The nightmares were worse without Sarah.
I'd forgotten how bad they could be. Gotten used to her presence keeping the worst of them at bay. Now, alone in my room with only shadows and memories—
*Loop 89. Valenhall burning. Screams echoing through streets I'd destroyed. Millions of faces, all accusing, all dead because of me.*
*Loop 112. Aria bleeding out in my arms, whispering "live" with her last breath while I screamed that I didn't know how.*
*Loop 23. My mother's casket lowering into the ground while teenage-Marcus stood in the rain, knowing he'd failed again.*
*Portland. Jake and Mira screaming "MARC!" as a drunk driver's car—*
I woke up gasping, drenched in sweat, my heart hammering against my ribs.
2:47 AM.
Still over an hour until training.
I sat up, pressing my palms against my eyes, trying to stop the shaking. It didn't work. It never worked.
"Master," Mordain's voice was gentle. "Breathe."
"I am breathing."
"You're hyperventilating. There's a difference."
He was right. I forced my breathing to slow—in for four counts, hold for four, out for four. An Earth meditation technique I'd learned as Marc, repurposed for post-traumatic episodes across 127 loops.
"Better?" Selene asked after a few minutes.
"Functional."
"That's not the same as better."
"It's the best I've got right now."
I stood on shaking legs, splashed cold water on my face from the washbasin. Stared at my reflection—sixteen years old, grey eyes too old for the face, dark circles from insufficient sleep.
"You look like death," Azrael observed helpfully.
"I've died 127 times. It's my natural state."
"Fair point."
I changed into training clothes mechanically. Tied my hair back. Grabbed water.
Still forty minutes until training started.
I couldn't stay in this room. The walls felt too close, the silence too loud, the absence of Sarah too obvious.
I left, heading down to the training grounds early.
---
The old grounds were dark, peaceful. Dawn was still over an hour away. Perfect.
I summoned my swords, running through forms to burn off the nightmare energy. Kata after kata, each one bleeding into the next. Earth martial arts, Aethermoor techniques, things I'd invented across loops when standard methods weren't enough.
The swords sang through the air. Extension of will. Extension of self. Extension of 127 lifetimes of accumulated violence.
"Can't sleep either?"
I spun, blades up.
Raven stood at the edge of the grounds, wearing sleeping clothes and carrying her notebook. She looked as tired as I felt.
"What are you doing here?" I asked.
"Nightmares. Your soul fragment is still in my lab. I can feel its resonance. Your death trauma keeps bleeding through." She walked closer, studying me. "You look terrible."
"Thanks. Very comforting."
"I'm a curse specialist, not a therapist." She sat on her usual rock. "Sarah left?"
"Yesterday afternoon."
"And the nightmares came back."
"Like they never left." I dismissed my swords, sitting on the grass. "She was... helping. Somehow. Her presence kept the worst of them away."
"Emotional anchor point. Psychological grounding. Having someone you trust nearby creates a buffer against trauma manifestation." Raven flipped through her notebook. "It's actually documented in curse literature—victims of repeated death curses often require physical proximity to living anchors to maintain mental stability."
"So I'm dependent on her now. Great."
"Not dependent. Helped by. There's a difference." She closed the notebook. "Want to talk about the nightmares?"
"Not particularly."
"Want to sit in companionable silence while I pretend not to notice you're having a breakdown?"
"That sounds better."
We sat there as the sky slowly lightened. Raven taking notes on something—probably me, probably documenting my psychological deterioration for her research.
After a while, she spoke: "On Earth. When we were friends. Marc. Did he... did he have nightmares?"
I thought back to Portland. To being seventeen and normal and unburdened by loops.
"No. He was happy. Stupid and happy and planning a gap year backpacking through Europe." I smiled without humor. "He had no idea what was coming. The drunk driver. The reincarnation. The 127 deaths. All of it."
"Do you wish you were still him? Still Marc?"
"Every day. Every loop. Every time I wake up from another nightmare about watching people I love die." I looked at her. "But I can't go back. Marc died on that Portland street. Marcus is what's left."
"Marcus saved people. Across 127 loops, he saved thousands. Marc saved two people and died."
"And which one was happier?"
She didn't have an answer for that.
At 3:55, Celeste arrived, looking surprised to see us already there.
"You're early," she said to me. "You're never early."
"Couldn't sleep."
"Nightmares?"
"Is it that obvious?"
"You look like you wrestled a demon and lost." She set down her water. "Where's Luna?"
"I'm here," Luna materialized from nowhere. "Just checking on some temporal fluctuations. They've been... unusual lately."
"Define unusual," I said, standing.
"Someone's manipulating time. Small scale, localized, but persistent. Like they're trying to observe multiple timelines simultaneously." Her violet eyes were serious. "Someone's watching you, Marcus. Not just physically. They're watching across probable futures."
"Can you tell who?"
"No. But whoever it is, they're powerful. SS-rank minimum. And they have access to temporal magic that shouldn't exist outside of anomalies like me."
"Great. Add 'mysterious time-manipulating stalker' to the list of problems."
"Your life is a nightmare," Celeste observed.
