“Yves. Yves, wake up.”

A soft hand brushes his hair, and Yves makes a noise of protest, burying his face into his warm pillows. A familiar medicinal scent fills his senses, bitter and pungent. Ah, he hasn’t smelled this in so long. A silvery laugh rings through the air, and the hands shake him a little more insistently.

“Get up, my sleepy little puppy. You can’t sleep forever.”

…Sleepy little what?

Adrenaline floods through Yves as he jerks awake, scrambling away from the touch. His hand dives under his pillow—

where is his dagger, where did it go, did someone take it away while he was sleeping?

—when he finally lays eyes on the person before him.

“...Mother?”

Pale hair, as snowy and soft as his own, though far longer than he ever wore it, rustles as she leans over him. Try as he might, he can't quite make out her facial expressions, the details slipping from his grasp like water. Despite it all, there’s a sense of comfort that blankets him, the earlier agitation soon fading away. Why was he so alarmed earlier?

This is his mother, the only person who has ever truly loved and cared for Yves. The one who read him bedtime stories and sang lullabies with a soft lilting voice, combing thin fingers through his curly hair. Who let him hide behind her dress whenever he wanted to skip lessons. If there was one person he could trust in this treacherous place, it’d be her.

“Mother?” She flicks his forehead. “So quick to grow up. You used to call me mama not just a few days ago.” 

When Yves continues to stare at her silently, she tilts her head. Places a concerned hand on his face, the frail fingers cool against his skin. As always, there’s ink staining her calloused skin again, but despite that, he leans into her touch. It’s just as gentle as he remembers, with the same faintly bittersweet scent. “Are you alright? Did you have a nightmare?”

Yves looks down at his own hands, small and soft. There are no calluses, but then again, he can’t quite recall why there would be any. He…he has just started training with the sword last week, right? Of course there wouldn’t be any that have formed yet. 

So, why is there a niggling feeling of wrongness? Something is off, and he just can’t place a finger on exactly what.

“I…I think I had a terrible dream.” The details are hazy, and all he really remembers is the crushing loneliness that still lingers in him. It’s enough to have him tearing up, and he blinks them back rapidly. Why would he be lonely? While he’s never had many friends, solitude was never something that bothered him much.

So what was this terrible grief gnawing at his chest?

She brushes his face with her thumb. “Oh, sweetheart, it was only a dream. Do you want to talk about it?”

Yves wipes his eyes and shakes his head. Despite that, when he next opens his mouth, the truth comes spilling out. Confessions of the things his dream self had done in the wake of his mother’s death, of burning buildings and a king’s blood on his hands. Of his blood pouring from his throat, just to wake up years and years in the past, steeled to do it all over again. 

Of meeting the last person he’s stained his hands red with, and shackling her into the same fate.

By the time he is finished, he is looking away in guilt. Not from the things he has done, but for the lack of remorse. He doesn’t think he can face his mother, not now. So when a frighteningly familiar voice that is decidedly not hers speaks, it’s as if his blood has turned to ice.

“So, why did you do it?”

Yves blinks. “...What?”

Inch by terrifying inch, he turns. 

Ink bleeds into snow white hair, staining the strands drop by drop. Yves stares in mute horror as bones crack and shift before him, as startling pink eyes blink up at him slowly from beneath dark lashes.

Erica turns to him with a dispassionate expression, one that grabs his full attention. Or at least, it would have, had it not been for the gaping gash stretched across her throat. Blood burbles through it with every labored breath she takes, staining her entire front red. “Why would you doom us all again?”

He can’t breathe. “I…” 

Despite the gore, despite the accusatory words, there is not a hint of hatred in her eyes. No pain, no anger, and certainly no lighthearted smile. Nothing but blank apathy, as if she were simply asking about the weather. Erica reaches towards him, sticky palms leaving streaks across his clammy face. A cruel echo of their last moment.

Just as it was before, Yves cannot move away, unable to do anything but watch in mute horror. There’s so much blood, constantly dripping from that horrific wound. When does it end? When does this end?

“It’s your fault, you know. All these deaths and destruction, the people you’ve trampled over, and for what? You’ve never gotten even a single step closer to your answers. And now, you want to do it all over again.”

In the silence, the squelch of flesh echoes through the air. Erica looks down at the sword erupted between them, at the blood that spills over her hands that clutch the handle. Her gaze burns a path along him, up to his face, before sliding over his shoulder where the jagged tip is surely visible. He can’t pull the blade from his chest, hands grasping weakly at the edge as his knees give out from underneath him. 

Erica doesn’t let him fall. Of course she doesn’t. 

Instead, he is held aloft by the sword, the metal biting deep into him as his weight slides against it. What an odd sensation it is, to be powerless as he feels each muscle slowly tear under its own weight. Unable to do anything but fumble at the blade, as if he could somehow stop it from digging further.

