In the nearest thing I had to dreamless sleep, I could have sworn I heard a voice. It was one I had come to welcome, familiar enough now that its presence carried no fear. I could not be sure it was real, and I could not be sure I was hearing it at all. The words never formed as sound. They pressed into me as intent and weight, an idea shaped carefully and offered at the edge of awareness. It carried the sense that it mattered, and that it might make the difference between keeping pace with the world and growing strong enough to shape it.

  The god of iron’s presence lingered there, heavy and immovable, like pressure on the bones rather than a voice in the air. It existed without demand, steady and unyielding. I could not tell where that presence ended and Meka’s soft lullaby began. Her song circled through my thoughts, gentle and familiar, overlapping with iron and resolve until the two blended into a single, steady calm.

  An empty void surrounded me. It stretched in every direction without depth, horizon, or reference. There was only suspension. The stillness felt deliberate, as though the space itself held me in place. For the first time in what felt like far too long, that nothingness felt peaceful.

  Shapes resolved within the void, and the first figure appeared seated in the darkness, complete and unmistakable.

  He sat cross-legged with his back straight, a wizard’s staff planted upright before him like an anchor driven into reality. Power moved along the length of that staff in slow, deliberate currents, restrained and immense. The enchantments ran deep enough that they no longer announced themselves. His robe carried the same weight. The cloth bore dense wards stitched layer upon layer, each one placed to endure use rather than preserve appearance. His beard was glorious. His face carried the marks of age as evidence of survival rather than decay. Certainty radiated from him, the quiet confidence of someone who had ended wars and lived with the consequences.

  Recognition came immediately. This was who I had once been.

  Across from him, a second figure resolved into view.

  At first glance, he appeared young. He stood barefoot and bare-legged, wearing nothing but a simple loincloth. His body was smaller than the wizard’s, yet dense with coiled strength that belonged to a body shaped through time and pressure. The way he stood felt familiar. His balance was centered. His posture carried the same internal alignment I remembered in my own bones.

  Runic tattoos covered his skin in deliberate, patterns. Each line sat where it belonged. They read as finished work, as though his body itself had been built around them and then released into motion.

  His eyes burned white.

  That white carried no resemblance to mana. The power filling this future body’s gaze resisted translation. It existed without structure I could recognize, crackling with restraint rather than rage.

  Understanding followed.

  The figure facing the wizard was older than the body I currently inhabited. Closer to the age I would reach once my training finished. Past and future stood together in the same space, separated only by the road between them.

  At a glance, the future body appeared dominant. Raw physical intimidation radiated from him, while the wizard remained seated and still beneath layered cloth and age.

  That impression dissolved under scrutiny. Magic, knowledge, and experience asserted themselves. In any true confrontation, the future body would fall short immediately

  The distance between who I was and who I had once been stretched long and brutal, yet it remained finite. The existence of that future body confirmed the road ahead as real.

  My vantage point unsettled me most. I watched without inhabiting either form. The wizard and my future body existed as vessels before me, and my awareness hovered between them, measuring and acknowledging both.

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  Neither figure spoke. They regarded one another in silence, old certainty facing unshaped potential. The void held steady. Meka’s lullaby lingered at the edges of my mind. The pressure of iron remained constant.

  The vision faded slowly.

  I woke to a steady tugging at my hands. I turned my head and found Devon crouched beside the bed, fingers wrapped around my staff as he tried to ease it free from my grip. I tightened my hold and looked straight at him.

  “Hello, Devon,” I said. “I have slept. Would you like to go this time?”

  I twisted with the motion of his pull and brought the staff across his face in one clean strike. The wood connected with a dull crack and sent him flying backward. He hit the floor hard and skidded across the stone.

  He stared up at me, clutching his forehead. “Hey,” he said, voice sharp with shock. “What was that for?”

  “Because you are trying to steal from me,” I said. “Again.”

  He pushed himself up on one elbow and scowled. “That thing is shiny. I like shiny things. My lockpick went missing, so this is sort of your fault for being awake and not letting me take it.”

  I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood. “Does Lam know you are here?”

  His eyes flicked to the door. His body followed.

  He bolted.

  I jumped after him and landed squarely on his back. I was not heavy, but he was small, and momentum did the rest. We hit the floor together, and I ended up on top. I felt the violence rise clean and sharp in my chest. This was only our second encounter, and he had tried to rob me both times while I was sleeping. The first time I had let it pass. Waking to his hands on my staff erased any patience I had left.

  I set my knees and drove my fists into him. The blows landed in the same place, again and again, measured and exact. I did not have much power behind them, but I had more strength than any three-year-old should have. Each strike went exactly where I intended, straight into the solar plexus. The impact bruised and burned and tore the breath from him, causing sharp pain without crossing into lasting harm. Nothing I did put him beyond what a healer could mend. If he truly was one, then he could deal with it himself.

  The motion felt good. There was a simple honesty to it, a release that cut through the lingering haze of sleep. Catharsis came with each impact, and the feeling overrode everything else. I knew, even as it happened, that this was not something I should be doing. The knowledge surfaced clearly and meant nothing to me in the moment.

  My body did not care what my mind was telling it. The rhythm took over, and my mind relented instead of fighting it. I knew I was not going to kill the person beneath me. I knew the limits of my strength and the limits of what I was capable of. What mattered was that this was a robber who had tried to steal from me twice, who had done it while I slept, and who had tried to run both times I caught him doimg so. I had him now, and I was not going to let him off lightly this. The certainty of that work something sharp and ugly inside me.

  The blows kept coming because it felt good to drive him into the stone. He curled inward, breath breaking under each strike, and I let it continue, because the release itself was satisfying.

  Hands grabbed me from behind and wrenched me off him. The sudden loss of contact sent me stumbling, balance breaking as I was hauled back. Devon collapsed where he was, coughing and gasping on the stone.

  The woman who had grabbed him looked at me with a hard, assessing stare. “Do you know what you have done?” she asked.

  “He tried to rob me again,” I said. “I know exactly what I did.”

  Her mouth tightened. “He is a healer.”

  “He is a gods damned thief,” I said. “I let it go the first time, when you asked what he was doing. This time he tried to take my staff while I was sleeping. I made that staff. I put care into it. He tried to run again. I was not going to let him walk away.”

  She studied my face for a long moment, then exhaled through her nose. “Come with me.”

  Devon was already slung over her shoulder, limp and whimpering, when she turned away from me. One arm hooked him there with casual certainty, his weight clearly meaningless to her. Her other hand never left the back of my shirt. She had lifted me the moment she grabbed me, holding me off the ground as she stared me down, and she kept me there as she moved.

  Light gathered around her free hand, warm and steady, and I switched to mana vision as she walked. The difference struck me immediately. What flowed from her carried a golden hue that mana did not normal possess. It moved with purpose.

  She spoke softly in Celestial while she walked, words shaped for devotion rather than spellwork. Divine power passed into Devon, and his breathing steadied as the bruising along his ribs eased beneath her touch. The tension drained from his body as she carried him.

  She did not set me down. Still holding me aloft by the back of my shirt, she shifted her attention to me and placed her hand against my shoulder. That same golden current flowed into my body.

  In mana sight, the difference was unmistakable. Wizard mana showed as octarine, dense and nauseating in its churn. Divine healing carried gold through it, cutting the harshness and giving the flow clarity. The blend made the sight easier to endure, almost gentle in comparison.