Light stabbed through my eyelids like knives.
I opened my eyes and immediately regretted it. The morning sun streaming through the window was too bright, too sharp, cutting into my skull like a blade. Everything was wrong. The sheets beneath me were the same silk I'd slept on my entire life, but they felt different now; textured in ways I'd never noticed, each thread distinct against my hypersensitive skin.
Azurene.
She was there. Coiled on my chest, her small body rising and falling with my breathing. I felt her through the bond before I saw her; relief so intense it bordered on pain, love so deep it had no bottom, and underneath it all, a fear that tasted like copper.
You're awake. Her voice in my mind was hoarse. Raw. Like she'd been screaming for days. You're finally awake.
I tried to respond. Tried to form words. But my mind was a kaleidoscope, fragments of knowledge spinning and colliding and refusing to settle into any order. The healer adjusting my bandage; middle-aged woman, common Anima (a sparrow, perched on her shoulder), Tier 1-B at best based on her animus signature, been working in the palace for approximately fifteen years given the wear pattern on her...
Stop.
The evaluation kept coming anyway. The guard at the door; hawk Anima, Tier 1-A, useful for reconnaissance, loyal to the crown but has a gambling debt that makes him susceptible to...
Stop. Please.
I squeezed my eyes shut but the information didn't care about what I wanted. It kept layering over everything I perceived, uninvited, unstoppable. This is what the Rover's knowledge felt like from the inside; not a library I could browse but a torrent I couldn't turn off.
"Your Highness?" The healer's voice was gentle. Concerned. "Can you hear me?"
I opened my eyes again. Forced them to focus on her face rather than the profile my mind insisted on generating. She was kind. I could see it in the lines around her eyes, in the way her sparrow Anima tilted its head with genuine worry. Before the void, I would have noticed her kindness first. Now I noticed her weaknesses.
"Yes." My voice came out as a croak. Dry. Unused. "I can hear you."
"Thank the gods." She turned toward the door. "Send word to the king. The prince is awake."
The guard saluted and left.
Valerian.
Azurene's voice cut through the spiral. I looked down at her; really looked, not evaluated; and saw my dragon watching me with eyes that held questions she was afraid to ask.
I'm here, I told her through the bond. I'm still here. It's still me.
She didn't respond. I felt her uncertainty through the connection. She wasn't sure if it was still me. Honestly, neither was I.
Time moved strangely.
The healer checked my wounds; fading bruises, healing cuts, the physical evidence of the kidnapping that had put me here. My body had recovered during the coma. Accelerated healing from the dragon bond, she explained, though she seemed surprised by how quickly. I could have told her why. The Rover's knowledge included detailed information on healing factors and bond enhancement; my body had started adapting to Azurene's animus at a rate that shouldn't have been possible for my age. But I said nothing.
I was ten years old. I shouldn't know what I knew.
So I kept my mouth shut and let her examine me, let her murmur reassuring things about recovery and rest, let her believe that the boy who'd woken up was the same boy who'd fallen unconscious.
Azurene knew better. She pressed closer against my chest, her small body trembling with an emotion that wasn't quite grief and wasn't quite fear. She had eaten the Rover. Devoured it. And in doing so, she had absorbed fragments of its dying consciousness. She knew things now too; echoes and impressions rather than the full knowledge I carried, but enough to understand that something fundamental had changed.
Does it hurt? she asked finally. All that... in your head. Does it hurt?
Yes.
I didn't elaborate. The pain wasn't physical. It was the pain of seeing too much, knowing too much, understanding the weight of futures I hadn't chosen and couldn't ignore. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw fragments of what the Rover had shown me.
A dragon and phoenix intertwined.
Armies of monsters pouring across a land bridge.
Three women standing over my corpse.
The end of everything.
I was ten years old, and I knew exactly how I was going to die.
Iris arrived first.
She pushed through the door before the servants could stop her, Halcyon floating beside her in that ethereal way the Qilin had, and threw herself onto my bed with the complete disregard for propriety that she'd never outgrown.
"Vale!" Her voice cracked between relief and fury. "You're awake. You're finally awake."
I caught her automatically, pulling her into my arms, and the contact triggered a cascade of knowledge I hadn't asked for. Qilin bond developing normally. Light element showing early signs of manifestation. Unique animus potential, high probability of purification capabilities based on species traits; future value in demon suppression...
She dies.
The thought hit like a fist to the stomach. In the future the Rover had shown me, everyone died. Iris died. This warm weight in my arms, this girl who looked at me with complete trust and unconditional love; she died because I failed. Because the women who thought they were saving the world killed me before I could save it.
I held her tighter.
"Val?" Iris pulled back to look at my face, her brow furrowed in that perceptive way she had. Too sharp for nine years old. Always had been. "You're squishing."
"Sorry." I loosened my grip but didn't let go. "I just... I missed you."
"You scared everyone." She punched my shoulder, not gently. "Don't do that again."
I looked at the Qilin hovering beside my bed. Halcyon's pearl-white scales shimmered in the morning light, and his single horn cast a soft glow that I now recognized as bond resonance; a passive effect that strengthened nearby Anima bonds. I hadn't known that before the coma. The Rover's knowledge told me now.
He knew something was wrong, Azurene said through the bond. The Qilin. He sensed it. He's been watching over you since you fell.
I met Halcyon's eyes. Large, dark, impossibly calm. The Qilin regarded me steadily, and I had the uncomfortable sensation that he was seeing something I hadn't shown anyone.
Different, Halcyon's voice whispered through the bond-space. Not to me directly; I shouldn't have been able to hear him. But Azurene caught the edge of it and passed it along, confused. The boy is different now. Changed. Consumed something. Or was consumed by something.
I looked away. Held Iris closer. Pretended I hadn't heard.
"Tell me about your week," I said. "What did I miss?"
Iris launched into a breathless account of recent events, jumping between important palace affairs and completely irrelevant observations about what the kitchen cats had been doing. I listened to every word, filing away the significant details (Father was worried, Aldric had been asking questions, Celeste hadn't visited once) while using her voice as an anchor against the storm in my head.
She died. In the future that was coming, she died.
Everyone died.
Unless I changed it.