From Mars' Journal - Aethon's 24th Cycle - Year 395

  “Are you trying to humiliate me, Mars?” These words are still ringing through my head. “Are you trying to humiliate me, Mars?” Over, and over, and over again. The years since Cammie left have been good for us. The ugliness of the plague and everything my sister did finally passed, and my Grandmother and I were eventually acknowledged fully again. A few people blamed us for a few years. We did live with the woman who’d starved their children, after all. But since both of us so openly testified against her—even called for her execution ourselves—most considered us to be on their side. Many even saw us, or my Grandmother at least, as their savior. Our family was loved and respected again. Maybe even more than before Camilla betrayed us.

  Our life has been good. I can do incredible things as a time mage, now. In the past few months, I’ve gone from the failure of the family to an actual mage of note. Not just in my own estimations, but in everyone else’s as well. I have nearly as many admirers as Cammie once had. Well. Nearly half. But that’s good enough for me! And I thought, once I created a spell so earth-shattering that our family would be remembered forever, I could finally be on Grandma’s level. I thought she would be happy. I really did. Some part of me still does. Half of my mind still believes she didn’t process what she’d seen correctly, or she has some other great trouble on her mind, and she can’t make room for it. That would at least make sense. That wouldn’t be exactly like the woman I grew up worshipping. The woman I spent my entire life emulating. It would at least be a believable mistake from the hero I’d been striving to meet on equal footing.

  But the words she actually said? They tell a story that digs through my chest and claws at wounds I didn’t know I had.

  “Are you trying to humiliate me, Mars?” Grandma said as we finally made it home. I’d saved Crus. He’d died, and I’d brought him back. I’d done what no other mage with no other focus had ever come near. I would go down in history, even if I never managed it again. But when I did, Grandma stared at me with vitriol like rain. And when we made it home, she asked that question.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” I responded. I wore a hopeful smile. Like it was some mistake and we’d soon be laughing it off together.

  “I said, are you trying to humiliate me? Are you trying to drag my name through the mud again? Like your useless sister did?” she snapped. I didn’t understand. Of course I wasn’t. I would never do that to her. I tried to explain that, but I didn’t understand what made her so furious in the first place. I couldn’t defend myself from an accusation I didn’t understand. The more desperately I pleaded my innocence, the more furiously she accused me.

  It didn’t make sense.

  It didn’t make sense when Grandma cursed at me. It didn’t make sense when I went to the market the next day, only to be met with sneers and contempt. It didn’t make sense when they refused to sell to me, or when Crus spat at my feet when I tried to talk to him. I didn’t know what I had done.

  So those words ring through my head like the bell on a trapped cat. “Are you trying to humiliate me, Mars?”

  I spent my life trying to stand next to Grandma. To make her proud. As a little girl, I wore her shoes on my feet, and I chanted her spells. When I was a little older, I wore her face and spoke her words at my sister’s trial. As a woman, I cast my own magic, and I finally stood at her level.

  And… she loathed me for it.

  The Second Day

  “What do you think you’re doing?” The previously cheerful man asked. Aura was already cascading from me like starlight, and my focus was fixed on the woman by his side.

  “She’s trapped inside her own body. I intend to free her,” I answered quietly. I’d been avoiding this couple for quite a few loops, but I had watched them. I’d seen them before he dragged her to the temple early on the first day, and I’d seen them after. I knew what had happened. But I couldn’t save her. Not the first time. If I tried, it would have ended like my first attempt to save Vel. With Luke and his cult on top of me. With death, and misery, and fear.

  That was exactly why I’d come this time. I’d counted everything red in Vel’s home. The boy had feared me, by the time I was done. In that loop, I wasn’t a savior, but a murderer in his eyes. And he was right. But I'd counted everything red, and I’d managed to stand again afterwards. It would be another nightmare I’d face every night. But I’d managed it, and I was ready to face Luke. I was… strong enough, in the sick way that mattered.

  “She is happier than she has been in years! We are happy together again! Get away from her!” the man protested. I gave him a look like broken glass.

  “It feels good to believe that, doesn’t it?” I asked. There was no hostility in my voice. Only resignation and regret. “Every smile is so easy to believe, when you want to see a smile. But that only makes them hurt more. For you and for her.” I paused and examined both of them. The shivering determination in his eyes. The serene, forced peace in hers. “Mostly for her,” I sighed.

