The end is inevitable—that is the coda much of the synat live by. A forever existing end that will come, no matter what. We see it—the yawning blackness, the grotesque red viscera of the universal stomach, the body we live our specks of life within.

  Eventually, the end will come, though we know not when.

  Well, perhaps that is a lie. The most powerful of the syvyl know—they have seen the fine threads of the end, dragged their minds down those interwoven existences and fates to find the final conclusion of this experiment of life. We know they know the end—when that end will come for us. They cannot tell us, even if they wanted, their minds burned out by the seeing of too much.

  We humans are not meant to see that much, although sometimes it is inevitable—sometimes, even the synat who reads the future of a child knows: no matter what we do, this child will grow into a syvyl. There is no stopping it, only moulding them into the best person they can be until that moment when they're seeing strays too far—too close to the source, the beginning, the end. Let them enjoy their life. Hope they take a different path. Know that no matter what, they will end up in that spot of destruction that was seen.

  It is inevitable. The drive to protect the ones they love, reaching too far, too fast. The unending curiosity that a thousand lectures about keeping themselves under control—about containing their minds so they will not suffer the fate of a burnt out soul—cannot stop.

  It is inevitable—just as inevitable as the death of the child in my arms.

  For brief moments, in our few hours together, travelling alongside a monster of this world, I thought that perhaps things had changed—that Caro would live.

  In many ways, it is a relief to hear Carne tell me that will not happen—that their fate has long since been sealed. In many more ways, it is nothing but a terrible truth: sometimes, there is nothing we can do to escape fate. We can reach and tangle our minds and core into the threads of fate—the lines of the aethernet—but to no avail.

  Caro will die. Their fate is sealed. Regardless of how little time we have spent together, their feet never once touching the ground since they were handed over to me, their dirty little arms—too little, they were clearly under fed—reaching for me with a trust I felt through my entire being.

  They had stepped too close to the source, somewhere along the lines, their too small core flickering with a power and knowledge their body was struggling to contain. Not quite a syvyl, but edging close enough that it turned my stomach. Their eyes shifted, latching onto the aether’s shifting currents, watching for futures they would never be afforded the opportunity to see with their own eyes. They saw easily through the {Blood Glass}, letting it fall at regular intervals to give their overwhelmed mind a break. It wasn’t overwhelmed by the sights it saw, however. Rather, the child’s mind burned because every aspect of their new reality—their new seeing—was pulling at them.

  I remember that overwhelm, and while I’d never guided a child this freshly touched through the transition, I couldn’t help myself. I let my energy slip inside the child, easing the burn of the universe’s knowledge, so it didn’t burn them out, even if I already knew they were unlikely to survive this day.

  That hurt, more than I had expected it to, and my teachers would have chastised me for my stupidity, had I any intention of telling them what I’d done—how I’d let myself bond with a doomed child. It was a harsh truth of the north: those sentenced by the universe to death were a burden, and should be left to their fate.

  Perhaps we could break that fate. Most likely, we could not.

  Ironically, the fate of the war had been broken, and yet so many synat still refused to see that sometimes fate broke and was reforged—although, perhaps that was simply because those who were old enough to know the shape of the universe before that woman had touched it now viewed it the way many looked upon a mangled body.

  Broken.

  Wrong.

  Something to be destroyed, killed, wiped out of existence.

  Yet, how does one wipe the universe itself—scarred and imperfect and mutilated and beautiful—from existence without also destroying oneself?

  According to the now imprisoned syna Chroy, we don’t: we do not survive the revitalization of the universe. We reach out and touch it and drag it into us in a glorious implosion of blood and death that will reset the universe and begin life anew—if that’s what our universal benefactor desires, in any case.

  According to the syna Chroy, this life we now lead—existing from the moment vy Starrberg’s desperation forced itself into the aether, hoping to either end the universe or save the planet—should not exist. We should not exist. We should be willing to die, in order to undo her sins.

  This is, understandably, why the man is now imprisoned in the Moonlit, left to the guardians of that frozen wasteland to control, along with his small band of followers.

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  I hesitate, for the barest moment, at the bottom of the stairs, letting grief consume me, for that single breath.

  Death approached, fast and brutal. Inevitable, and it hurt.

  The fact that I could do nothing to protect the child in my arms, hurt. I wanted to change their fate, but it was set, just as syna Chroy’s fate had been set, according to the reading of their future in the earliest hours of their day of birth.

  This syna will change the world.

  This syna will be unstoppable—stoppable.

  They will believe all that they believe—no shift or doubt to be found.

  Unstoppable.

  The moment they stop, they will be gone, hidden away under the moonlight for the rest of their days.

  It is unstoppable. Complete. The end of their fate. Inevitable.

