There is no such thing as a safe river. If anyone tells you there is, they''re trying to get you killed. No dam is sufficient, no block permanent enough. By the time you think to barricade the stream, it''s already too late.


    <hr>


    Eythron slammed the door open and staggered into the dining room. One hand grasped at the doorframe and he still would have fallen if not for his sword driving a gouge into the Serin’s wood floor to provide more support.


    Jair jumped up, dropping his bowl in his rush. "Master! What happened?"


    “It was him.” He didn’t look quite as bad as the time he’d been hiding in the previous timeline, but only barely. His clothing was torn to shreds and five of his seven imprints were glowing as he struggled to keep himself mobile.


    Jair ran to him, summoned Maelstrom before remembering Eythron was immune to Darkflame. He helped the old man to a seat, but that was all he could think of. He could revert them, but that would leave several others out of the loop. What else could he do?


    "Relax, boy, I''ve survived worse. Sekir is a very dangerous man."


    "I know that."


    Eythron shook his head and grabbed Jair''s forearm. "More dangerous than you know. The swordsman is—"


    "My lords!" Molash burst into the room, then bowed and held out a bottle. "Here is a—"


    Eythron lunged forward so fast his chair toppled over and bounced. He swung his sword across the unfortunate young man''s chest in a deep diagonal slash that cut through ribs and left Molash’s stomach torn open.


    The bottle fell from Molash''s hands and shattered on the floor as he collapsed to his knees. "I see," he said, any note of subservience gone. "You''re right. I shouldn''t have underestimated you." Then flopped over lifeless.


    "W-what?" Jair looked between the abruptly-deceased servant and severely-injured Eythron.


    "Sekir." Eythron casually jabbed his sword a few more places on Molash''s body to ensure it was thoroughly ruined, groaned, and leaned on his sword again. "He''s been attacking me nonstop. I barely made it here. None of them is strong enough to really threaten me, but even I have limits, and he is not weak." Eythron coughed and grunted, pressing a hand to his leg where a large patch of blood spread. "I have seven more descriptions for you, if you want them."


    "Seven? But the..." Jair closed his eyes. "That doesn''t fit the timeline."


    "Then the timeline is wrong."


    "You''re saying Sekir was pretending to be returning for hours while he was running around killing people?"


    "Yes."


    Jair thought back. "He was only moving periodically," he said at last. "So you could be right. But that implies his speed of switching is... near-instant. How? That''s not... you can''t just jump from body to body like that."


    "Or, perhaps, you''re wrong." Eythron pointed to the dead body on the floor, then winced and sank to his knees. "You can if it''s your own bodies. There''s a similarity to them that''s clearly intentional. The more similar, the faster the transition."


    "So Molash has been an impostor from the start." Jair looked down at him with a frown. "How did he even get in here, wasn''t he hired specifically for the oasis event?" He''d gotten so used to the man being around that he''d almost not noticed the discrepancy.


    "Yes."


    "That''s... not unexpected, after what you found in the previous loop, but still." He was used to Sekir being far more subtle. If he had such an effective inroad to the Serin group, shouldn’t he have maintained that secrecy rather than try a doomed attack on Eythron? Jair glanced back to where Raina sat. She met his eyes and smiled before quickly looking away. He lowered his voice as he addressed Eythron. "Is there any reason to stay here?"


    "Stay where, this city?"


    "Here." Jair waved a hand broadly across the red-tinted windows facing out to the skyline, "Veor. You''ve killed Sekir seven times, that only means he''s going to get meaner and more aggressive. Why stay in his territory? If he’s so bent on revenge, then let him come to us. It buys us time and lets us prepare our battlefield."


    "And if he stays behind and sinks Veor anyway? You can forgive yourself?"


    Jair only shrugged. "Then we''ll come back and try something else."


    <hr>


    As Sekir Lifekeeper shifted into a new body for the eighth time in less than an hour, he couldn''t help but grin at the sheer fury that burned through him. His usual games were exhilarating, but this… this was something else entirely.


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    He was used to being outplayed once, maybe twice, usually early on in an infiltration or overture. He was inevitably going to slip up, neglect some mannerism or misconstrue some custom that was so obvious no one even thought about it until it was too late. But this was something else altogether.


    Eythron had been hard to beat the first time. It had basically come down to throwing himself at him over and over with every resource he had available. But now he was forewarned, he''d taken it to a whole new level.


    And here in the city, Sekir didn''t have nearly so many options to draw on. He could hunt the man with brief glimpses through others'' eyes but that wasn''t enough to stop him.


