Lucien stared out at the rolling hills as their horses galloped toward the border. He would have preferred pulling the cart himself—the physical strain was a good way to increase his strength—but Solennea was too far, and the clock was ticking. Every day he spent on the road was a day closer to the "Great Sleep" he was trying to prevent.

  "Sir," Sebas said, breaking the rhythm of the hooves, "why are we truly going to the Holy Realm? Are you really joining the clergy?"

  "Yes," Lucien said, his voice flat. "But only temporarily. I needed to remain sigilless for this very reason. I wish I could have reclaimed my old sigil from the start, but for this mission, I have to be a 'fresh recruit'—a blank slate in the eyes of the Church."

  Sebas slowed his horse slightly, his brow furrowed. "Why do you need to join, Young Master? The Church of Solennea is a labyrinth of bureaucracy and zealotry. It isn't a place for someone like you."

  "Because of the Great Sleep," Lucien replied, his eyes narrowing as he looked toward the horizon where the white spires of the Holy City were beginning to peak through the clouds. "Decades ago, two of the High Paladins fell into an eternal slumber. The world thinks they are honored martyrs resting in peace."

  "So... they died?" Sebas asked.

  "No," Lucien said, his voice dropping an octave. "They were struck by a curse so powerful it couldn't be broken, only contained. Their sleep sealed the curse within their own bodies, using their life force as a cage. If they ever die in that sleep—if their hearts stop before the curse is purged—it will be unleashed. It won't just destroy Solennea; it will rot the entire Empire from the inside out."

  He tightened his grip on the reins.

  "The Ashborne isn't the only monster I have to worry about, Sebas. If that curse breaks, the world will be too weak to even put up a fight when the fires start. I'm going in there to figure out what happened and secure ourselves a 'Trump Card'."

  "And to get to the High Paladins," Sebas mused, "one must be a member of the inner clergy."

  “How can you be so sure that you will be able to figure out the source of this curse?” Sebas asked, his eyes searching Lucien’s profile for a slip in his composure. “Unless you already know,” he added, a hint of expectation in his voice, as if he had grown accustomed to his master possessing impossible knowledge.

  “I don’t,” Lucien replied bluntly.

  The wind whipped around them, carrying the faint scent of incense from the distant border.

  “Things can’t be that convenient, Sebas. I know the result of the curse from my... future experiences, but the source? That’s buried under layers of Solennean secrets and holy sanctums.”

  He adjusted his grip on the reins, his expression hardening into the cold mask that Sebas knew all too well. It was the face of a man who had already seen the end of the world and refused to let it happen twice.

  “But there is no point in thinking about if I can or can’t,” Lucien continued, his voice cutting through the clip-clop of the hooves. “It’s I do, or I don’t. And right now, finding out is the most important thing. If I hesitate because I don't have all the answers, the Empire burns while I’m still second-guessing myself.”

  Sebas nodded slowly, humbled by the sheer weight of the boy’s resolve. “A pragmatic approach, sir. Though it does mean we are walking into a den of lions with nothing but a blindfold and a prayer.”

  “I’ve survived worse with less,” Lucien muttered, looking toward the looming white walls of the Solennean border. “Besides, the clergy loves a ‘miracle child.’ I’ll give them a performance they won’t forget.”

  "Now, help me adjust this cloak. I need to look like a pious, innocent boy who has found his calling, not a mercenary who’s about to rob a cathedral." As he struggled to put on the cloak.

  Night began to bleed into the sky, painting the horizon in bruised purples and deep indigos. The horses were flagging, and the need for a place to rest became urgent. It was then that they spotted the orange flicker of a campfire in the distance—a small encampment of travelers huddled together against the encroaching chill.

  They approached cautiously, the rhythmic crunch of hooves on dry earth drawing the attention of the group.

  "Hello there," a burly man called out, shielding his eyes from the glare of his own fire. "You’re heading to the Kingdom, I take it?"

  "Yes," Lucien said, sliding off his horse with a practiced, humble grace. He smoothed his traveling cloak and adopted his most pious expression, the image of a devoted seeker. "I’m heading to Solennea to join the clergy."

  The strangers exchanged a look of genuine surprise. One of them, a merchant by the look of his tattered silk vest, let out a short puff of air. "This late?"