  He had more to say. A thousand biting words. He even moved to attack me. But I wasn’t going to run away. Not that time. I’d run so much. But when I killed Vel’s father… or maybe when I’d killed all of those people for Luke, I crossed a line. A line I couldn’t step back behind. Camilla had survived the first time I’d tried to cross it. That had spared me, in a way. But once I finally, truly had blood on my hands, whether I was in control or not…

  I was not a powerless mage. I was a broken one. I was what my grandmother had insisted I be. I hated myself, and I hated how close I’d come to killing my sister. So I ran. When confronted by danger, I always, always ran. Because if I didn’t, I would have to fight. And when I won that fight, I knew it would destroy me. But I’d already been destroyed. Again, and again, and again. And I’d already killed. It was time to stop holding back.

  Words spilled from my mouth like too much drool and multiple spells cast at once. The world stilled around the man’s feet as he tried to approach me, and he screamed in rage as the rest of my aura surrounded his wife. I could find her in the tapestry of time. I could find echoes of her life before Luke had power. Loops where she’d owned her mind, at least this far. I held magic around her husband's ankles like a fist, and I knit her together thread by thread. Until, finally, she was herself again. Panting, she fell to her hands and knees even as I held her husband in place. My hand trembled, knuckles white around my grimoire as I let the aura settle into the weary wood at my feet. The room was silent for a long time. The man could feel the air change as his wife was freed. The woman was silent like a gasp for air. And then she looked at her husband.

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  She had no words, and neither did he. Novels passed between them in a look. The lie of her forced happiness evaporated, and only the pain and rage of a prisoner could be seen. I could see it on both of their faces, in one way or another. Whether it was shame and fear, or relief and fury. I released my final spell, and the man fell to the ground. The scream started as a growl. Low and nearly animalistic. The woman I’d freed was still on the ground, small and exhausted. But the crescendo she released from her throat chilled my blood. It carried so much more than any words she could say, and I could see as it burned the man’s skin.

  He ran. Through an open door and into the city. Finally, I wavered and caught myself on the couple’s dining room table. The woman screamed until she ran out of breath, then screamed again. She hit the floor with her fists, grieving the day she’d spent as a slave in her own mind. I understood, even if I couldn’t express it the same way. The teal sparks were flying from her like rain on tile. But I didn’t touch it yet. I felt so numb. So far away. I’d felt that way since I’d intentionally killed a man. I knew he’d deserved it. I knew it was necessary. But it wasn’t me. And my body was barely letting me inhabit it anymore. I hated myself even more, but Margaret was right. I had to do it.

  Finally, as the scream calmed to quiet sobbing, I took a deep breath. “You need to run, or hide. Before Luke gets here,” I whispered. She took the kind of painful breath only possible when crying, and looked up at me.

  “Who are you?” she finally asked. I watched the open door her husband had fled through.

  A ghost, I supposed. A lost girl, in over her head and drowning in a city she’d tied herself to. A murderer. “I’m Mars,” I said. It wasn’t what she was asking. But it was the answer I had. She sat up on her knees and followed my gaze with her own.

  “Thank you,” she said. I didn’t respond. I didn’t think I really deserved thanks. I’d known about her for too long. I’d left her trapped for too many loops. So I simply watched the door, waiting for the lynch mob to come and find me. She swallowed hard at my failure to respond, clearly choking back another round of sobs. Finally, I found the words I could say to her. I hated them, but she deserved to hear them.

  “I’m going to stop him. For good.”

  Aethon had crawled across the sky while I waited for Luke. The woman I’d freed would have had time to run, and without my aura to guide Luke’s way, I suspected she’d be able to hide. But even if she couldn’t, Luke would come for me first. I had breathed in the aura released when I gave that woman her mind back, and I’d felt that warm confidence that could only belong to my older sister. I let my aura surround the house like a lit beacon and waited.

  “You’re doing the right thing,” Margaret insisted. She’d been kind enough to remain silent while I had company. But she could tell how cold I felt as I stood in the open door and waited.

  “I know,” I responded.

  “It’s the only way to save everyone. I know it’s not easy. I know it hurts. But you are doing the right thing. Anything else would be, well.” Selfish. That was the word she wasn’t saying. And she was right. It was tearing me apart. But it wasn’t about me.

