Sometimes the past we see is not the past we remember living. So why should the future be clearly seen?

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Later that afternoon, while Raina spent several hours debriefing her whole kidnapping to her father and arranging things for their upcoming trip, Jair took a quick detour to Larenok's house. The paranoid man had the front door fully sealed, access only through a private wired transit platform only he had the key to, but Jair had been inside it enough times in the past that he could Darkflame himself inside without concern.

Larenok wasn't at home, and his house was in the kind of disarray that Jair recognized as being indicative of something very important going down.

Whatever was happening to hold Larenok's attention, it was something incredibly time-sensitive. The man was usually obsessive about everything in his house being in order. To leave even a few cabinets open and a counter covered in miscellany that hadn't been organized and stored yet struck Jair as very uncharacteristic.

He found a copy of the man's calendar in his office, which included all Jair's appointments for the coming weeks. He was surprised by how many had been arranged, including one with King Farshen himself.

Jair had no plans on sticking around Veor past Terlunia unless Raina insisted, so he copied down all the names and locations and set out to take care of them right here and now.

Darkflame was only strenuous when doing extreme things like teleporting himself between planet and moon, or transporting an entire dragon. Simple things like moving himself from one city to another on the same continent was disgustingly trivial.

He'd already been unstoppable, but now he no longer relied on 'outlive the other guy long enough and eventually come back and hit harder' type strategies. Maelstrom's blade was sharper than ever. He had yet to find a surface it couldn't slice right through. The self-healing and mobility parts of Darkflame alone would make him a daunting opponent even without the ability to apply Darkflame to anyone anywhere.

He'd examined himself and his soulmap in intense detail while Raina was doing her own meditations, and used Darkflame's teleport power several times to verify his findings, but his information was consistent. Using it on himself produced no effects whatsoever on the soul level. It was a fully inert ability, like using Bladewalk or Temporal Reversion.

Which made sense. Weapon abilities and soulspells didn't consume the soul or the power drawn from the manabody, they channeled that power and then released it. Soulspells were as close to a perfect circuit as could be attained. The power cycled out into the world, took physical effect, then cycled back into its originating soul without noticeable loss. Even Jair's Temporal Reversion had never cost him anything to use, however frequently he did so.

Maelstrom changed things.

Darkflame wasn't the same when applied through a weapon to another individual. It'd become increasingly clear to him that Maelstrom itself was responsible for the modifications.

Even transporting Raina clear across the continent from the northern mountains to the south-central Astralla region had taken only the tiniest scraps of energy. If Jair hadn't been already strained past all sanity during that confrontation in Mount Ryenzo, he could have transported Raina a hundred times over without pausing to recover.

Moving Raina cost more energy than transporting himself, but only barely. Even less when not dealing with several days of malnutrition, trauma, and compounding lack of sleep or security.

He’d subtly probed her throughout their all-night discussion, but she truly seemed as thoroughly recovered as could be hoped. She remembered what Ryenzo had done, and the memory haunted her, but it didn’t consume her. She grew quiet when she thought of it, her face troubled, her body unaffected. No panic, no breakdowns, just a painful reminiscence.

Beyond all he’d dared to hope for, Raina would be entirely fine. Far better than he himself had been, back toward the beginning.

Watching her die that first time had reshaped him in ways he couldn’t untangle from who he’d become. Watching it a hundred more times, a thousand, helpless every time…

Maelstrom was in his hand. He gripped it tight, brought it up in front of his face. Different blade. Silver edges, one smooth, one serrated in smooth waves. Deep dark stripe down the middle with its ephemeral golden patterns projected deep within.

The sword was tangible. Real.

This wasn’t a dream. Raina was alive. He was moving forward.

They were moving forward. He wasn’t alone. Wouldn’t be.

He resisted the urge to flash himself through the house until he found her. She and her father had things to talk about, they didn’t need Jair lurking on every single moment of her life just because she’d survived this time.

He blinked away the distractions and stared down at the paper with Larenok’s list of targets. Er, customers.

He didn’t care. He fixed the image of the street near the first in his mind and sliced his thumb against Maelstrom’s blade. Darkflame burned him away and he was reborn in another city.

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Jair got through almost the entire list that one day. He didn’t stop to ask for specifics, didn’t collect payment, just appeared, immolated the eager customer, and flashed away to the next.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

He was past worrying about what it was doing, what it would cost, what it would mean. He didn’t care. When it came down to it, if they were really so eager to throw themselves on an untested and unproven promise of restoration, who was he to deny them.

Despite—or perhaps because of—flashing his legendary weapon and unstoppable soulspell around, no one tried to come after, assassinate, or rob Jair.

Everyone tried to recruit him.

He couldn't even walk down the street without multiple people shouting out to beg for his service. Apparently word had gotten around fast about just how amazing his Phoenix Healing was, and everyone and their cousin wanted in on it.

This left him in a somewhat awkward position. He didn't know exactly what it was that Maelstrom was stealing from people and feeding to Raina. Even without Nay Ahll Mersine’s claim that he was going to destroy the entire world, he would’ve been at least a little hesitant to go around making such a potentially drastic impact without due consideration. Over-eager merchants and nobles were one thing, the entire populace of Veor was another.