  "What do you mean by 'this late'?" Lucien asked, his brow furrowing.

  "Well, the window for joining the clergy closed two months ago," the merchant said. "They aren't accepting new candidates right now. Not for the rest of the season."

  Lucien and Sebas blanched, their gazes meeting in a moment of silent, mutual shock. The "all-knowing" prodigy felt a sudden, cold vacuum in his stomach.

  "You mean you didn't know?" another traveler asked, leaning forward with a toothy grin.

  "No," Lucien grumbled, his voice dropping an octave as his "pious" mask threatened to slip. "I thought... I thought the intake was soon."

  The group erupted into a chorus of hearty laughter, the sound echoing mockingly against the silent hills. "Ahahaha! You missed the boat, kid! You’re about a season too late and a coin too short."

  Damn, Lucien thought, his jaw tightening. Just because he had the tactical advantage of future memories didn't mean he was going to be correct about every bureaucratic detail. He remembered the impact of the clergy’s power, but he had clearly forgotten the mundane scheduling of their recruitment.

  "The gates are closed for the next month anyway," the burly man added, tossing a branch into the fire. "They’re performing the Rites of Solennea. The Kingdom is in total lockdown. That’s why we’re all camped out here—there’s nothing to do but wait for the gates to open."

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  Lucien paled further. A month. He didn't have a month to sit in the dirt. Every second he waited, the curse within the sleeping Paladins grew more unstable.

  "Is there a village nearby where we can stay?" Lucien asked, trying to salvage the situation.

  "There are a few," the man replied, "but they aren't keen on outsiders during the Rites. They get... protective. You'll likely find more pitchforks than pillows if you try to knock on a door this close to the border."

  Lucien stared into the fire, the orange flames reflecting in his cold, calculating eyes. He had two years to change the fate of the world, and he was already stuck at the front door.

  Lucien stared into the dancing flames, his mind churning. He was parsing through every scrap of memory, every whispered tavern rumor from his previous life, but he found nothing. He was only one man with one set of memories, and the crushing weight of being alone in this timeline finally started to settle in.

  He sighed, pulling out some salted meat and skewering it over the fire. Sebas sat alongside him, his presence a steady anchor. "Don't worry, sir," the butler murmured. "We can just go village by village. We'll find a crack in their armor eventually."

  Lucien just nodded, his eyes distant as he continued to hunt for a breakthrough.

  Sebas, ever the diplomat, turned to the travelers. "Gentlemen, we are from the remote edges of the Empire. We lack the local context of the Holy Realm. Is there anything you can tell us about these lands? Stories, warnings... anything to help us navigate?"

  "You certainly don't look like locals," one man chuckled, leaning back. "Since you missed the clergy date, you’ve missed the news. There have been sightings of the Livid Hounds near the southern pass, and the Starlight Fever has been hitting the herds lately. But if you're looking for the heart of Solennean fear, you won't find it in the news. You find it in the folklore."

  The old merchant leaned in, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly tone that caught Lucien’s attention instantly.

  "Centuries ago," the man began, "a babe was born in Solennea who never cried and never closed its eyes. The elders called it a 'Devil’s Changeling'—a creature sent to watch the village and steal their dreams for the sovereign of slumber. They feared those unblinking eyes would witness their sins and report them to the dark."

  "So they killed it?" Sebas asked.

  "Worse. They cast the 'Wakeful Child' into the Great Well, believing the deep, lightless water would finally force its eyes shut in the cold. But the mother... she couldn't let go. She leapt into the dark after her babe. Legend says she found him at the bottom, but his eyes were still open, staring into the black. In her grief, she began to weep—a rhythmic, hypnotic wail intended to sing him to sleep."

  Lucien’s hand stopped moving toward the meat. He listened with intent.

  "Her weeping became a Lethal Lullaby. Anyone who heard it felt an irresistible heaviness. But this was no natural rest; those who slept to her voice turned to brittle glass, their dreams freezing into salt until they eventually shattered in their sleep. It was a plague of eternal, frozen rest."

  "How was it stopped?" Lucien asked, his eyes sharp.

  "A legendary golden knight—the Warrior of Light—descended into the well to slay the demon. The myth says he didn't kill the mother; he understood the tragedy. He stood watch so the village could wake up. He allowed the sleep to take him instead, his body turning to crystal and stone to 'seal' the well and muffle the song forever. He became the living cork in a bottle of nightmares."

