Part I: The Preparation
The cave was cold.
Haut sat with his back to the wall, his left arm resting across his knee. The bandages were clean—Seraphine had changed them that morning, her hands steady, her face empty. She sat across from him now, her own left hand wrapped in fresh linen, the nails already beginning to blacken at the edges.
Three days since the poisoning. Three days since he'd taken her nails.
She hadn't spoken since.
Riven stood at the cave entrance, her back to them, her rifle across her chest. The snow had stopped falling. The sky was clearing. Through the gap in the rock, Haut could see the stars beginning to emerge—cold, distant, indifferent.
He reached into his coat.
The vial was small. Glass. The last of the poison—the residue from Lysander's desk, what Seraphine hadn't used on him. He'd found it in her sleeve while she slept, two nights ago. She hadn't woken. She hadn't known.
He held it up to the firelight. The liquid inside was pale, almost clear, with a faint yellow tint. Slow-acting, she'd said. Paralytic. Not fatal.
He had other plans.
"Seraphine."
She looked at him. Her eyes were flat. The eyes of someone who had stopped hoping.
"Drink this."
He held out the vial.
She looked at it. At his face. At the fire between them.
"What is it?"
"Something that will make this easier."
She didn't ask what "this" meant. She took the vial. Unstopped it. Drank.
The poison took effect within minutes.
Her limbs grew heavy. Her head drooped. She tried to lift her hand—couldn't. Her eyes stayed open, watching him, but the muscles of her face had begun to slacken. She could still see. Still hear. Still feel.
She just couldn't move.
Haut stood.
He walked to the woodpile near the cave entrance. Selected three logs. Dry. Split. He carried them to the center of the cave and placed them in a triangle, their ends touching, their points outward. Then he gathered kindling—dried moss, pine needles, the small broken branches Riven had collected days ago—and arranged it between the logs.
He took out his knife. The blade was thin, sharp. Milo's work. The one that tasted blood.
Riven turned from the entrance. She saw the wood. The kindling. The knife.
"What are you doing?"
Haut didn't answer.
He knelt beside Seraphine. She was still conscious—her eyes tracking him, her breath shallow, her lips trying to form words that wouldn't come. He took her right wrist. Her hand was cold. Her fingers curled slightly when he touched them—the last of her movement, fading.
He pressed the knife to her palm.
Not deep. Just enough to draw blood.
She made a sound—small, animal, a whimper that barely escaped her throat. The blood welled up, red against her pale skin. He watched it pool in her cupped hand, watched it begin to drip onto the stone floor.
Then he cut the other palm.
Riven was at his side now. Her hand on his arm. "Stop."
He looked at her.
"The Oath," she said. "I can't let you harm her."
"You can't let me die." His voice was flat. "She poisoned me. She's not innocent. The Oath doesn't protect her. It protects me."
Riven's jaw tightened. Her hand didn't move.
"Don't make me choose."
"You already chose. In the valley. At the cart. Every time you drove north instead of south." He pulled his arm free. "You chose me. Now let me finish."
She stepped back.
Not because she wanted to. Because the Oath was quiet in her chest—no warning, no pressure. She could let him do this. She hated that she could.
Haut turned back to Seraphine.
He cut her arms. Her legs. Her torso. Shallow cuts, dozens of them, each one a line of red across her pale skin. She made sounds now—not words, just sounds, wet and broken and barely human. Her eyes were wide. The tears ran down her cheeks, but she couldn't wipe them away. Couldn't close her eyes. Couldn't look away.
When he was done, her clothes were soaked with blood. The stone beneath her was slick with it.
He lifted her.
She was light—lighter than he'd expected. The poison had done its work. Her body was limp, her head lolling, her arms hanging at her sides. He carried her to the triangle of logs and laid her in the center. Her blood soaked into the kindling. Her hair spread across the stone.
He stepped back.
Riven was watching. Her face was white. Her hands were shaking.
"Haut."
He struck the flint.
The kindling caught. The flames spread—slowly at first, then faster, licking at the logs, climbing toward Seraphine's blood-soaked clothes.
She didn't scream. She couldn't. The poison had taken her voice. But her eyes—
Her eyes screamed.
He watched.
No smile. No satisfaction. No emotion at all. He watched the flames take her the way he'd watched the river take Taren, the way he'd watched the grenade take Sieyres, the way he'd watched the fire take the Shadow Sect.
