“How’s everyone holding up?” Aaron asked, slipping his chronograph back into his blood-crusted armoured jerkin. “It’s been a long day but it’s just getting started.”

  “Are you seriously asking that?” Debryn shot him a look, her ears twitching with irritation.

  “I mean, I could use a bath. And maybe a spine replacement. But what’s bothering you?”

  “Nothing,” she replied, too fast.

  Aaron raised an eyebrow.

  Debryn sighed. “I just hate this place. That’s all.”

  “It’s not so bad. We’ve got walls, a ceiling, something resembling a bench. Luxury, really.”

  “How are you so calm right now?” Cassandra asked, arms folded. “Is this something you picked up in your... other life?”

  “Wait. Other life?” Alex looked between them, eyebrows raised.

  Aaron gave a quiet chuckle.

  “He’s lived this all before,” Debryn all but accused, nearly rolling her eyes. “He used to be the Saint of Time. Claims he got a rerun to fix what went wrong. And, honestly? After everything we’ve seen, it’s hard to argue. You’d be dead. Probably all of us would.”

  “Wait, hold on,” Alex said. “You... time-travelled? Like, full-on, did-this-all-once-already time loop?”

  “More or less,” Aaron said, leaning back against the wall.

  “But… How does that even work? Wouldn’t that cause paradoxes? Or is this like... multiverse theory? Everett interpretation? Branching timelines?”

  “Kinda. Sort of. Maybe. But not really.” He gave a noncommittal shrug.

  Alex blinked. “That’s not an answer.”

  “You’ve bound your soul to an eleven-dimensional magical artefact that basically laughs in the face of classical physics,” Aaron replied. “You, more than anyone, should understand there’s a lot more going on in reality than penrose diagrams and QED equations can explain.”

  “Okay. Sure. But still, what about paradoxes?”

  “What’s a paradox?” Debryn cut in, frowning.

  “It’s when something loops back on itself in a way that breaks logic,” Alex said. “Like going back in time and killing your grandfather before your parents were born, which means you’d never exist to go back in time and kill him.”

  “Huh.” Debryn made a face. “You people think way too much.”

  Aaron waved a hand vaguely. “As far as I can tell, this is the only timeline that matters. Paradoxes, butterfly effects, let them pile up. The more chaos I throw at the future, the better.”

  “So, because this is your second go-around... that’s how you knew where to find me?” Alex asked.

  “Yes,” Aaron said simply.

  “And me,” Cassandra added quietly.

  “And you avenged me,” Magda said from where she lay resting with a soft smile, “even though my killer hasn’t killed me yet.”

  Alex blinked. “Wait, who was it who killed you?”

  “The Saint of Swords,” Magda said, her expression placid. “Oh, not this one, the other one.”

  “I killed him back. Just to be clear, he was a dick even before he switched sides,” Aaron added.

  Cassandra frowned. “Are there... more bad Saints?”

  Aaron looked at her for a moment. “Almost definitely. But I’ll give fate a chance to reshuffle the deck. Just not for him.”

  “When I got chosen… called, whatever, I talked to an angel about all this for maybe an hour,” Alex said. “But I still don’t really get it.”

  “You’re not alone,” Cassandra muttered.

  Aaron exhaled slowly, eyes drifting upwards. “Yes. That seems to be the theme. Well, go on then. No time like the present.”

  The cell had grown quieter, the tension replaced by something heavier: curiosity and the lingering fatigue of too many battles survived in too short a span.

  Alex, sitting cross-legged on the floor, spoke first. “Okay. I’ve got a thousand questions, and we’ve all been kind of pretending we understand more than we do. So can someone, anyone, please explain what being a Saint actually means?”

  Cassandra glanced at Aaron, then nodded in his direction. “You’re the expert.”

  Aaron rubbed at his jaw, the stubble scratching against his gauntlet. “Expert is a strong word. Let’s go with 'reluctant veteran of the worst timeline'. But I guess I can give it a go.”

  “Start with the basics,” Debryn said, tail flicking.

  “Yes, like where does the magic come from? The UI? All of it?” Alex added.

  Aaron tilted his head back against the stone wall, closing his eyes for a moment. “So... magic, powers, the interface, your shiny new abilities… for us Saints, a lot of it comes from the Vox Vitae. The Voice of Life. Think of it as the soul of reality. Not a god exactly, but a collective will made up of every living thing. Normally, it’s spread thin across the multiverse. Quiet and subtle. But something’s changed.”

  “Let me guess,” Alex said, “something apocalyptic.”

