Chương 8: No Safe Choice

"Up, boy. We've arrived." Teren opened his eyes. For a moment, he could still hear the explosion. The blast had been nothing like the white fire in the intake yard. He remembered everything vividly: a blood-red rune circle hanging in the doorway, Edras shoving him backward, blue mana forming a barrier that lasted less than a breath, and a violent force throwing him back with a deafening noise. Then... death. Teren stared through the iron bars inches from his face.

The wagon rocked beneath him, rolling along the same road toward Karthane. The familiar chains were around his wrists and ankles, with the same captives crowded inside the cage. Across from him, the older man watched for a few seconds before turning toward the road. Teren did not move. His last thought had returned with him. He knew he would wake up in this damned wagon again. He had been right... Of course he had been right! He was back here. Again.

His hands tightened slowly into fists, iron bands scraping against his wrists. Cool air moved over his face, where the blast had reached him only a moment ago. His skin was fine. His bones were whole. His body had been restored as if none of it had happened, although his mind felt like it had been put through a blender. But he remembered everything which happened in the previous loop. The intake assay. Purple light. Meeting the archmage Edras. The research compound. The lineage resonator. The floating crest.

The imperial version of his name. Teren Marr von Corvadryn. Carrying the bloodline of emperors dead for over a century still felt impossible, but right now it also seemed useless. What did an imperial bloodline matter to him when every path he chose still ended with him dead? A bitter laugh almost escaped him, but he swallowed it before anyone in the cage could hear. The last thing he needed was for the other captives to decide he had finally lost his mind. Or maybe he had.

Maybe that would be easier than accepting that an extinct imperial bloodline, a hidden assassin, and a blood-red magical trap had all become his problem in the space of a few hours. He leaned his head back against the bars and closed his eyes, thinking through what options he had left now. If any. He could try to reach Edras again. The thought came immediately, because Edras was the only person who had changed anything.

The old mage had seen the purple light, understood enough to hide it, taken him out of the intake yard, and brought him somewhere the white fire had not reached. Then the trap at the threshold had killed them both. Or killed Teren, at least. He did not know whether Edras had died first after the barrier shattered because he was closer to the blast or if he had somehow managed to survive because he was a trained archmage and would have known far better about how to protect himself from sudden attacks than Teren did.

It did not matter though. Whether the mage himself had survived or not, he hadn't been able to protect Teren. Teren opened his eyes. What was the point of reaching the old mage if that route only led to a different death? Edras had known about wards, barriers, secret tests, and restricted records. He had already been researching the Corvadryn bloodline for some reason, so he probably knew more about the dead imperial line than anyone else in the city. He had been trusted by the duke and feared by the guards.

He had probably been the most powerful person Teren had met in this world, since the person with the white fire hadn't attacked when the mage was present in the intake compound. And Edras had still failed in keeping Teren alive. But who had killed him this time? It could not have been the same attacker as the earlier loops. The white fire had not struck when Edras came out into the intake yard. Whoever had been watching there had chosen not to attack once the old mage arrived.

The white-fire attacker couldn't have been the one behind the explosion. The red trap in the doorway felt different anyway. It had not been a sudden burst of fire thrown from across a yard. It had been a prepared circle of runic symbols, hidden on a threshold inside Edras's own research rooms. And that made no sense. Edras had locked and warded the building before taking him below. No one had walked in after them.

No one could have placed that trap while Edras stood only a few steps away on the other side of the door. Which meant it had already been there. But how? Teren's stomach tightened. Even he had not known Edras would take him to that room until it happened. So how could anyone else have known? Unless the trap had not been set for Teren specifically. Unless someone had placed it there in case Edras ever found what he had spent decades searching for. A surviving Corvadryn.

Edras had said the bloodline did not seem to have ended naturally. He had spoken of their purple flames, their legendary magic, and the bonded dragons, whatever that meant. The Corvadryns had supposedly been powerful enough to build an empire, yet someone had still made the bloodline extinct. And now, more than a century later, someone had put an explosive trap in a hidden research room of an eccentric old mage studying that bloodline, just in case one of them ever appeared.

That thought frightened Teren more than the white fire. By now, he had a very good idea about why he was being killed again and again, and why the white fire was coming for him every time the crystal in the intake assay glowed purple. The enemies of the Corvadryn Dynasty were still alive and kicking, more than a hundred years after the bloodline had gone extinct. The wagon rolled over a rut. This time, Teren did not bother shifting away from the bars. His shoulder struck iron hard enough to hurt.

The pain helped clear his addled mind. It was small, ordinary, and real. Far easier to understand than imperial bloodlines and exploding thresholds. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. Across the cage, the older man glanced at him.

"Ya awake now?" Teren looked at him, and saw the same lined face and the tired eyes.

"Yes," Teren said.

"Then stop lookin' dead." Teren almost laughed again.

"I'll try." The man gave him a strange look and turned away. Near the rear of the cage, the broad lizardfolk captive was sitting with his chained hands resting on his knees. His thick shoulders were tense, and his gaze was already fixed on the guards riding beside the wagon. Teren watched him. In every loop, the man attacked as soon as he reached the ground. In every loop, the guards beat him until he stopped moving. Teren still did not know his name.

He had avoided warning him before because he had needed the sequence to stay the same. That excuse felt thinner now. By warning him, he might be able to save the man's life. The walls of Karthane rose ahead, huge and gray beneath the clear blue sky. Sunlight flashed against the invisible barrier above them for the briefest instant. Teren leaned slightly toward the broad captive, keeping his voice low.

"Don't attack the guards when they open the cage." The man's eyes shifted toward him. For a second, Teren thought he might not have been heard. Then the captive snorted.