She was necessary. Her blood was necessary. Her burned remains would be useful in ways she couldn't understand.
The flames reached her face.
He turned away.
Part II: The Burning Arm
He sat on the opposite side of the fire.
The heat was intense—hot enough to make his skin prickle, hot enough to make his eyes water. He didn't move closer. He didn't move away. He sat where the heat was bearable and watched the flames consume what remained of Seraphine Vex.
His left arm throbbed.
The poison was still there—he could feel it, a dull ache deep in the muscle, a sluggishness in his fingers, a heaviness in his veins. It would fade. Eventually. But he didn't have eventually. Cinx was coming. The Elite Squadron was coming. The north was days away, and every hour he spent weak was an hour they could catch him.
He looked at his arm. At the dark veins beneath the skin. At the wound where Seraphine's bandages had pressed the poison into his blood.
He made a decision.
He stood. Walked to the fire. Knelt at its edge.
The flames were high now—higher than his head, fed by Seraphine's blood and clothes and hair. The heat was blinding. The smoke was thick.
He pushed his left arm into the fire.
The pain was immediate. Total. It was not the clean pain of a knife or the sharp pain of a bullet. It was a living pain, a consuming pain, a pain that crawled up his arm and into his chest and behind his eyes and made the world go white.
He did not scream.
He held his arm in the flames and counted. One. Two. Three. The skin blackened. The hair burned away. The flesh began to split, the fat beneath bubbling and hissing in the heat.
Four. Five. Six. He could smell himself—the sweet, acrid smell of burning meat, the sharper smell of charring bone.
Seven. Eight. Nine.
He pulled his arm from the fire.
The skin was gone. The muscle beneath was blackened, cracked, weeping fluid. The pain was still there—worse now, if that was possible—but different. Cleaner. The poison was gone. He could feel it—the absence of it, the lightness where the heaviness had been.
He looked at his arm. At the ruin of it.
Then he looked at the fire.
Seraphine was gone. The flames had taken her—her body, her blood, her hair, her clothes. What remained was ash and bone and something else. Something that glowed.
He reached into the fire with his right hand—his good hand—and pulled out the remains.
The ash was hot. The bone fragments were blackened, brittle, crumbling in his fingers. But there was something else. Small. Hard. Dark red, almost black, like dried blood that had been compressed into stone.
He held it up to the light.
A crystal. No—something else. A residue. The celestial blood, concentrated by the fire, transformed by the heat into something new. Something useful.
He placed it in a small leather pouch and tucked it into his coat.
Then he sat back against the wall.
The cave was quiet now. The fire was dying. The smoke was thinning.
Riven was still standing at the entrance. Her face was still white. Her hands were still shaking.
"You burned her."
"Yes."
"You burned yourself."
"Yes."
She looked at his arm. At the blackened flesh, the weeping wounds, the fingers that were still intact but barely.
"You need a healer."
"We need to move."
She stared at him. "You can't walk. You can barely stand."
"I can stand." He pushed himself up. His legs held. His arm screamed. "I can walk. I can ride. I can fight."
"You can't fight."
"I can."
She looked at him for a long moment. Then she shook her head.
"You're insane."
"I'm alive."
She didn't argue.
Part III: The Arrival
The scent came first.
It drifted through the cave entrance—thin, sharp, chemical. Not smoke. Not blood. Something else. Something that made the back of Haut's throat tighten and his eyes water.
He was standing near the fire's remains, his left arm wrapped in fresh bandages—Riven's work, hurried but competent. The pain was constant now, a deep throb that pulsed with his heartbeat. The poison was gone, but the burn was fresh. The wound would take weeks to heal. Maybe months.
He didn't have weeks.
The scent grew stronger.
Riven raised her rifle. "What is that?"
Haut didn't answer. He was already moving toward the entrance, his right hand on his pistol, his eyes scanning the darkness beyond.
The snow had stopped. The sky was clear. The stars were out—thousands of them, cold and bright, scattered across the black like grains of salt.
And in the air, just above the snow, something glowed.
It was small. No larger than his thumb. It hovered at the height of his chest, pulsing with a soft, white light—not the harsh light of fire or the cold light of the stars. A different light. A living light.
It was beautiful.
