Adam retraced his steps through streets, his heart clinging to the hope that the mysterious woman might still be waiting. The ring in his pocket seemed to pulse with warmth against his leg.
But when he reached the corner where her tent had stood, only empty cobblestones greeted him.
He circled the area twice, then three times, and then four, asking nearby merchants if they'd seen an elderly woman with intricate fabric walls. They looked at him with polite confusion as if he was crazy.
"No tent here today, lad," said a fruit vendor. "Been selling on this corner for fifteen years. Would have noticed."
Adam stared at the spot where he was certain he'd knelt beside a small table.
We are always waiting. We have always been.
The words echoed in his memory as he turned toward the orphanage, hoping Noah and Zoe had returned.
The familiar building came into view, its windows dark and lifeless. Adam pushed through the front door and called out, his voice echoing in the empty halls.
"Noah? Zoe?"
Silence.
The main room still bore evidence of their hasty departure, overturned chairs, scattered belongings, dust coating everything like. He checked every room, even the ones that had been unused for years.
They were gone. Everyone was gone.
Adam sank into one of the small chairs, overwhelmed by the completeness of his isolation. In the span of a single day, he had lost everything, his friends, his home, his peace. And Evelyn...
I can't do this alone.
But sitting in self-pity wouldn't find Noah and Zoe, Adam stood, forcing his legs to carry him back into the streets. Maybe there were traces of where they'd gone.
As he walked, the acrid smell of smoke guided his steps toward the site of the explosion. The devastation grew more apparent with each step, shattered windows, debris scattered, buildings whose walls had cracked under the blast's force.
When he finally reached the epicenter, the scope of destruction stole his breath.
It was then that Adam saw them.
A woman knelt in the exact spot where he remembered a small boy falling, clutching a tiny, still form against her chest. Her clothes were torn and stained with soot. Beside her, a man paced like a caged animal, his hands opening and closing as if searching for something to destroy. A little girl, perhaps six years old, sat nearby, painstakingly trying to fit together the broken pieces of a wooden toy.
Adam's legs nearly buckled as the full weight of recognition crashed over him.
The boy. The boy I knocked down.
The memory returned with crystal clarity, running in panicked desperation to follow his friends, seeing the small figure directly in his path, the collision, the child tumbling to the ground with his precious possessions scattered. Adam had called out an apology but hadn't stopped, hadn't helped the boy to his feet, hadn't even looked back.
If I had stopped, if he had taken just ten seconds to help the child stand, to make sure he was unharmed, the boy would have been nowhere near the cart when it exploded.
Adam found himself walking forward before his conscious mind made the decision. The grieving family looked up as his shadow fell across them, and he saw his own hollow desperation reflected in their faces.
"I'm sorry," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
The father's red-rimmed eyes focused on him. "Sorry?" he spat. "You're sorry? Everyone's sorry. Sorry doesn't bring back, "
"No," Adam interrupted, the words tumbling out before he could stop them. "I'm sorry because this is my fault."
The mother looked up from her child's still form. "What?"
"The bomb," Adam said, his voice growing stronger even as his knees threatened to give out. "It was meant for me. The people who planted it, they're hunting me. Your son died because I was supposed to be in that cart."
He could see other families turning to listen, their own grief temporarily suspended by the audacity of his confession.
"But there's more," Adam continued, his voice cracking. "Before the explosion happened, I saw your boy. He was right in my path, and I... I knocked him down. He had his toy, and a drawing, a drawing of your family, I think. And I just kept running. I didn't stop to help him up."
The father went very still. When he spoke, his voice was deadly quiet. "You what?"
"If I had stopped," Adam said, tears now streaming down his face, "if I had taken just a moment to help him, he would have been somewhere else when the cart exploded. He would still be alive. It's my fault. He died because of me, instead of me."
The father moved faster than lightning.
Adam found himself slammed against a wall; strong hands wrapped around his throat. He made no move to defend himself, offered no resistance as the man's grip tightened.
"You left my son to die!" the father screamed; his voice raw with anguish. "You let him die for you!"
This is what I deserve, Adam thought as his vision began to gray around the edges.
"Marcus, stop!" The mother's voice cut through the violence. "Stop it! This won't bring him back!"
But the father, was beyond reason. "He killed our boy! He killed him!"
"No." The word came out as a croak as Marcus's hands loosened slightly around Adam's throat. The mother looked up, her eyes meeting Adam's through her tears. "The ones to blame planted the bomb. We can't... we can't let anger consume us like it's consuming them."
"But he left our son!" Marcus screamed, his grip tightening again. "He chose his own life over our boy's!" He started screaming even louder as if his voice was stacking even more hatred. "He also had dreams, inspirations, he wanted to be an artist when he grew up, he was the best of us!"
"And that's why our boy would forgive him," the mother whispered, her voice carrying the absolute conviction of someone who had known her child's heart completely. "He forgave everyone. Even the children who teased him for his drawings. Even the merchant who cheated him out of his pocket money. Even us, when we were too tired to play."
