carved the stone while flames spilled through parapets where men screamed unseen.
I lifted my sword. "Grand Void Razer."
The words left my mouth with a solemnity that felt almost sacred.
The tent behind me trembled, as if the mere invocation had disturbed the fabric of its being.
The earth vibrated beneath my boots.
The air thickened, then collapsed inward.
Time recoiled.
Space shuddered.
The battlefield froze at the edge of annihilation as a vast cloud of void swelled into existence.
It poured outward like a sea of nothingness, a mist woven from the absence of color and sound.
Everything it touched dissolved, erased without protest or memory.
The enemy vanished into silence.
My soldiers watched from afar, their faces pale, uncertain whether the miracle belonged to a man or to something far more monstrous.
What could I do?
I had wanted to bask in her presence so desperately that I could not bear to leave her.
Even as I watched the void erase a hundred lives, the thought of Kivana's form returned to me, unbidden and merciless.
Her naked silhouette echoed in my mind.
Her breath against my neck.
Her warmth, that terrible warmth, seeped into me even now.
And all the mental barriers I tried so carefully to rebuild cracked beneath the memory.
The mark on my stomach twisted, a slow and hungry spiral, a reminder of the vow I once took and the sin woven into my flesh.
Such a terrible thing, lust is.
A hunger that does not ask.
A desire that does not wait.
A thief that slips through the fractures of the soul where discipline has rotted.
Humans pretend that love is the noblest ache of the heart, yet lust reveals a truth far older than romance, a truth that strips pretense from the spirit and leaves only the raw machinery of want.
Lust is the confession beneath every mask, a force that drags even the strongest mind toward the precipice where reason dissolves.
And in that collapse lies confrontation.
Confrontation with one's own nature and its contradictions.
Confrontation with the fact that the heart often desired what the mind condemned, and the body longed for what the spirit swore it would resist.
Questions without answers. Wounds without closure.
I called out to the army. "Advance, do not shudder in face of power, advance and ransack this resistance!"
They moved with my voice, marching forward. The castle, at last, stood captured beneath the banners of Anstalionah.
The feat of taking down Rosen was good, for it allowed reinforcements to aid Sansir first.
After that, they aided me. The war was under control, flowing steadily.
Nicholas, however, was clever.
He knew all that would happen, so his reeking of time had not been a mere display of power.
He had set his sight upon the future, a strange thing to comprehend, for I too was a seer.
Bolt was back in hiding, and unleashing it again would be a terrible thing to do now.
Besides, there were other monsters this kingdom could use.
Monsters like me.
I had fallen back into sin once more, an eternal regression I hated.
Still I enjoyed it, so I must never lament the cause. It was a consuming process.
I looked back and made my way into the tent. I would join them soon.
Yet my participation now must be limited.
When I stepped inside, Kivana was already ready.
She leaned her head back, a tight dress covering her as she sighed. "I can sense them coming."
"Both?" I asked to be sure.
She leaned forward, her pupils tracing the streams of time. "No, just…Madikai. It seems as tho he might bring a powerful force."
She donned the same armor she had worn when she first arrived and stood from the bed.
"Do you plan to face him head on? The battle could get dangerous for the planet."
"What do you foresee in my future, what can you taste, my love?"
Her expression grew delighted. "Fate, I do love it."
She wrapped her arms around me, hugging me tight as the vision poured into my mind.
It was a destined future, one where the planet suffered a great deal of damage.
Some other troubling things occurred as well, so I shattered that destiny.
As she pulled away she licked her lips. "Perfect, you must never disobey me."
I ignored her and turned around. "We have to go, Madikai will feel this great change in fate."
The army had already gained a great deal of distance. It seemed they wanted to accomplish something great.
I thought, however, that I should change my goals. Fertical would unleash a great terror soon.
"Malachi, maybe you should wait here. The future is changing rapidly, it seems some other forces are at play."
Fate was the most malleable thing, and with Time so close within grasp, it was clear I was losing.
The future of this world was already set in stone. This was fate. And yet, it was the choices among the future that brought about time.
Such a terrible thing, that causes different possibilities, and all possible possibilities exist within such a world.
But the impossible, that which should not exist, was the most misleading of all.
Kivana had shown me one of the worst possible outcomes, but she had not shown me any impossible ones.
The impossible in this world was surely possible. Such a thing was clear.
My eyes, which could see fate, could see all things. It was both the impossible and the possible that I submitted my gaze to.
Yet what she saw was beyond that. She saw what would occur out of all of these.
Kivana, she was the dreamer of dreams. Her Regalia allowed her to perceive the Dream.
The Dream was a place where all potencies were acted upon while nothing truly existed.
It was a place beyond the Sea of Time, the place from which all logic arose.
Its name came from the fact that it was the origin of dreams, possibility, probability, and even logic.
Thus it was the origin of all knowable falsities, which it could turn into truth, a system that revolted against itself.
And as these thoughts swirled through me, I stepped outside once more.
I raised my sword.
I had raised my sword because, here and now, Madikai had appeared, dressed in bloody conviction.