    Even as he ran from his tertiary backup location to give one last try at putting the mageblade down, he was torn between cursing and exulting.


    Two different nemeses, in the same town at the same time? For so long he''d gone uncontested. To find not one but two who could even come close to matching him...


    It was forcing him to move at speeds he''d rarely ever even tried. He''d thought he was moving fast the first time, but trying to keep up with both Welburne and Eythron was a whole new level of challenging.


    But even as he rejoiced in the chance to push beyond his normal limits, he chafed at the limitations represented by the duo. And the more they killed him, the more he wanted to destroy them. If he could kill them, if they were careless enough to let him kill them, he would, but it would be so much more satisfying to break them first.


    Interfering with Veor right when he was getting started was perhaps forgivable, but threatening him to his face could not be allowed.


    Sekir was not a mere mortal to be treated as beneath them. He would force them to acknowledge his superiority and grovel at his feet before this was over.


    All his previous plans would have to be discarded, of course. He couldn''t guess how many times they''d already played them out without him. They would all be thoroughly predictable by now, surely.


    It was a shame he didn''t get the chance to see how that went. He''d put a lot of preparation into some of them.


    But while part of his mind was occupied with recalculating his plans for the future, behind it all the nagging thread of doubt assailed him. There was no reason at all to assume the Phoenix Healer was also the prophesized Consumer of All... except that sword he carried.


    When he''d first concocted the plan it had been merely one step in a thousand, one more way to drive a wedge between Welburne and his support system, tear them away one by one. What better way than to convince his own beloved mentor that he was a monster and set them at each other''s throats?


    But Eythron had rejected the vision and denied it, and that should have been that. His gambit failed, move on to the twenty others behind.


    Yet Sekir couldn''t get the image of his own memory out of his head. The faceless unknown, the blade unknowable, a thousand fragmented futures all driving toward doom.


    A world empty and dead, only one living creature remaining.


    No. That was his destiny. No one else''s. Sekir would be the one to purge the world and stand as sole lord of its rebirth. And if that meant he needed to break Welburne''s soul apart to get the sword out of it, then so be it.


    He slowed to a walk as he approached the street where the Serin townhouse was located. By now it would be too late to stop him. He''d gotten lucky once, keeping Eythron from having the chance to spill his secrets, but now that stage of the game was over.


    No more hiding what he could do, no more getting away with eight things in the background because they were busy staring at the one in front of their face. From now on, his every move would be scrutinized with the utmost attention. The moment he made a move, the mageblade would be there to cut off that body, and while he had hundreds he did have limits. Couldn''t throw them all away too carelessly.


    He walked past the house without turning to look, without slowing. Perhaps it would be better to withdraw for now. He needed more resources and better, more capable forms if he was going to take these two head on.


    A smile played at his lips. Perhaps they''d even believe he''d given up. Taken their warning at face value and disappeared.


    Sooner or later, they''d lower their guard. Someday they wouldn''t be quite so quick, and that would be his moment.


    He briefly fantasized about wrenching the soulsword from the old man and carving the Phoenix Healer to pieces with it, but breaking the binding on a weapon was not something easily done. Especially against the owner''s wishes. Even if Sekir had the ability to capture Eythron and have his way with him, the old mageblade would be far too dangerous a prisoner to play around with.


    The old man was a physical threat, Welburne an informational one.


    Even more briefly, he considered finding a way to break Welburne in front of the old man, but from everything he''d seen Eythron didn''t truly care for the boy anywhere near as much as Welburne cared for him. Their relationship was remarkably skewed. Then again, it seemed any relationship with Welburne involved was skewed. He threw his whole heart into these people with such reckless ease, it made Sekir grudgingly impressed by his resilience.


    But no resilience stayed unbroken forever. Welburne''s already had its first cracks. All he needed to do was widen them. Bit by bit, until he was nothing but a broken puppet waiting for the fire.


    Sekir made his way to a private storage house he maintained in the city and returned his body to its inactivity.


    One more thing to take care of, then he could see about preparing for the long haul.


    <hr>


    "So, Ajriol… How would you feel about celebrating Solaria in Orard?"


    "Why Orard?" Ajriol closed his eyes. “Do I want to know?”


    "It''s where I can keep an eye on things directly. But if you''d rather go elsewhere, there''s a lot of places you could choose if you prefer."


    "I worry that Cousin Darsus will see this as confirmation that he is being favored in the succession and begin taking liberties."


    "That won''t be a problem. I can put him in his place easily enough. In fact, I can frame the entire thing as my fault if you like. That way it won''t reflect on you at all. Only, how attached are you to your oasis estate?"


    "Wait, what?"


    <hr>