“How many must die before you stop? How many lives ruined because you just can’t. Let. Things. Go? It’s not enough for you to throw your life away; no, you simply had to drag everybody else into this mess, huh?”

Question after cruel question, each one digging just as deep as the steel in his chest.

He couldn’t answer even if he had the words. Not when he is choking on his own blood, with rattling wheezes from punctured lungs. It splatters onto Erica’s face, who ignores it in favor of looking at him with a considering expression.

“No answer? Thought so. Should I just do us all a favor and end it here? Before you subject us to the same madness?” Leaning towards him, sticky lips brushing his ear in a mockingly intimate way, she whispers one last time. 

“You owe me one, anyways.”

With that, she rips the blade out, and he is helpless to do anything besides crumpling to the ground. With heavy limbs and a rabbit-quick heart, he watches her raise the stained steel above her head.

It’s brought down with the full weight of fate, and Yves closes his eyes.

And wakes.

.

.

.

When he jolts awake, he is back in bed. Gasping while clawing at where his heart beats frantically in a mockery of what happened the first time he awoke in the past. 

A nightmare. 

It was just a nightmare, and a fairly obvious one at that, he tells himself. The inconsistencies were plain to see now that he is running it over again in his mind. Nothing about it was accurate, from the injuries to the people involved. And yet, he can’t help but linger on the words spoken.

How many must die before you stop? How many lives ruined because you can’t let things go?

Yves digs his hands into the sheets. He hadn’t been able to answer then, but he can now.

As many as it takes. 

Even if it includes his own. Even if it includes hers. 

He’s come too far, done too much to stop now.

He’ll doom as many people as needed, ruin a thousand more lives if it means he’ll get what he wants. It’s too late to choose anything else. 

Yves won’t stop. He can’t.

The resolve is enough to settle his racing heart, even if only a fraction. Yves glances outside the window, where the waxing moon sits atop the night sky. No, there will be no turning back. Resolution aside, he should rest now. It’ll be another long day tomorrow, and he still needs to decide what to do with Erica. 

Roughly wiping away the lingering sweat, he peels his shirt away with a grimace. Perhaps a change of clothes before heading back to bed would be appropriate. 

.

.

.

It doesn’t help. Not one bit.

Even after changing his clothes for a fresh set, he still can’t go back to sleep, not with the thoughts swirling in his head like a frenzied storm.

Namely, Erica’s presence. 

She shouldn’t be here. Nestled into the palace as he is now, so far away from the place he recruited her, there should be no way for them to meet again. 

Earlier, he’d blustered past it, but there truly shouldn’t have been a way for her to get into the recruitment in the first place. The news of him looking for a bodyguard was only spread throughout the nobility, and not even that many, at that; there’d been no chance of it slipping out to the general population. 

So, how did she learn of it? He didn’t think she had any noble connections.

Yves pauses. No, that’s not quite right. He simply didn’t think of her at all. 

It still doesn’t change the fact that despite whatever history he may have had with her in the past, this iteration of her remains a stranger to him. Not that the previous version of her was much more familiar, but this current one has not proven herself quite yet. Of her strength, he has no doubt. Her loyalty, however…

Does he trust her enough to place her by his side? To watch his back, even with all of the secrets she holds?

…No. He doesn’t. Not that it matters. When has he ever trusted anyone? Not even Erica had his trust back then. No, the best way to pry secrets from someone is to be right beside them, where he can keep a very close eye on them. A dog won’t be able to bite back as long as one keeps a careful hand on the leash, after all. Yves won’t be repeating his mistakes, not this time. 

How did that saying go? Keep your friends close and enemies closer, right? He’ll find out which she falls under soon enough.

…This isn’t helping him to fall asleep. It’s not uncommon, nowadays, for him to get much less sleep, not when he is in such a treacherous place alone. Now that he has decided to remain in the palace, the future as he knows it is bound to change. It’s… something he isn’t sure how he feels about. Changing the future is what he is aiming for, but his foreknowledge is both a terribly heavy burden and a comfort. 

Predictability is good. Predictability is safe.  

Who knows when the next assassin will creep through his window? Will he be as lucky next time without the advantage of knowledge?

…Perhaps some fresh air might help.

With that, he throws the covers off, and slips from his room. He’s done this often enough by now to know exactly how to press into the shadows, how to let his body melt out of sight. 

A walk in the night has always helped him collect his senses, the steady pace an excellent way to release any built up anxiety. Maybe this time, the cold air will ground his spiraling thoughts. This late at night, there’ll be no one to disturb his peace, no one to lay witness to his frazzled state. 

Simply a rare moment of solace before the chaos of the next day.