The ruins of Blackspire smelled of burnt sugar and rust.

  Sorin didn’t know why that detail stuck with him as he staggered through the skeletal remains of the fortress, his boots crunching over shattered glass and bone. Maybe because it was wrong. Ruins should smell like dust and decay, not something sickly-sweet, like a memory he couldn’t place.

  His scars ached.

  Not the usual dull throb—this was sharper, deeper, as if something inside him was clawing its way out. He pressed a hand to his chest, fingers brushing the golden lines that spiraled across his skin. They pulsed in time with his heartbeat, warm and alive.

  Wrong, wrong, wrong.

  He wasn’t supposed to be here.

  But where else was there to go?

  The Sanctum Knights hunted him. The Exiled One—Kael’s future self, gods, that still made his stomach twist—had warned him the crown was eating his memories. And Aeris…

  Aeris had looked at him like he was a stranger.

  Sorin exhaled, his breath fogging in the cold air. The wind howled through the broken arches of Blackspire, carrying whispers that weren’t quite words. He could almost make them out—a name, maybe, or a plea.

  Then the vision hit.

  A throne room, but not the one from Aeris’s shard. This one was alive, walls pulsing like veins, the air thick with the scent of copper and smoke. The Hollow King—him, it had to be him—stood at the center, his crown cracked, his hands shaking.

  He was crying.

  Not the quiet tears of grief, but something raw, unfinished, as if his body hadn’t yet learned how to stop.

  “I didn’t want this,” the Hollow King whispered.

  No one answered.

  The room was empty.

  Then—

  A sound. A child’s laugh, bright and sudden, echoing from nowhere. The Hollow King flinched as if struck. His hands, those cracked, golden-scarred hands, lifted.

  And the world unmade itself.

  Sorin gasped, stumbling back into the present. His knees hit the ground, fingers digging into the dirt as if he could claw his way out of the vision. His pulse roared in his ears.

  That was me.

  That was me.

  That was—

  “You’re late.”

  The voice came from the shadows.

  Sorin jerked upright, his dagger already in hand. A figure stepped forward—tall, draped in a tattered cloak, their face hidden beneath a hood. But their hands were visible, and Sorin’s breath caught.

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  Golden scars. Just like his.

  “Who are you?” Sorin demanded, his voice steadier than he felt.

  The figure tilted their head. “The Warden.” A pause. Then, softer: “And you’re a mistake.”

  Sorin’s grip tightened on the dagger. “That’s not an answer.”

  The Warden laughed, the sound hollow. “It’s the only one you’ll get.”

  Then they attacked.

  The Warden moved like smoke.

  One moment they stood before Sorin—the next, they were behind him, a blade flashing toward his ribs. Sorin barely twisted away in time, feeling the steel graze his side. Warmth bloomed beneath his shirt.

  Move. Think. Breathe.

  But his body wasn’t listening. His scars burned hotter, the pain sharpening into something unbearable. The Warden’s strikes came faster, each one precise, each one meant to maim, not kill.

  "Why are you doing this?" Sorin gritted out, dodging another slash.

  The Warden didn’t answer. Their hood had slipped slightly, revealing a mouth twisted in something between grief and fury.

  Then—

  A kick to Sorin’s knees sent him crashing onto his back. The Warden loomed over him, blade poised at his throat.

  "You weren’t supposed to wake up," they whispered.

  Sorin’s vision swam. The words echoed—the Hollow King had said that, in the vision, to someone, to—

  His scars blazed.

  Golden light erupted from his skin, so bright it seared his eyelids shut. The Warden recoiled with a hiss, their blade clattering to the ground. Sorin gasped, his body arching off the stone as power—raw, untamed, his but not his—surged through him.

  For a heartbeat, he saw everything.

  The threads of time, frayed and tangled. The moment unfolding—the Warden’s strike, his own unsteady breath, the dust hanging in the air—and then, beneath it all, a choice.

  Destroy.

  Or—

  Rewrite.

  Sorin reached for the latter.

  The world stuttered.

  Sorin blinked, and suddenly he wasn’t on the ground. He was standing, the Warden just pulling their blade free, their stance shifting for the kick that hadn’t happened yet.

  What—?

  The Warden froze. Their head tilted, slow and deliberate. "Oh," they murmured. "You remembered."

  Sorin’s hands shook. He’d—rewound time. Just three seconds. Just enough.

  But the implications crashed over him like a wave.

  The Hollow King hadn’t just destroyed. He’d unmade. And now Sorin could do it too.

  The Warden’s posture shifted, their anger bleeding into something almost like pity. "You see now, don’t you? Why you’re a mistake. The crown doesn’t just take memories—it repeats them."

  A gust of wind tore through the ruins, carrying the scent of burning sugar again. Sorin’s stomach turned.

  "Stop talking in riddles," he snapped.

  The Warden exhaled, long and weary. Then they reached up and pulled back their hood.

  Sorin’s breath caught.

  The face beneath was his—older, gaunt, the golden scars thicker, like cracks in porcelain—but undeniably his.

  "You’re me," Sorin whispered.

  The Warden’s smile was bitter. "One of them."

  The crunch of boots on rubble broke the silence.

  Sorin whirled, half-expecting another version of himself, but—

  Aeris stood at the edge of the ruins, her dagger drawn, her chest heaving like she’d run for miles. Her gaze darted from Sorin to the Warden, her expression hardening.

  "What the hell is this?"

  The Warden stepped back, melting into the shadows. "Ask him," they murmured, and then they were gone.

  Aeris didn’t chase them. She strode forward, her eyes locked on Sorin. "You disappeared. We’ve been looking for hours."

  Sorin opened his mouth, but no words came. What could he say? I saw myself destroy the world. I just bent time. There’s a version of me out there who thinks I shouldn’t exist.

  Aeris’s grip on her dagger tightened. "Sorin. Talk to me."

  The plea in her voice undid him.

  "I don’t know what I am," he admitted, the words raw. "I think—I think I’m him. The Hollow King. And I don’t know how to stop it."

  Aeris didn’t flinch. She never did. Instead, she sheathed her dagger and grabbed his shoulders, her fingers digging in hard enough to ground him.

  "Listen to me," she said, fierce and quiet. "You’re not a king. You’re just a boy. And that’s enough."

  Sorin shuddered. The weight in his chest didn’t vanish, but it shifted, just slightly.

  Aeris’s thumbs brushed the scars on his collarbone, her touch feather-light. "We’ll figure this out. Together."

  The wind howled again, but this time, it didn’t sound like a warning. It sounded like a sigh.

  Sorin closed his eyes.

  Maybe some things aren’t meant to last.

  But that doesn’t mean they didn’t matter.