For two whole agonising hours, Irfan knelt by the leyline nexus, hands somehow still wet from his own blood used for the glyph he'd carved into the stone ground.
The ritual drained everything from him and أنت. He'd done it as Argos instructed: the runes, his magical blood, the point of origin that started it all. The archmage remained upstairs at the festival, distracting everyone from the assassination attempt with some party tricks. Attempt. They actually succeeded. I'm rewriting reality.
أنت's body lay at the centre of the circle, the stab wound closed at the first hour with flesh knitting itself back on rewind. The lines around their eyes smoothed and the scar on their wrist from a kitchen accident in the third year faded as if it never happened.
Irfan watched actual years disappear from their face. Their breathing steadied to sleep rather than dying. Relief filled him. He watched their closed eyes, lashes catching the light from the lone fire as the glyphs died. He continued to observe as they stirred, just like the first time they did all those years ago, with the same lack of recognition, the same confusion.
Irfan had saved أنت, but watched the death of the seven years that had turned a political arrangement into the only thing he'd ever loved without reservation. He must have looked terrifying in the dark, dripping in blood with a look so intense, it looked like rage.
Ya rouhi.
He slowly stood, avoiding sudden movement, keeping his voice stoic. "You're safe. My name is Irfan al-Amra. You are in the Duchy of Amra, in the Kingdom of Streles." He let the information sink before proceeding. "You've been through something I cannot easily explain, but you are in no danger from me."
The formal words were so foreign, even as his heart cracked and he began the arduous work of learning how to breathe around the fact he was a stranger once more.
