Die. Respawn. Repeat.

I am, in all honesty, quite surprised when nothing actually goes wrong. I was half-expecting to wake up in a new loop, all activities in the last one erased from some terrible event in my sleep. Or an inconveniently timed heart attack. Maybe both.

But no. I wake up in bed—I don't even remember getting out from the tub and into a bed, and certainly not getting into dry clothes—refreshed and ready to go, and nothing goes wrong.

Not even during the surgery. It goes exactly as planned with only minor variations; Guard and Ahkelios, for instance, are watching a lot more closely this time around. Mari sits nearby, feet nervously tapping against the dirt. It's early enough in the day that the village is remarkably silent.

Besides those things, everything is identical to what I experienced when I used The Road Not Taken, down to Naru's reactions to being woken from his sleep.

"Why did—Thank you?" Naru looks around. "What..."

"You're back home," I say. Tarin's already sitting up, but he watches Naru quietly, not saying a word. Naru freezes when he finally realizes where he is and who's around him. There's an instant where he almost reacts impulsively—I can see the way his entire body tenses and the way he begins to curse—but he chokes it back down, making a strangled noise in this throat.

"Tell me what happened," he finally says. "Please."

He says the word like he isn't quite used to it.

"He not shout?" Tarin sounds impressed. "You change."

Naru's eyes narrow, and I feel an immediate flare of anger. "That's all it takes?" he starts, jolting up from the makeshift bed. It's only the lance of pain that courses through him that makes him sit back down with a wince.

"I just performed surgery on your core," I say dryly. "You might not want to use any skills yet."

"Just... please tell me what happened," he says again, rubbing his face with his hands.

It's Tarin that launches into an explanation. The old crow's expression becomes uncharacteristically serious, and he tells Naru an account of what happened at the Carusath Tear that more or less matches exactly what I told him. Honestly, I'm surprised he was paying that much attention; he'd seemed a lot more distracted when I was first telling him about it.

Not that surprised. It's Naru we're talking about. I watch the two of them as they talk, and after a moment, I shake my head.

"Come on," I say to both Ahkelios and Guard. "Let's let them talk in peace. We need to figure some things out ourselves, anyway. Like what's going on with your Interface, Ahkelios. Guard, I want to know more about your Firmament—whatever you're comfortable sharing."

Naru didn't know what to think.

Of course, he didn't know what he was thinking back when he'd carved that symbol into his core, either. His memories of that moment were fuzzy. He remembered feeling an overwhelming sense of regret, remembered feeling small in a way he hadn't felt since the Trial.

It was different from before, though. Before, he'd felt small because he couldn't live up to Tarin or Mari's expectations of him. No matter what he did, it felt like he wasn't enough; he was small in comparison to what they wanted him to be.

With Ethan, he felt small in comparison to what he could be. In comparison to the world at large. Like he'd been forcibly shown that his place in the universe was much, much smaller than he'd convinced himself it was.

He couldn't stand it. The idea that he'd be that small forever—that he'd just live in ignorance of how tiny he was, convinced of the grandiose lie he'd been telling himself ever since he became a Trialgoer—it rankled at his pride. He wanted to be more.

And Ethan had given him that chance...

No. Tarin had.

Ethan saved him, but Tarin gave him his Interface shard. The fragment of pure chance that allowed him to remember the loops. Without that he would've been lost again—even if Ethan managed to undo the damage, he wouldn't remember why it was done in the first place. He'd just stay as a puppet of the Integrators, fighting a war he didn't even care about.

Naru struggled to remember why he'd been so convinced in the first place that the Integrators were impossible to fight. That the role he played was the best one he could've had. All that actually happened under his rule was...

He grimaced at the memory. His guards. He needed to do something about that, and he didn't know how.

But there was something more important he needed to do first.

Tarin was looking at him expectantly. So was Mari, for that matter. For once in their lives they weren't squawking at him, telling him what to do and when to do it. They weren't reminding him how much of a disappointment he was.

Though maybe that wasn't a fair assessment. Had they said that to him directly? He couldn't remember anymore. He just remembered the feelings.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

He opened his beak to speak, but to his surprise, Tarin spoke first.

"Naru," he said, his words grave. "You... not good crow. You hurt. Take."

Naru tensed, a snarl starting to rise in his throat. Was this still how it was? Even after all this? Tarin had sacrificed for him, sure, but that didn't give him the right to— 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

"But," Tarin continued, and Naru froze. "Maybe it because we also not good crow. Maybe we not there when you need."

"Should have broken into Trial," Mari muttered. "Break tower for breaking son."

Naru blinked. What were they even saying?

"You try?" Tarin asked. "Try be good crow. We try too."

The Trialgoer found his throat was dry. Even he knew that he was the one that needed to apologize here; it was difficult for him to acknowledge, to admit it, but he'd been the one to lose himself in the Trial. Tarin and Mari hadn't been wrong for not giving him power. That the Trial happened exactly afterward was nothing more than terrible coincidence—

—or, Naru realized a little belatedly, intentional. On the part of the Integrators, not on the part of his parents. Choosing someone who just had a rift torn between him and his family. Someone who wouldn't have a support network when he returned, brutal and conquering.