"Ya see chains on me and think I'm planning to kiss their boots?"

"No," Teren said.

"I think they'll beat you half to death before you take three steps." The man's mouth twisted.

"Then I'll make those steps count." Teren held his gaze. There was no fear in the man's face. Anger, yes. Pain, probably. But no fear. Teren just shook his head.

"Fine. It's your life." Teren had done what he could. He certainly didn't have the power to save the man himself. Not if I can't even save myself. The caravan crossed the drawbridge, passed beneath the gatehouse, and entered Karthane. Teren barely looked at the orange lights in their glass containers or the crowds beyond the gate. The streets, carts, scaled beasts, market stalls, and distant airships all blurred into a familiar pattern. He knew enough of the city now that the first impossible shock had worn away.

Karthane had become familiar mostly as the place where he kept dying. The wagons left the main street and turned into the intake compound. The smaller wall closed behind them. Cheering rose from the fighting enclosure to the left. The wagon turned before Teren could see much of it. Everything else happened like the previous loops as the wagons stopped. The cage door opened.

"Out!" The first captives climbed down. The broad man was among them. For one brief moment, Teren hoped the warning might still matter. Then the captive surged forward. He did not throw his shoulder into the nearest guard this time, but he drove both chained fists into the man's face. The guard went down with a cry. The lizardfolk man got to take exactly one more step. A spear haft struck the side of his knee. Another guard hit him across the back of the head. Two more rushed in from the side.

"Hold him!"

"Put him down!" The broad captive managed to stay upright longer than Teren expected. He slammed his bound hands into one guard's throat and sent the man stumbling back, choking. Then a cudgel cracked against his temple. He fell hard and stopped moving. The guards kept hitting him even after that. Teren looked away. His warning had changed the details again, but the man still ended up beaten on the ground. Soon the remaining captives were dragged from the cage.

Teren stepped down carefully, joined the line, and let the wrist shackles be removed. His body moved through the motions almost on its own. The clerk called his name. Teren stepped forward, and gave the same answers to the same questions. Then he was ordered to move on. The assay waited ahead. His heartbeat got faster as soon as he saw it. The damned thing! The cloudy crystal sat inside its brass cage. The curved handgrip arched above it, looking harmless and yet deadly.

A simple piece of metal that had already killed him four times, in one way or another. No, the handle itself wasn't killing him. It was only revealing him to whoever came afterward. The young man ahead of him produced a weak yellow glow and was sent toward Master Edras. The goblin woman ahead of Teren touched the grip, produced nothing, and was sent to labor. Then Teren stood before the device. The scarred yard-master pointed at the handle.

"Hand around it." Teren stared at the brass grip. His mouth had gone dry. If he touched the grip lightly, the crystal would flash purple and the white fire would come. If he pushed his mana hard, Edras would come, and perhaps the white fire would not. Then Edras would take him to the research compound, confirm the Corvadryn bloodline, and lead him toward the threshold trap. If he refused, the guards would beat him. Or chain him somewhere until someone else decided what to do.

Or just kill him, like they probably already did to the lizardfolk man. There had to be another way. There must be! The yard-master's eyes narrowed.

"Did ya not hear me?" Teren heard everything just fine. He heard the wagon wheels. The old man's voice waking him up. Edras saying the Corvadryn line was supposed to be extinct. The red runic symbols tightening in the air. The white fire rushing across the yard. With only one result: death. He could not make his hand move toward the device.

"Grip it, boy," the yard-master repeated. Teren looked around the yard. There was no sign of the white fire or another runic trap bringing death. Only guards, slaves, dust, wooden halls, and the city wall rising high along the left side of the compound. The place looked as ordinary as ever. The yard-master stepped closer.

"Ya want trouble, do ya?" Teren forced himself to lift his hand. His fingers hovered above the grip. The metal had not touched him yet, but his body remembered the cold feeling, the pull beneath his skin, and the current flowing from inside his arm into the handle. Then the crystal had turned purple and the fire came. Then death. His hand stopped just above the grip. The yard-master glared at him.

"Do I need to do it for ya?"

"No!" Teren tried to pull his hand back.

"I'll—""Stop wastin' my time!" the yard-master swore, and the man's heavy hand came down over Teren's, and crushed his fingers around the brass grip. Cold sank into Teren's palm. Panic tore through him.

"No—" The assay pulled. Something inside him moved before he could stop it. Not much. Not the deliberate rush he had forced toward Edras. Just a frightened, thin thread of mana spilling down his arm and into the handle. The cloudy crystal flashed purple. Only for an instant. The yard-master froze. One of the guards beside him took a step back. Teren ripped his hand away. The crystal went dark. For a heartbeat, no one moved. Teren looked toward the roofs. The gaps between the wooden halls. The top of the city wall.

He already knew what was coming. He had waited too long.

"Move away from me!" he yelled, not wanting the guards to die along with him. The yard-master's grip loosened.

"What did ya just do?" Teren tried to pull free.

"Move!" A white glow erupted from the side of the yard. One instant, there was only dust and shouting. The next, the fire was already rushing between the buildings. Teren stopped struggling. There it is. The same death, wearing the same color. A guard noticed where he was looking and turned.

"What in the...?" The white flames rushed into the yard. People screamed as the fire overtook them. The yard-master released Teren and stumbled back, his face slack with sudden fear. Teren did not run. With the ankle chain around his legs, he had no chance of outrunning something that crossed the yard that quickly. The fire swallowed the first line of guards. Teren closed his eyes, bracing himself for the inevitable. He understood one thing before the fire reached him.

If he hesitated too long, someone else would make the choice for him. And it would hurt just as much. Then the heat reached him. Again.