He had heard the stories. Every child in the Southern Colonies had heard the stories. The white fairy. Finger-sized. Pure white. Divine. A being of such purity that it could not be touched by mortal hands, could not be caught by mortal traps, could not be kept by mortal cages.
The stories said it appeared only to those who were dying. Only to those who had given up hope. Only to those who had nothing left to lose.
The stories were wrong.
It appeared to the scent of poison. The burned poison. The poison in Seraphine's blood, transformed by the fire, released into the air. The poison in his own arm, burned out of his veins, carried on the smoke.
He had poisoned the river at Crook's Bend. The fairy had come then—he was sure of it now. He had been unconscious. He had missed it.
He would not miss it again.
"Kael."
The bird dropped from the ceiling. His feathers were dull, his eyes tired, but his claws were sharp. He landed on Haut's shoulder and stared at the glowing figure.
"Don't attack. Watch."
The fairy turned.
It had no face—not in the way humans had faces. But it had presence. It had awareness. It looked at Haut the way a cat looks at a mouse—not with hunger, not with curiosity, but with the absolute certainty of its own superiority.
It knew he was there. It knew what he wanted.
It didn't care.
Part IV: The Chaos
The ground shook.
Haut felt it through the stone—a deep, rhythmic vibration, like footsteps but heavier, slower, more deliberate. He turned toward the forest.
The trees were moving.
Not swaying—falling. Whole pines, their trunks thicker than his body, were cracking and toppling, their roots tearing from the frozen ground. Something was pushing through them. Something large.
The first beast emerged from the treeline.
It was not a wolf. Not a bear. It was something older, something that had been sleeping in the mountains for centuries, something that the Shadow Sect had kept chained in the dark. Its body was the size of a cart—larger, maybe. Its hide was thick, grey, crusted with rock and frozen mud. Its eyes were small, red, set deep in a skull that was more bone than flesh.
It opened its mouth.
The sound that came out was not a roar. It was a vibration—a low, subsonic thrum that made Haut's teeth ache and his vision blur. The snow on the ground began to dance. The stones at his feet began to tremble.
And then it charged.
Not at the cave. At the fairy.
The beast's eyes were fixed on the glowing figure—not with hunger, not with fear, but with something else. Recognition. It knew what the fairy was. It knew what the fairy could do. And it wanted.
The fairy moved.
It was fast—faster than anything that size should be. It darted to the left, then the right, then up, leaving trails of light in the air like afterimages. The beast swiped at it with a paw the size of a wagon wheel. The fairy slipped through its claws like smoke.
The beast roared—that same subsonic thrum, louder now, strong enough to crack the stone walls of the cave. Riven stumbled. Haut grabbed the wall to keep his footing.
And then Cinx stepped out of the trees.
He was thin. Thinner than Haut remembered. His face was gaunt, his eyes hollow, his hair grey at the temples. He wore a coat of black fur, stained with ash and old blood. In his hands, he carried a chain—long, heavy, each link the size of Haut's fist.
He saw the fairy.
His eyes widened. His lips parted. For a moment—just a moment—the hollow look vanished, replaced by something else. Wonder. Awe. The same look Haut had seen on the faces of dying men who glimpsed something beyond the veil.
Then his expression hardened.
"Catch it," he said.
The beast lunged.
The fairy dodged.
And the cave became a battlefield.
Part V: The Hunt
Haut moved.
His left arm was useless—the bandages were already soaked through with blood, the pain was a constant white noise in the back of his mind. But his right arm was still good. His legs were still good. His mind was still sharp.
He circled the edge of the clearing, keeping to the shadows, watching.
The fairy was fast. Faster than any living thing he had ever seen. It darted between the beast's legs, under its belly, over its back. It left trails of light that hung in the air for seconds at a time, confusing the beast's aim, drawing its attention away from the cave.
But it wasn't running. It was playing.
Haut understood. The fairy didn't see them as threats. It saw them as diversions—toys, maybe, or obstacles. It could have left at any time. It chose to stay.
He could use that.
Cinx was shouting orders. His voice was hoarse, cracked, barely human. "Circle left! Cut off its escape! Don't let it reach the trees!"
The beast ignored him. It was focused entirely on the fairy, its red eyes tracking the glowing figure, its massive paws swiping at empty air.