  Aaron replied. “The walls that usually hold reality in place are wearing thin. Demons on one side. Abyssal horrors on the other. Think cosmic termites and eldritch rot, taking turns to tear through the floorboards.”

  “And the Vox Vitae is fighting back,” Cassandra said slowly.

  Aaron nodded. “It doesn’t have a sword or an army. It has us. Mortals turned champions. The Saints.”

  “But why mortals?” Debryn asked. “Wouldn’t the Ascended be better? They’re far stronger than us, or at least most of us.”

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  “Who or what are the Ascended?” Alex cut in.

  “They are... exceptional talents. Through skill and learning, they comprehended truths of the world and then folded that comprehension back into their flesh, blood and bones.”

  “They're stronger,” Aaron admitted. “But they’re fixed. Like a building. We Saints are still clay. We can be shaped, adapted. We can grow. And that’s what the voice of life is betting on.”

  Debryn frowned. “So we’re backup? Desperate last-ditch conscripts?”

  Aaron gave a dry chuckle. “If you’re expecting a motivational sermon, I’m sorry. I’m a Saint, not a priest.”

  “So what are we supposed to do?” Alex pressed. “Where does it go from here? Is there a path? A way to grow? A chance for us to win?”

  Aaron hesitated. “I’m not sure. Personally, I never made it beyond Anointed Saint—”

  “But isn’t that what we are already?” Debryn frowned.

  “I never said I was a good Saint.”

  “I... it says I’m a True Saint,” Alex said hesitantly. The rest of the group turned towards her with shock and curiosity. “I mean, is that good?”

  Aaron smiled, genuinely pleased. “It makes sense. You survived a crisis, completed a trial, and attuned to that ridiculously powerful artefact. I’d be disappointed if you weren’t.”

  “And what about you?” Cassandra asked. “We’ve all seen how strong you are, and even now, your halo floods the room with light.”

  “I...” Aaron paused to check his details, his eyes lingering on the new details of his Higher-Order Concept. “Well, look at that. I’m finally a True Saint.”

  Race: Human (Saint of Swords)

  Age: 27

  Ascension: Early 2nd (True Saint)

  Higher-Order Concepts: Sword Intent (Movement, Draw, Cut, Thrust)

  “Me too,” Magda added. Debryn scowled. Cassandra’s gaze dropped.

  “Yes, so... in my last life, only a dozen or so made it to True Saint after years of trying. Even fewer reached High Saint, which was the rank beyond True. And beyond that? Unknown territory. Laurel mentioned something about a Saint Sovereign, but if that’s the next level or not, I don’t know. All I do know is that Saints are supposed to learn Higher-Order Concepts. That’s what the Ascended use to warp reality. Gravity, time, force, space... but rooted in comprehension. Science, yes, but also instinct. A primordial understanding of a thing’s nature.”

  “So more like battle monks or metaphysical engineers than superheroes?” Alex asked.

  Aaron shrugged. “Roughly. Only instead of radioactive spiders, you get visions and an existential crisis.”

  “But what makes the Ascended different?” Cassandra asked. “Why can we grow, but they cannot?”

  Aaron’s expression darkened. “We start where the Ascended end. They master higher concepts, then fold them into their bodies through... unnatural methods. It works, but it requires blood tonics, flesh enchantments. The sort of magic that rewrites you from the inside out. The sort of life energy that’s stolen, or borrowed from other creatures. It works, but it can be messy.”

  “Corrupting?” Debryn asked.

  Aaron nodded. “Usually. They become powerful, yes. Noble houses and established sects have well trodden paths that are relatively safe, but those come with their own obligations and restrictions. Meanwhile, the wandering warriors may stumble into things, and through luck Ascend along less savoury paths. But it’s like grafting jet engines onto your bones. Done badly, it burns you up or turns you into something else.”

  “And you're saying that as Saints, we don’t need to do that?” Alex asked.

  “No,” Aaron said. “Saints are different. Our power isn’t borrowed. It’s aligned with life. Even the supplements required for upgrading our perks come directly from the Vox Vitae. It’s harder at the start, and we are weaker than all but the least Awakened, but cleaner, safer. In theory. And we have the potential to be far stronger.”

  “In theory,” Debryn repeated, unimpressed.

  “I’ve yet to find an instruction manual,” Aaron said, letting out a breath. “But the UI—user interface, is part of it. It’s how the Vox Vitae speaks with us, tracks progress, enables abilities. Sometimes it talks back. Sometimes it doesn’t.”