She looked directly at Adam then, and in her eyes, he saw something that might have been pity. "The last thing he said to me was 'I'll be careful, Mama.' He was always trying to take care of everyone else."
Marcus's hands fell away as if he'd been struck. He stumbled backward.
The watching families began to disperse, perhaps recognizing that this grief was too private for witnesses.
Marcus and his wife gathered their surviving daughter and began to walk away, the man's shoulders shaking with exhausted sobs.
Adam watched them go, still slumped against the crumbling wall. As they reached the edge of the devastation, he found the courage to call out.
"Wait!"
They turned back.
"What was his name?" Adam asked. "Your son. I need to know his name."
The mother studied his face for a long moment before answering.
"Angelo," she said. "His name was Angelo."
Angelo. Even the child's name was beautiful, fitting for someone whose last act had been clutching a drawing of the family he loved.
Then they were gone, disappearing into the gathering dusk with their surviving daughter and their unbearable loss.
Adam remained against the wall as true darkness began to fall, staring at the crater where Mathias's cart had been.
Angelo wanted to be an artist.
With hands that shook from exhaustion and despair, Adam pulled the sealed book from his pocket. The book had no title, no cover image, just worn leather binding.
Please, Please let there be answers. Let there be something that makes sense of all this.
Miles away, a reinforced cart rolled through the countryside. Inside, Evelyn sat in darkness.
Across from her, Malthane stared out through a small barred window at the passing landscape.
The cart lurched to a sudden stop.
"My lord!" a voice called from outside. "There's someone approaching on horseback with a banner of truce!"
Malthane's head snapped around.
They stopped, and after a few seconds, the cart door opened.
A figure in the familiar livery of the palace guard stumbled inside. Evelyn recognized him, one of the junior guards.
"My lord," the guard said, nearly breathless with anticipation. "I've done it. I've completed my mission."
Malthane settled back into his seat, his expression carefully neutral. "Wha mission?"
"A bomb," the guard continued, his words tumbling over each other in his haste. "I planted it in the cart that was evacuating the original curse bearer, he should be dead by now. The epoch should be over."
Evelyn's blood turned to ice. This was the traitor. This was the man whose bomb had killed innocent people, who had betrayed everything Queen Athena had stood for. Her hands clenched into fists.
"I've fulfilled my mission," the guard continued. "Now I need you to fulfill yours. Utopia promised me a beast heart, the highest reward for the most important service."
Malthane leaned forward slightly. "You're certain the target is dead?"
"Absolutely. I saw the explosion myself from the roof of the palace. Nobody could have survived that blast."
"And you know this because...?"
The guard's smile faltered slightly at Malthane's careful tone. "Because I know who the original curse bearer is, I saw him when he came to the castle this morning."
"Then you won't mind sharing that information," Malthane said smoothly. "To confirm your success."
For the first time, the guard looked uncertain. "I... well, I was hoping we could settle the matter of my reward first. Utopia promised, "
"Utopia will honor its commitments," Malthane said. "But first, I need verification. Tell me about this original curse bearer."
The guard relaxed slightly. "Of course, my lord. He was from the royal orphanage. Just a boy, really young and foolish enough to, "
Evelyn clenched her fists, her hands moving toward her chest, as if she was about to do something, but before she could move, his head exploded.
One moment he was speaking, the next his skull simply came apart like a dropped melon. Blood and brain matter splattered across the cart's interior, painting the walls in grotesque patterns. The guard's body remained upright for a heartbeat before toppling sideways.
Evelyn stared in shock. Around them, his brain matter erupted as the guards outside realized what had happened.
Malthane's face had gone white with rage. He kicked the body viciously, then again, as if violence might somehow retrieve the information that had died with the traitor.
"The orphanage," he snarled, his careful composure finally cracking. "That's all we have. The royal orphanage."
He burst from the cart, leaving Evelyn alone, she could hear him shouting orders, demanding searches, mobilizing every resource at his disposal.
But as she stared at the dead traitor's body, Evelyn felt something that surprised her, gratitude. Someone had been watching. Someone had protected Adam's identity, and indirectly saved her too, since she was ready to kill him before he could describe Adam to her father, but the head explosion saved her from doing such an action.
We're not as alone as we thought, she realized.
Back in the ruins of the explosion site, Adam sat motionless against the crumbling wall, the opened book trembling in his hands. His eyes were wide, pupils dilated not with fear but with something far more complex, wonder, confusion, and a dawning recognition that made his breath catch in his throat.
His lips moved slightly, as if re-reading words that defied everything he had expected to find. The book that should have contained maps or coordinates or tactical instructions held something else entirely.
Impossible.
He looked up at the darkening sky, then back down at the pages in disbelief. His fingers traced the words as if touching them might make them more believable.
This can't be right, his expression seemed to say. But what if it is?
Adam took a shuddering breath and looked at the first line again.
Once upon a time...