Riven was at the cave entrance, her rifle raised, her eye to the scope. She wasn't shooting. She couldn't. The beast was too large, the fairy too fast, the risk of hitting the wrong target too high.
"Riven," Haut called. "The ridge."
She glanced at him.
"Spies. They'll be coming. Watch the ridge."
She nodded. Moved to a better position.
Haut turned back to the fairy.
It was closer now—close enough that he could see the texture of its light, the way it pulsed like a heartbeat, the way it seemed to breathe. He could see the shape of it, too—not a human shape, not an animal shape, something else. Something that didn't quite fit in the world.
He reached into his coat.
The pouch was small. Leather. Inside were the remains of Seraphine's burned blood—the dark red crystal, the ash, the bone fragments. He had planned to save them for later, for a recipe he hadn't yet designed.
But plans changed.
He pulled the pouch open. The scent that emerged was sharp, chemical, almost sweet. The same scent that had drawn the fairy here.
He held it out.
The fairy stopped.
Its light flickered—pulsed faster, then slower, then faster again. It turned toward him. Toward the pouch. Toward the burned remains of the celestial blood.
It moved.
Not fast this time—slow, cautious, deliberate. It drifted toward him like a leaf on still water, its light dimming, its presence shrinking.
He could feel it watching him. Not with eyes—with something deeper, something that pressed against his skin and his skull and his thoughts.
He held perfectly still.
His right hand was steady. His breathing was even. His mind was clear.
He waited.
The fairy was inches from his hand now. He could feel its light on his skin—warm, almost hot, like standing too close to a fire. He could smell it, too—ozone, and something else, something that reminded him of the river, of the moment before the crystals exploded, of the edge of something he didn't understand.
He closed his fingers.
The fairy slipped through them like water.
It was gone before he knew he'd missed—a flicker of light, a trail of warmth, and then it was across the clearing, hovering above the beast's head, pulsing with what might have been laughter.
Haut looked at his empty hand.
He had been sharp. He had been cunning. He had used the burned blood, the poison, the celestial residue. He had done everything right.
And the fairy had still slipped away.
Because the fairy was not a thing to be caught. It was a thing to be witnessed. A thing to be experienced. A thing that appeared when it wanted, where it wanted, and left the same way.
He had known that. He had known it since he first heard the stories, since he first calculated the probability—less than one percent.
He had tried anyway.
That was the difference between him and everyone else. They saw impossible odds and gave up. He saw impossible odds and calculated the contingencies.
He tucked the pouch back into his coat.
The fairy was still here. Still playing. Still watching.
The hunt wasn't over.
Part VI: The Wound
Riven screamed.
Haut turned.
She was on the ground, her rifle in the snow, her hands pressed to her chest. The fairy was above her—close, too close, its light pulsing fast and bright. And between them, in the air where the fairy had been a moment before, was a line of white.
Not light. Something else. Something that cut.
Riven's coat was open. Her shirt was open. Across her chest, from her left shoulder to her right hip, was a wound—thin, precise, smoking at the edges. The skin around it was white, bloodless, like the flesh had been seared closed before it could bleed.
She was still breathing. Still conscious. But her hands were shaking, and her face was grey, and her eyes were wide with something that looked like fear.
The fairy hovered above her, pulsing.
Haut moved.
He didn't think. He didn't plan. He ran—across the clearing, past the beast, past Cinx, past the falling trees and the shaking ground. He reached Riven and dropped to his knees beside her.
"Can you move?"
She tried to shake her head. Couldn't. The wound was too deep, too close to her spine. She could feel her legs—barely—but she couldn't feel her fingers.
"The Oath—" she whispered.
"The Oath doesn't matter if you're dead." He pulled her good arm over his shoulder and lifted. She screamed—a short, sharp sound that cut off as quickly as it started. The wound pulled. The skin stretched. Blood began to seep through the seared flesh.
The fairy watched.
It didn't move. Didn't pulse. Just hovered there, watching, as Haut carried Riven toward the cave.
He could feel its attention on his back. Heavy. Hot. Like standing too close to a fire.
He didn't look back.
Part VII: The Spies
They came from the ridge.
Haut heard them before he saw them—voices, sharp with excitement, carried on the cold air. He had posted Riven to watch for them, but Riven was bleeding on the cave floor now, and the ridge was unguarded.
The first spy crested the hill.