  I clenched my fists. It didn’t feel right. Not to me, at least. I was hanging onto my own body by a thread, and I thought I’d likely be cast out entirely before the day was done. But I would do it. Because I’d trapped the city in the loop it was in. And whether I liked it or not, I was the only person in the city who could stop it. Because Margaret was right. Anything else would be selfish. And I was done with that.

  Finally, they started to arrive. Indiscernible bodies rounding the corners of various streets and approaching the mage who challenged a baptism by their leader. They were coming quickly. But I didn’t care about them. Luke had approached from behind the house before. He’d be there again. The rest… well. We’d see how they responded when Luke’s magic was gone, I supposed. I ignored the crowd and circled the house myself. The moment I rounded the corner, I saw them. Luke and his ever-silent mother. Both of them were far closer than the rest. Waiting for their backup, I guessed. We each stood frozen for a minute. Then I spoke.

  “Please. Please let them go,” I begged. I had to try. I needed to try and free them without killing. It had worked on Margaret, at least. But I had nothing to show him this time. I had no understanding of his motive outside of a desire for power. There was no history to show him. No way to remind him of a kindness he’d been tricked by. All he wanted was to control the people of the city—and to actively ignore all the pain they had to live in. He wanted to punish, and to hurt. I’d begged my grandmother to stop once, too. I knew what would happen. But I had to try.

  His teal aura flowed from him like water, and my blue aura met it like moonlight. I knew I had no chance. Margaret was right. I hated it. I didn’t want to fight. But at least I’d grown stronger. The aura I’d taken from everyone I’d helped had made me something entirely new as a mage. The bits of their soul they’d offered gathered in my aura and screamed at the man who had hurt them.

  There was no fight. Not really. There wasn’t even a struggle, like the last time I’d faced him. There was water, and there was the still world. I’d killed Vel’s father without touching him. Because I thought it would be easier. But for him, it hadn’t been. It had been slow and terrifying. I wouldn’t do that again. Not even to Luke. It would be more difficult to do, but I thought it might be easier if I made it painless. I held my breath, and I ducked under the water, frozen in time. I considered the time I’d pulled the girls from the collapsing building. I usually couldn’t interact with anything frozen in ‘Still World’. But I’d changed it that one time. When I really needed it. I remembered how it felt, and I ran my mind over the grooves in the magic. I could do it again.

  I glanced at his mother. It would hurt her to see what I was about to do. When time started to flow again. But he’d been hurting her the entire time. I wished I could move her ahead of time. But I couldn’t. So I pulled out my camping knife. I’d left it in my pack most days. I didn’t even really consider it a weapon. It wasn’t designed to be one. But it would be enough. I trembled as I held it to Luke’s throat. His skin resisted as I started to push, and I had to grip my aura with my mind. It fought me. Frozen time didn’t want me to interact with anything still in its domain. It wouldn’t even offer me air to breathe. But I was the time mage, and it would do as I commanded. The knife began to sink into his flesh.

  It was so… clean. There was no blood. Only pressure. Only the knife in his throat. Until it reached the hilt. I clenched my jaw so tightly it hurt. I pulled the knife back out and held it to his rib cage, again pushing toward his heart. I felt the moment he died, even as the word ‘moment’ meant nothing. I thought it would be easier this time, but I felt something shatter inside me. There was no slipping out of my body. There was no struggle. I was simply watching myself move again, and everything felt false.

  My spell collapsed. My aura wasn’t my own in that moment. I couldn’t do anything until I swam back into my body, and I was too numb to do it. Mars stood there, her dull knife still held in a dead man’s heart. She’d done it. And it hurt so much more somehow. It felt like hot steel on her flesh.

  And the water didn’t stop. I tried to save her. To cast again to stop the magic. But it wasn’t my magic. It belonged to the body I’d used to murder Luke. Luke, who was clearly dead and couldn’t cast anything at all.

  It all clicked into place as I died. Why it felt so wrong killing him, when I’d been able to at least cope with Vel’s father. Why the magic kept working when he was unconscious, and even while he was dead. It wasn’t just that soul magic didn’t follow the rules. There was intent behind the water drawing me. My eyes landed on his mother, and I understood.

  Margaret wasn’t right at all. She hadn’t convinced me to sacrifice my soul for the people of Beddenmor. She’d only convinced me to repeat her mistake. To kill an innocent man in the name of kindness. His mother grinned as she killed me.

  End of the Second Day