  I still wasn’t convinced their beliefs had changed the world—the only thing their crazed attempt to destroy the universe had done was lead to the downfall of the Chroy, as their hy had given the syna too much influence, and the majority of the tribe had chosen to throw their lot in with them. There was no saying where fate would lead, however.

  Fate was such a strange creature, and the syna—the destruction of the Chroy, the effect they had on someone yet faceless—may still come to change the world. One never knows how fate will go, even when it lays itself out at our feet, a beckoning call of death, life, glory, infamy.

  ?It’s okay,? Caro says, as though it is—as though they cannot see their coming darkness just as well as I.

  They are so young, and yet so strong. I can see the scars across their mind and core—little moments of fear and change, more than a few of which occurred during the last few weeks. A strained relationship with their parents—various traumas inflicted by a questionable parenting style that is, in many ways, why we northerners are traditionally removed from our birth homes and placed into our professional homes within days of birth, raised by wet nurses and elders rather than parents who may not be equipped to raise children properly.

  It was a system that worked for thousands of years, until the war came for us. Some people changed by choice, after having seen our southern neighbours raising their children without external help, but it was largely a necessity. There is only so much anyone can do to retain a semblance of normalcy while a war rages. Leaving children in their birth homes was necessary, and yet, we can all see it now—the syna more than most.

  We can see the scars inflicted on children by adults who should never have been allowed to keep children.

  We can see the small things that will so profoundly affect a child and mould their personality for the worse.

  We can see the way leaving children in those homes will destroy their futures, and yet, in many cases, we have been left impotent.

  Too much change, in some cases. How are we to tell one set of parents they cannot keep the child they now want to keep, knowing they will not be good parents despite their good intentions? How are we to demand another set of parents keep their child, knowing that, despite their desire for the child to leave their house when is traditional, their child’s fate will be most prosperous if they are left in their birth home?

  Things were so much easier when there were no options. All children had their future seen. All children left to join their professional home. Some found they did not agree with the interpretation of their fate and sought out another home. Many found love and created their own family, even if the children created from such unions were quickly sent away. Children knew who their siblings were, meeting up as they wished. Sometimes parents met their children, sometimes they did not. Children always knew of their parents regardless. Sometimes the children were fine with that, sometimes they weren’t.

  The world went on, inevitable.

  “Are you afraid?” I ask the child held so closely against my chest, their nose cold against my throat. They can’t hear me, but they look up regardless, vibrations or the aether itself telling them I had spoken.

  They… I cannot say they look afraid. Accepting. Sad. Ready to face what is to come—to face their death and what will come after, unknown and secret.

  Is there an after in their place of numbers and data? I do not know. Perhaps it depends on the raid—I imagine some have afterlives for the souls of their world, although I would presume those afterlives serve a purpose.

  I am not holding out hope on that point that Caro will move on and enjoy a long life of perpetual childhood.

  Emilia’s questions about how similar the aether of this raid and the world without are, however, stick with me as I finally complete my breath and step towards her fight. We may not know if there is an afterlife in the real world, either, but perhaps, if this raid really is connected to the flesh and blood universe, then Caro will go there—will wait for our souls to follow, hundreds of years from now.

  Perhaps Emilia and I will find them there, along with all the lives who will quickly follow Caro from this world, sped up to accommodate the game.

  Stupid—this was stupid, and I want to yell at my sister for talking me into this.

  “We should go on vacation, before your ascension. You deserve to have fun—to enjoy life—beforehand. It won’t be the same afterwards,” she had said as the teeth of the temporary Censor dug into the back of my neck, and she forced me to sit before the Virtuosi System Access Point. “It’s just a raid. Yes, we’ll be in it for a while, but what’s the worst that could happen?”

  I want to go back and tell her that the worst that could happen was I could end up with a child I cared for in my arms, every nerve in my body screaming at me to protect them—to keep them safe just as vehemently as I would any synat—and yet, I will know I cannot.

  “The worst that could happen,” I would tell her, refusing to let her force my neck back, so my consciousness could be pulled away, “is I could be forced to walk a child to their death, knowing there is nothing I can do for them, even though I will wish I can. The worst that could happen, is I will let my heart collapse around a child who is not of this world—who can never be—and when they die in my arms, I will break, a piece of me cracking off to follow them into death.”

  A part of me knows, however, that even had I known how this raid would go, I wouldn’t have been able to refuse to come.

  Most likely, Caro would die, regardless of my presence in this world. All I would be doing, were I to rewind time and undo my decision to allow myself to be bullied into this world, would be to deprive this child of my affection in their final moments.

  All I would have done was deny myself the ache of my heart, beautiful and terrible, for the affection this small child had so quickly pulled out of me.

  It was sad and terrible, but it was life, and I would not have erased this love from my heart, painful as it was, even if I could rewind time.