"You're just figuring this out now?"
We started training. The routine helped—physical exertion burning away the nightmare energy, turning psychological pain into muscle fatigue. Easier to deal with.
I pushed them harder than usual. Probably too hard. But I needed the distraction, needed to focus on something other than Sarah's absence and the watcher and the seven years until Azkaros.
By 6 AM, they were both exhausted.
"Enough," I said finally. "Good work. Same time tomorrow."
"You're a sadist," Celeste gasped.
"I'm a realist. Demons don't care if you're tired."
"Demons also don't make you train at 4 AM every day."
"Consider it character building."
She made a rude gesture as she left. Raven followed, still taking notes.
Luna lingered.
"You're not okay," she said quietly.
"I'm functional. That's different from okay."
"Marcus—"
"Don't. Please don't." I sat heavily on the grass. "I know I'm not okay. I've known for about ninety loops. But being not-okay doesn't change anything. The training still happens. Azkaros still comes. The world still needs saving despite my deteriorating mental health."
"You can't save anyone if you break completely."
"Watch me."
She was quiet for a long moment. Then she sat beside me—as close as an anomaly could sit to a physical person.
"In all the timelines I can see," she said slowly, "in all the possible futures... there are very few where you survive to Loop 150."
"Raven said I'd shatter before then anyway."
"Not just shatter. Cease to exist entirely. Your soul, your consciousness, everything that makes you Marcus—gone. Erased by the strain of too many regressions."
"Sounds peaceful."
"It sounds like giving up."
"Maybe I'm tired of fighting. Maybe after 127 loops of trying and failing, peace sounds pretty good."
"You don't mean that."
I looked at her—this impossible girl who'd chosen to exist as an anomaly rather than move on to whatever came next. Who'd given up death itself to watch over her sister.
"Don't I? Luna, I've saved the world six times. I've watched it burn 121 times. I've loved and lost more people than I can count. I've killed millions in my worst moments and saved millions in my best. And it never changes. The loop always continues. Azkaros always comes. People always die." I stood, feeling ancient in this teenage body. "Maybe the real failure is continuing to fight when the outcome is predetermined."
"The outcome isn't predetermined. This is Loop 128. You have new allies. Sarah, Celeste, Raven, me. The gods might be frauds, but we're real. And we're not running."
"You don't understand. Everyone says they won't run. Everyone promises to stand. And then Azkaros comes, and they see what real power looks like, and they run. Or they die. Usually die."
"Then we'll die fighting. But we won't leave you alone." She stood, facing me. "You saved my sister's life by training her. You gave Raven her agency back by breaking her observation curse. You gave Sarah purpose beyond being a political pawn. We owe you."
"I don't want gratitude. I want—" I stopped, not even sure what I wanted anymore.
"Peace?" Luna suggested. "Rest? The nightmares to stop? Sarah to come back?"
"All of it. None of it. I don't know anymore."
"Then let us help you figure it out. You don't have to carry everything alone."
"I've been alone for 127 loops. It's what I know."
"Then learn something new. Learn to let people in. Learn to—"
A surge of power cut her off.
Massive. Overwhelming. SS-rank at minimum.
Coming from the direction of the church.
"Solaris," I breathed.
"He knows you were there last night," Luna said, her form flickering with alarm. "He's coming to make an example."
"Here? At the academy?"
"Gods don't respect boundaries when their authority is challenged."
The air temperature rose twenty degrees in seconds. The sky brightened—not with dawn, but with divine fire.
And across the campus, a voice boomed—audible to everyone, impossible to ignore:
"MARCUS VALE. YOU WHO HAVE BLASPHEMED IN MY NAME. YOU WHO HAVE DESECRATED MY SACRED GROUND. YOU WHO DARE CLAIM I AM FALSE."
Oh, fuck.
"PRESENT YOURSELF. FACE DIVINE JUDGMENT. OR I WILL BURN THIS ACADEMY TO ASH TO FIND YOU."
Students were emerging from dormitories, pointing at the sky where a figure of pure flame hovered. Solaris. In his divine aspect. Pissed off and looking for me.
"You couldn't have waited one day?" Luna asked. "Sarah's been gone less than twenty-four hours and you're already provoking gods?"
"It seemed like a good idea at the time."
"Your definition of 'good idea' is deeply flawed."
The voice boomed again: "THIRTY SECONDS. THEN I BURN."
I looked at Luna. "Get everyone clear. Students, teachers, everyone. Now."
"What are you going to do?"
"Something stupid. As usual." I started walking toward the main courtyard where Solaris hovered. "And Luna?"
"Yes?"
"If I die... tell Sarah I'm sorry. For everything."
"You're not going to die."
"You can't see that future?"
"No. Which means either you survive, or—"
"Or I die and the timeline fractures so badly even you can't see what comes next."
"That's not comforting."
"Nothing about my life is comforting. You should know that by now."
I left her standing there and walked toward my confrontation with a false god.
Again.
Because apparently, Loop 128 was determined to be just as complicated as the previous 127.
At least I'd gotten some training in first.
Small mercies.