He was young—maybe twenty, maybe younger. His coat was dark, his boots were new, his rifle was slung across his back. He saw the fairy and stopped.
"It's real," he whispered. "It's actually real."
The second spy joined him. Older. Wiser. His eyes moved across the clearing—the beast, the fairy, the bodies, the blood.
"We need to report this."
"Report? We need to catch it!"
"With what? Your hands?"
The fairy pulsed. Once. Twice. Its light flared bright enough to cast shadows across the snow.
The first spy took a step forward.
The beast turned.
Its red eyes fixed on the ridge. On the two figures standing in the snow. On the easy prey.
It charged.
The first spy didn't have time to scream. The beast's paw caught him across the chest—not a swipe, just a push, but the force of it lifted him off his feet and threw him backward into the trees. He landed hard. Did not get up.
The second spy ran.
He ran down the ridge, through the snow, toward the road, toward the south, toward anywhere the beast wasn't. He did not look back.
The beast did not follow. Its attention was still on the fairy.
But more spies were coming. Haut could see them now—figures on the ridge, dark against the snow, their voices rising in excitement and fear.
"The fairy!"
"Someone get word to the Squadron!"
"Don't let it escape!"
They were screaming. All of them. Screaming about the fairy, about the light, about the thing that had appeared in the mountains after a century of silence. Their voices carried across the clearing, up the slopes, into the valleys beyond.
The news would spread. It would reach the Southern Colonies by morning. It would reach the north by nightfall. It would reach every sect, every squadron, every village and city and settlement between the mountains and the sea.
The appearance of the white fairy was the biggest event in a century.
And Haut was standing in the middle of it.
Part VIII: The Flight
Cinx saw the spies.
He saw the beast ignoring his commands. He saw the fairy dancing just out of reach. He saw Haut carrying Riven toward the cave, saw the blood on the snow, saw the chaos spreading like fire through dry grass.
He made a decision.
"Retreat."
The word came out hoarse, barely audible. He said it again, louder. "Retreat!"
The beast didn't listen. It was still focused on the fairy, still swiping at empty air, still shaking the ground with every step.
Cinx pulled the chain. The beast's head turned. Its red eyes found his face.
"Now."
The beast lowered its head. Snorted. Turned.
It crashed back through the trees—the same way it had come, leaving a trail of broken pines and churned snow. Cinx followed, his coat catching on branches, his boots slipping on ice. He didn't look back.
Behind him, the spies were still screaming. The fairy was still pulsing. The chaos was still spreading.
He disappeared into the forest.
Haut watched him go.
He was standing at the cave entrance, Riven's arm over his shoulder, her weight pressing against his burned left arm. The pain was a white-hot roar in his skull, but he didn't let go.
"Can you walk?"
Riven nodded. Her face was grey, her lips were blue, but she was still conscious. Still fighting.
"Then walk."
They moved.
Not fast. Not smooth. But they moved. One step. Two steps. Three. The cave entrance grew smaller behind them. The clearing grew larger ahead. The fairy's light flickered at the edge of Haut's vision, but he didn't look back.
The road was north. The passes were north. The clans were north.
Everything else was behind them.
Part IX: The Healer
The village was small.
Ten houses, maybe twelve, clustered around a frozen stream. The inhabitants were northerners—short, stocky, their faces weathered by wind and cold. They spoke a dialect Haut barely understood.
They also spoke of the fairy.
"Did you see it?"
"The light? Everyone saw the light."
"They say it appeared in the mountains. They say the beasts ran wild."
"They say the Shadow Sect's leader was there. Cinx himself."
"They say he ran."
Haut heard the whispers as he carried Riven through the village. He didn't correct them. He didn't add to them. He let the rumors spread the way rumors always spread—fast, inaccurate, impossible to trace.
The healer's house was at the end of the road.
The woman inside was old—older than anyone Haut had seen in the north. Her face was a map of wrinkles, her hands were gnarled with age, but her eyes were sharp. She looked at Riven's wound and didn't flinch.
"Put her on the bed."
Haut laid Riven on the cot. The healer bent over her, her fingers probing the edges of the wound, her lips pursed.
"This was not made by any blade."
"No."
"Nor any beast."
"No."
She looked up at Haut. Her eyes moved to his burned arm, to the bandages soaked with blood, to the exhaustion in his face.
"You have questions."
"I have answers."