  Lucien’s mind clicked into place with a violent jolt. The Great Sleep. The two Paladins. The seal.

  This wasn't just a campfire story. It was the blueprint of the curse. The "Warrior of Light" wasn't a myth; it was the origin of the Paladin's burden. If the Paladins in the Cathedral died, the "Lullaby" would resume, and the Empire would turn to salt and glass. It seemed like after centuries, the original Warrior of Light had finally given way. There were no gradual replacements, no line of succession—only a sudden, catastrophic collapse that forced the current two Paladins to throw themselves into the breach.

  Either these two failed to compare to the sheer spiritual mass of the original warrior, or the curse had grown so bloated with age that it was now an unstoppable tide. Either way, he had found the smoke. He just needed to find the fire.

  "Where is this well?" Lucien asked, his voice low and dangerous, cutting through the crackle of the fire.

  The merchant laughed, oblivious to the shift in the air. "Nobody knows. That’s the point of a legend, isn't it?"

  "What do you mean by that?" Lucien pressed.

  "Exactly that," the merchant said, dismissively waving a hand. "People in every village say they hear the weeping, and they claim the curse of sleep befalls them, but I haven't really heard of anyone actually falling asleep and turning to glass. It’s just folklore, so don't mind it. Something to scare the kids. Here is another tale for you that you might like—the Missing Shepherd guiding children into—"

  Lucien stopped listening at that point. The merchant’s ignorance was a tool in itself. If "every village" heard the weeping, it meant there was a massive underground network stretching beneath the Holy Realm—a labyrinthine system of tunnels and hollows that they would have to navigate.

  He remembered seeing the victims of this curse firsthand. In the future, Elaine had been morbidly fascinated by the phenomenon, her eyes gleaming with a cold, intellectual hunger as she ordered him to retrieve "samples." He had carried the glass corpses back to her—brittle, translucent husks of people who had once laughed and breathed. The memory was jarring, a sharp reminder of the crystalline coldness of their skin and the way their dreams had quite literally turned to salt.

  The curse was real, without a doubt. But the merchant’s story about the wailing appearing in different, disconnected villages didn't sit right with him.

  For the wailing to show up in specific, scattered spots across the Kingdom, it couldn't be a natural leak. It was too precise. It felt like the sound was being routed, as if someone were using the earth itself as a massive, hollow instrument.

  "How can the wailing show up in different spots?" Lucien murmured, his voice barely audible over the fire.

  He didn't know the exact mechanism of how those people got sick in the first place, but the pattern was too deliberate. If the "Lullaby" was being broadcast through specific spots, it meant someone was controlling the volume. Someone was choosing which village would sleep and which would stay awake.

  "Someone is involved, Sebas," Lucien said, his gaze snapping to his butler with a sharpness that made the older man stiffen.

  Sebas swallowed hard, the weight of the revelation sinking in. If the curse was being deliberately routed through the kingdom, they weren't just dealing with a magical accident—they were stepping into the middle of a centuries-old conspiracy. "What should we do, Young Master?"

  "We will find a well and jump in," Lucien stated flatly.

  "Young Master..." Sebas whined, his composed facade momentarily crumbling into a look of pure exhaustion. "Must we always take the most literal and life-threatening path?"

  "We need to see if there is an underground network," Lucien continued, ignoring the protest. "In my last life, the Church sealed everything. Once the curse started to rupture, they locked down the catacombs and the underground passages and became tight-lipped about everything. But there is no curse right now, so there is no one hindering us."

  He looked back at the fire, the orange light reflecting in his eyes. He had the advantage of knowing where the "Glass Blight" hit hardest in the future, which meant he knew exactly where the largest sections in the network were likely located.

  He leaned back against a log, pulling his cloak tightly around his shoulders. The adrenaline of the discovery was still humming in his veins, but he knew the limits of his current, younger body.

  "Well, that’s tomorrow’s problem," Lucien said, his voice softening as he closed his eyes. "Let’s sleep. We’ll need our strength if we're going to be cave-diving into a nightmare at dawn."

  Sebas sighed, resigning himself to the madness, and began to arrange their bedrolls. "As you wish, sir."