  Alex chewed her lip. “So the trial I went through... that’s all this Vox?”

  “Probably. Which is pretty rubbish, because unless I’m mistaken, by intervening on your travel to Convexus Magnus, it nearly killed you,” Aaron said. “Some of it might be automated. Leftover junk code from its natural evolution. Or maybe it adapts to us, and it’s still learning. Who knows. Hopefully we’ll all survive long enough to figure it out.”

  They spent the rest of their time in the small holding cell trading questions and half-answers. From how the Vox Vitae enabled Saints to speak and understand a multitude of languages, to whether sainthood was truly permanent, even in cases of betrayal. Aaron explained the concept of Saint Squires, mortals who could be chosen, trained and eventually elevated by two or more True Saints, and how such squires could, in time, be anointed as Saints in turn.

  But many questions ventured into territory Aaron couldn’t answer with confidence. Questions about God with a capital G or whether the Vox Vitae was sentient, or simply a force shaped by the will of mortals, Aaron flat out refused to answer.

  Alex asked, "Are we the first generation of Saints, or are there others out there we just haven’t met yet?"

  Cassandra followed with, "Could someone fake being a Saint? Has that happened before?"

  To most of these, Aaron could only shake his head or give a hesitant maybe. He had his own ideas and suspicions. He had lived through one apocalypse and begun another, and there were patterns he’d noticed. But too little of it was certain. Even his theories about the celestials, powerful beings from outside the boundaries of their reality, felt too premature to voice. If they were not part of the Vox Vitae, then what were they, and what stake did they have in the conflict? If they were... why were the saints on the front lines?

  “I don’t think speculation helps us right now,” Aaron finally said, his voice low but steady. “What matters is that the Vox Vitae is fighting back. And for some reason, it’s doing so through us.”

  Debryn muttered something under her breath, her tail flicking once more with unease.

  Aaron leaned back against the wall, eyes closed. “We’re not gods. Nor are we angels. We’re just mortals the universe hasn’t given up on, yet.”

  “Right then, ladies and gent. It appears the council has granted your request for an audience. Follow me. And no stuff and nonsense.” An elven guard jingled with keys as they opened the iron gate with a clang.

  Aaron groaned as he stood and stretched. The rest weren’t doing much better. He turned to Magda, who had just propped herself up on her elbows. Cassandra had explained that while her healing had repaired the physical damage, something within Magda’s own arcana had triggered a backlash, leaving her with a severe mana deficit. An elven medic who’d come to check on them later had all but confirmed Cassandra’s diagnosis.

  “Can you stand?” Aaron asked, offering a hand.

  Magda reached for it, and together they pulled her to her feet.

  “Sadly, yes. A shame I lost my shoes in the rubble, I really liked those shoes.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Better. Could’ve done with a few more hours, though.”

  “We could—”

  “No, let’s go. I can meditate and re-gather some of my energies while we walk.”

  “One of these days, you’re going to teach me how you do that,” Aaron said.

  “Didn’t I…?” She paused, then smirked. “I suppose I wouldn’t have, taught you, that is. Not without conditions. What were they?”

  “Not telling. And besides, wasn’t it your idea to live this life differently? Not to rely on your alternate memories as a crutch or something?”

  “Drat. Well then…” Magda tapped a dainty finger on her lips in thought as they emerged into the daylight, causing Aaron to squint. “I want you to… If I ask, you have to dance with me. No matter when. Or who’s watching."

  “Damn it, woman. How?” Aaron said with indignation. He had studied dance and even gymnastics during his second life, but dancing in public triggered something primal. It was an irrational fear that lit up his lizard brain with a full-blown fight-or-flight response. He could stare down demons and death with a sword in hand, but the idea of social dancing under watchful eyes made his skin crawl.

  And to make matters worse, this was exactly the same condition she had named last time.

  Magda’s delighted giggle, paired with his visible discomfort, earned more than a few curious glances from both their party and the surrounding guards.

  “Care to share?” Cassandra asked, eyebrow raised.

  “Oh? Just that I may have uncovered our dear Sword Saint’s true weakness,” Magda said, her tone teasing, almost sing-song.

  “Oh?” Cassandra echoed, now intrigued.

  “It turns out that while our Aaron can dance between blades on the battlefield with effortless grace, the idea of a public dance floor sends him into a full existential crisis. Tragic, really. Still, I’m sure that with enough persistence, we could help him through this most devastating of afflictions… couldn’t we, ladies?”

  “I’m doomed,” Aaron muttered under his breath.