Tarin was... conceding, in a way. Rare for his father—so rare it would've been impossible to imagine if he wasn't seeing it himself. He was, what? Trying to understand?

Great. Now Naru felt even smaller.

At least this time, he knew enough not to blame Tarin for it. He sighed, trying to figure out the right words, the right response...

But in the end, there was only one thing left to say. He swallowed his pride.

"Thanks, dad." The words felt foreign coming from his beak. Both of them. He cast about for something else to say, anything that could distract him from the words he'd just said. I'm sorry was right there, but he didn't feel ready to say it yet. Didn't feel ready to mean it the way he thought he needed to. "I, uh. I could use some help dealing with Carusath."

There. It was something. An acknowledgement that he needed help, that things were less than perfect. His parents looked at one another, something silent passing between them.

"Okay," Tarin said. "You tell us what wrong."

This was easier than an apology. Easier than thinking about... everything else that still hung unsaid between them. Naru didn't know if he'd ever be a good crow by Tarin's estimation; a part of him still felt like he'd been right, that force was the only real truth.

But he was willing to try. He was willing to admit that his methods hadn't been perfect. Something needed to change.

Maybe that something was him.

Ahkelios and I sit on a log next to each other, comparing our Interface screens; Guard stands in front of us both, looking a little disgruntled and trying his best to hide it. I don't blame him—he's the only one in our little party now that doesn't have an Interface.

"It is a trap," he grumbles. "You must not fall for it."

If nothing else, it's nice to see a side of him that isn't the whole noble protector thing he has going on. Even if jealousy is kind of a strange look on him.

"It definitely is a trap," I admit. "But I don't think it's any more of a trap than me having an Interface. It's a trap insofar as it guides your Firmament growth along a specific path and tries to prevent you from discovering too much about Firmament, but I don't think this is specifically a trap for Ahkelios."

"We could try to get you attached to the Interface too, if that helps?" Ahkelios offers. Guard makes a noise—a series of high-pitched beeps that I can only interpret as his version of a pout—and shakes his head.

"I will not stain my soul with the Interface," he declares.

"Okay, now that's a little rude," I say, though I'm more amused than anything else.

Guard hesitates, his optic cycling through a few shades before eventually settling on a shade of light pink. "I... apologize," he says, the words coming out a little stiff.

I just laugh. "Didn't figure you for the jealous type, He-Who-Guards."

"It is not jealousy," Guard protests. Then—to his credit—he pauses to give the whole thing genuine consideration. When he's done, he amends the statement slightly. "It is partially jealousy," he admits. "But the concern is true regardless. Given all you've discovered about the Interface, for one of us to just be given access to—an event that has never once occurred previously, to my knowledge—it feels too fortuitous. Alarmingly so."

"I don't disagree with you there." I glance at Ahkelios. He feels the same way, judging by the way he's eyeing his Interface screen, even if he's not being quite as vocal about it. "We'll keep an eye on it, but for now, we're going to treat it like the tool it is. We can't avoid an advantage just because we're worried it's a trap."

"I... suppose that is acceptable," Guard rumbles after a moment. His vents whirr in his version of a sigh, and he moves to sit on the same log as me and Ahkelios.

His weight nearly launches the two of us into the air.

I reflexively reinforce the whole log with my Firmament to prevent that from happening. Guard continues like nothing happened, though I catch a flicker of amusement in his optic. "What are the differences between your Interfaces?"

Did he do that intentionally? I squint at him, though he studiously ignores my gaze; Ahkelios, who seems quite amused by the whole thing, takes the higher road by following his lead and answering the question like he didn't do anything.

"I don't have anything about Skill Mastery unlocked," Ahkelios says. "No Timeline Tracker or Hotspot Tracker, no feature to access the Trial's database. I think that means I'm not considered a looper the same way Ethan is, but I'm not sure."

"Biggest question is if time resets if either of us die, or if both of us have to die," I say, deciding to put Guard's little prank aside. "Plus we're still linked to each other through Temporal Link. I don't think that's intended? He's got access to my Interface and I have access to his."

"Can't trigger your skills or credit rolls or anything, though, so it's mostly cosmetic," Ahkelios points out. He frowns at his Interface screen. "We should find out what happens if we roll for a skill or if I trigger an Inspiration. I've got enough points to try for... well, I've technically hit this milestone before, but I don't have that Inspiration anymore."

Ahkelios furrows his brows as he thinks on that a little further. "And we're cut off from the Integrators right now, so who am I going to meet if I trigger one? That Kauku person you mentioned?"

It's a good question. I have no idea.

"Only one way to find out," I say. "You ready to roll some skills?"

"Honestly," Ahkelios says. "It was really hard not to roll them while you were doing your thing back there."

"I stopped him a few times," Guard supplies helpfully.

Ahkelios glares at him. "You weren't supposed to tell him that!"

I just snort. "Well, since you're so excited," I say. And he is excited, judging by the way his wings flutter behind him and the way he keeps glancing impatiently at his Interface screen. "You first."