"You know, it’d be really convenient if we had Temporal Reversion available so that we could observe the long term effect of Darkflame use on, say, our main test subject Larenok. Then we could make an informed decision whether or not we want to go all in on this Darkflame thing with the rest of the continent, hint hint," he muttered to Maelstrom.

His sword only flickered hungrily in his soul, faint rainbow glints disappearing as fast as they appeared.

Jair sighed. There wasn't much else he could do. He continued on his way. Larenok’s itinerary had requested Jair’s presence at the palace on a particular day toward the end of the month, but Jair saw no reason to wait. If the king wanted Jair’s presence, he could have it without the waiting list.

Of all the people Jair was concerned about causing soul damage to, King Farshen was not one of them. He was already so far gone that in most timelines he’d end up dead, either by Jair's own hand, Sekir getting tired of him, or Prince Orren getting up the nerve to actually rebel.

So Jair transited to Vaes City, walked right up to the palace, and announced himself.

“Jair Welburne, Phoenix Healer. I’m here to see the king. He sent for me.”

The guard at the gate wore the Hyperion red and left his arms bare to prominently display his magekiller imprints. Jair stood with an air of confidence and just the slightest impatience that said he knew full well he was supposed to be able to go in, and all this was just a formality.

"King Farshen has canceled all appointments today," the younger of the guards told him without much inflection. “I'm afraid you'll have to reschedule."

"Of course he's canceled his appointments, I am more important than all of them. Don't worry, as soon as we're done he’ll be better than ever.”

"We have only your word for it. If we let in everyone who claimed to have business with the king, we wouldn't be very efficient as guards, would we?"

Jair exchanged a glance with the older guard, who was standing more stoically. "This guy new?"

The other guard shrugged.

"It's okay Byron, you don't have to pretend with me. I know you feel all protective and sentimental for these pathetic newcomers."

The guard, Byron, narrowed his eyes ever so slightly.

"Hey! Who do you think you are? You can't go talking to Sir Byron like that."

“Keep out of this, Thomas. I just need to get in to see Farshen."

"If you think you can intimidate us because you looked up our names…"

“You realize that if someone comes along and starts bluffing, you're not supposed to confirm their guess, right?"

Jair shared another look with the older guard, whose eyes had narrowed further but had the faintest hint of a smile on his face.

"See, this is why you need people like me around. On the one hand," Maelstrom appeared in his hand in all its dark resplendent glory, black fire flickering along its length. "I could kill you both right here and now, and go through the front door. However, since I'm not here to kill anyone, and I know you're both just doing your job, I figure the best option we have is for me to at least give you some friendly advice and a chance to practice improving your technique before I incapacitate you both and go in anyway."

Byron immediately shifted to an aggressive stance, sword aimed at Jair’s chest, and three of his imprints lit up. "You're not coming in."

"I am coming in. The question is how much damage I’ll have to do to you in the process. I'd really prefer to do this without eating any of your soul, but I can't really control what my sword does. If you're willing to risk your soul on it, by all means try to stop me."

Byron didn't hesitate. He had his sword out, fully amplified by two of his imprints, before Jair finished talking. He took three steps and lunged, and Jair shook his head and sliced his thumb on Maelstrom. "Good to know you're still a man of honor," he said, and disappeared in a surge of black fire.

Jair appeared in King Farshen's personal chambers. King Farshen was asleep, huddled in his lounge chair and wrapped in more blankets than would be comfortable to anyone with any sense for the temperature.

Jair didn't bother to wake him. He strode forward, stabbed the king in the chest, and let darkflame do its darkflame thing.

The king woke with a startled gasp, patted himself down, then stared at Jair with a look of complete incomprehension and mild concern. “Who…?”

“Good day, your majesty. Jair Welburne, Phoenix Healer, Dragonslayer, and… a bunch of other things that aren’t really relevant. I’m here as requested to discuss a potential opportunity for reconciling with your son.”

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Halfway across the Veori desert toward the eastern fringe town region, a middle-aged man wearing a simple robe and no insignia flew a sandskimmer with an expert hand. He was not the only Veori capable of this feat, but he was one of the best. Most sandskimmers were inscrutable things, used only by those who couldn't afford eelships or camels.

The chance of a sandskimmer breaking down and leaving you stranded was significantly higher than the chance of a well-cared-for pack animal suddenly up and dying.

Today, though, it was the driver who was about to up and die.

One moment he was flying, grumbling to himself silently, the next black and green flames erupted from his forehead. It was so fast he didn’t even have time to scream. The fire spread down his entire body, until there was nothing left.

Abandoned, the sandskimmer continued to fly while its current thread of mana slowly dissolved, then slowed in its path until it dipped low enough to plow nose-first into a sandy rise.

No one stood witness to its fall, and it would be a very long time before anyone noticed its absence. The ashes that were its driver’s last remnants blew away in the desert wind, unobserved and forgotten.

He would never be seen again.

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