She snorted. "Everyone has answers. I have work to do."
She turned back to Riven. Her hands began to move—slow, deliberate, tracing patterns in the air above the wound. The skin began to knit. The bleeding slowed. The color began to return to Riven's face.
Haut watched for a moment. Then he sat down against the wall and closed his eyes.
The pain in his arm was still there. The exhaustion was still there. The chaos was still there, spreading outward from the mountains like ripples in a pond.
But he was alive. Riven was alive. The fairy was out there, somewhere, waiting to be found.
And he had the burned remains of celestial blood in his coat.
He would use them. Not today. Not tomorrow. But soon.
He closed his eyes and slept.
Part X: The News
The Southern Colonies. Three days later.
Vell sat at her desk, counting coins, when the messenger burst through the door.
"The fairy—" the man gasped. "The white fairy—it appeared—in the mountains—"
Vell's hands stopped moving.
"Tell me everything."
The man talked. Vell listened. Her face did not change.
When he was done, she sat in silence for a long moment.
Then she laughed.
"Seven hundred years," she said. "Seven hundred years since the last sighting. And it appears now. Now, when the Shadow Sect is ash. Now, when the Elite Squadron is hunting ghosts. Now, when a burned man with no name is running north."
She shook her head.
"That's not coincidence. That's not luck. That's something else."
She picked up her pen.
"Send word to the families. Tell them the fairy is real. Tell them it's in the mountains. Tell them if they want it, they'll have to fight for it."
The messenger ran.
Vell sat back in her chair.
"Interesting times," she murmured.
She began to write.
Part XI: The Aftermath
The north. The same day.
Huang stood at the gate of Yin Village, watching the snow fall.
The lake was frozen. The fish pens were empty. The walls were white with frost. The villagers were inside, huddled around fires, speaking in low voices about the light they had seen in the mountains three nights ago.
Meili approached him. Her face was pale.
"The traders are talking," she said. "They say the white fairy appeared. They say the Shadow Sect's leader was there. They say he ran."
Huang nodded.
"They say Zarvis was there."
He turned to look at her.
"Zarvis?"
"The burned man. The one who helped us. They say he was in the mountains when the fairy appeared. They say he tried to catch it."
Huang was silent for a long moment.
"Zarvis is dead," he said. "He died on the road. Sieyres died protecting him. We have the letters."
Meili looked at him. Her eyes were sad.
"Do you believe that?"
Huang didn't answer.
He turned back to the mountains.
Somewhere out there, in the snow and the cold and the chaos, the man who had saved his village was running. Running from the Shadow Sect. Running from the Elite Squadron. Running from everyone who wanted him dead.
And the white fairy was with him.
Or maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was just a story. Maybe the light in the mountains was just a reflection, a trick of the ice, a dream.
Huang didn't know.
But he knew one thing.
Zarvis was alive.
And soon, everyone would know it.
Part XII: The Silence
The healer's house. That night.
Haut sat by the window, looking out at the snow.
His arm was wrapped in fresh bandages. The healer had given him something for the pain—a tea, bitter and hot, that made his thoughts fuzzy at the edges. He drank it anyway. He needed to sleep. He needed to heal. He needed to be ready.
Riven was in the bed behind him. She was asleep—finally, after hours of the healer's work, after the wound had been closed and the fever had broken. Her face was peaceful. Her breathing was steady.
She would live.
The Oath would hold.
Haut reached into his coat. The pouch was still there—the burned remains of Seraphine's blood, the dark red crystal, the ash, the bone. He held it in his palm and looked at it.
The fairy had come for this. Had almost let itself be caught for this.
But not quite.
He tucked the pouch back into his coat.
The recipe was still incomplete. The crystals were still waiting. The Analytical Muscle Vien was still unfinished.
But he had time. He had patience. He had learned that lesson in the river, two hundred thousand miles upstream, when he had turned back instead of reaching the end.
The number on his neck was still ten meters.
The number in his heart was something else.
He closed his eyes.
The snow fell. The fire crackled. The village slept.
And somewhere in the mountains, the white fairy drifted through the dark, leaving trails of light behind it, waiting for the next fool to try and catch it.
Some tales didn't have a good ending. Seraphine's tragedy was that her brother, Lysander sacrificed himself in every timeline (1200) to save his sister, yet she was burned by the same man her brother trusted in the end.