Deviation Detected

When Lucien woke, the first thing he tasted was dust.

The second was blood—coppery, sharp, already crusting at the corner of his lips.

He tried to move, and fire spread through his arms. The rope around his wrists had bitten deep, leaving his skin raw where he must have struggled in his sleep. His ankles were bound too, each shift making the coarse fibers grind against him like a saw.

A slow breath. In. Out. If he panicked now, the ropes would win.

The air was heavy, thick with damp earth. He blinked his eyes open and saw little more than stone—the wall behind him, slick with moss, and a low ceiling that pressed down as if the room itself wished to bury him. A single torch flickered near the door, casting a pale light that bent the shadows into long, monstrous shapes.

The silence was worse than chains.

No footsteps. No voices. Only the drip of water falling rhythmically into some unseen puddle.

Lucien swallowed against the dryness of his throat. His tongue felt swollen. He shifted, straining against the bonds once more, and hissed when the rope refused to yield. Whoever tied him had known what they were doing.

Why am I here?

Memory came in fragments—the courtyard, the wards shattering, the words carved into mist: TAKE HIM.

A hand reaching.

Then nothing.

His chest tightened. He pressed his head against the wall and forced himself to breathe evenly, though his heart rattled like a trapped bird.

He had always known he wasn’t safe. The whispers, the strange eyes in the shadows, the way the wards seemed to hum louder around him than anyone else. But knowing and living were different. Knowing hadn’t prepared him for the ache in his shoulders, the sting of rope burn, the way the shadows breathed as though they carried lungs of their own.

His gaze flicked toward the door. Iron-bound. Old, but thick. No cracks wide enough to slip through.

A bitter laugh escaped him before he could stop it. “Perfect.” His voice came out hoarse, almost unrecognizable.

He tried to summon magic, reaching inward for the spark that usually answered his call, but what came back was muffled, as if smothered under a wet cloth. Suppression—woven into the bindings.

Of course.

He leaned his head back, shutting his eyes. The darkness was worse than the flickering torchlight. Behind his lids, images surfaced unbidden: a smile flashing over breakfast, a half-joke muttered in a corridor, a hand steadying him when he stumbled. Faces blurred. He pushed them away. If he let himself think of them, if he pictured their worry, he would break.

He could not afford to break.

Something shifted.

Not in his mind—outside.

Footsteps. Soft, deliberate. Too slow for a guard on patrol, too patient. The sound echoed through the hall beyond the door, each step measured like a countdown.

Lucien’s pulse spiked. His breath snagged in his throat. He straightened despite the ropes, forcing his body to hold, to look unafraid. If he crumpled now, they would win before the game began.

The latch scraped. The door creaked inward an inch, spilling more torchlight into the cellar. The air seemed to tighten, pressing down on him.

A voice followed. Low. Soft. Almost tender.

“Lucien…”

His blood turned to ice.

The voice wasn’t entirely sound—it threaded through his ears and into his bones, vibrating there as if it had been waiting all along.

He clenched his jaw. “Show yourself.”

A pause. A chuckle, faint as breath. “Still proud. Still sharp. You wear fear well, little one.”

His stomach churned, but he spat the words before he could swallow them back. “If you wanted me dead, you would have done it already.”

“Dead?” The whisper slid around him, as if circling his chair though no footsteps followed. “No, no. Not dead. You are not meant for endings. You are meant for doors.”

The torch sputtered. Shadows thickened.

Lucien strained against his bonds, heart hammering. “What do you want?”

The voice dipped lower, almost caressing.

“To keep what was promised.”

Then silence.

The door shut with a dull clang, leaving him again with dripping water and the hiss of the torch. But the words clung to him, cold as shackles.

Promised.

He lowered his head, sweat beading on his temples. His breath came quick, shallow. For all his defiance, his hands trembled in the ropes.

In the silence, he whispered to himself—barely a sound.

“Hold on. Just hold on.”

---

Branches whipped my arms as I ran, but I hardly felt them. My lungs burned, my legs screamed, yet stopping wasn’t an option.

Every second Lucien was gone pressed down heavier, like the earth itself would smother me if I faltered.

The forest grew denser, shadows layering on shadows. I stumbled over roots slick with rain, caught myself against a trunk, and pushed forward until the trees broke open into a clearing I didn’t recognize.

I froze.

Ruins lay scattered across the ground—blocks of stone half-swallowed by moss, pillars leaning like tired soldiers. In their cracks faint light shimmered, blue and unearthly.

I stepped closer, chest heaving. The glow pulsed once, and the carvings rearranged themselves under my gaze, curling into words I could read.

“The light-bearer shall die in every path. His end is the root of all beginnings.”

The world tilted. My stomach lurched.

“No…” My voice cracked. “No, I never wrote this. I never—”

A chime rang through the air, cold and mechanical.

[System Notice: Deviation Detected.]

I staggered back. “What deviation? What are you talking about?”

Another chime.

[Canon Integrity compromised. The target character’s death is a fixed point. Survival is not permitted.]

My fists curled. The words blurred as tears stung my eyes. “Fixed point? You mean—you’re telling me that no matter what I do, no matter how many times I die, he’ll always—”

The rest broke into a ragged shout. “He’ll always die?”

Silence. Then:

[Warning: Excessive deviation will result in collapse.]

Collapse. The word thudded through my skull like a drumbeat. Collapse of what? This world? Myself? Him?

My knees buckled. I dropped against one of the stones, pressing my forehead into the damp moss. For a long moment I couldn’t breathe. Images crowded my vision—Lucien falling, Lucien burning, Lucien hanging from a rope. Every death I had seen, every rewind I had carved into my own flesh to undo.

“I can’t,” I whispered. “Not again. I can’t keep watching him die.”

The system did not answer.

Something inside me cracked. I rose, trembling, fists clenched so tightly my nails cut into my palms.

“I don’t care what collapses.” My voice shook but didn’t falter. “I don’t care if I rip apart your canon, your rules, this whole cursed world. If saving Lucien means tearing it down piece by piece, then I’ll do it.”

The runes flared white, searing my eyes, before vanishing into darkness. The clearing stilled. Only the rain remained, cold on my skin.

But the words were burned into me, deeper than scars:

The light-bearer shall die in every path.

And the silence that followed was worse than any answer.

I lifted my head, chest tight, throat raw.

“Then I’ll find a new path,” I swore. “Even if I have to carve it with my own blood as many time as needed.”

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