The sky never changed.
The same birds cried in the same rhythm. The same breeze passed through the open windows at the same time. The same cloud—thin and curved like a blade—floated lazily overhead.
And the same moment came again and again.
Kale on the altar.
The blade in his hand.
His final words forming on his lips.
And then—
Time rewound.
Back to dawn.
Scarlet gasped for breath on the marble floor of the ritual chamber.
Again.
The same day.
By the sixth loop, she understood.
Something had broken.
Not the world—time itself.
They were trapped.
Just the two of them.
Kale and Scarlet.
Everyone else in the estate walked the same steps, spoke the same words—but only she and Kale remembered.
He didn't speak much at first.
But by the third loop, she heard it in his thoughts:
"This wasn't supposed to happen. This is new."
"Another loop… inside the loop?"
"The sacrifice is frozen. Something's stopping the end."
Scarlet tried everything.
Stopping the ritual.
Locking Kale in his chambers.
Burning the blade.
Even killing herself.
But every time, the day restarted the moment Kale tried to end it all.
By the eighth loop, she stopped fighting.
She started listening.
They sat beneath the storm lanterns that night, for what felt like the hundredth time.
Scarlet sipped the same tea she now knew by scent alone. Kale leaned against the column beside her, watching the stars freeze in place.
"You never told me why," she said.
Kale looked at her.
"Why you keep dying for us."
He was silent a moment.
Then—
"I don't remember when I started doing it for others."
"It used to be for her. For you."
"Now it's… habit."
She looked at him sharply.
"That's not an answer. That's a resignation."
"It is. I gave up a long time ago."
She reached for his hand.
He didn't pull away.
By the twelfth loop, they didn't speak much.
They walked through the estate. Trained together. Read together. Watched the fire.
Scarlet began to laugh again.
And Kale—Kale smiled.
More than once.
They had no days but one.
So they began to live in it.
By the twentieth loop, she whispered it for the first time.
"I love you."
Kale froze.
She wasn't sure if he heard it in her voice—or her thoughts.
But he turned to her slowly, and his hand cupped her cheek.
"I wish I could let myself believe that."
"You can."
His lips were soft and cold.
But they warmed against hers.
On the twenty-fourth loop, Kale broke down.
He knelt in the garden, clutching his head, soulmarks flaring gold and blue and red.
Scarlet ran to him, kneeling beside him.
"What's wrong?!"
"The sacrifice wants to begin. The loop is forcing me back."
"It's unravelling. It won't let us stay here."
"It knows I've started to want this."
"It knows I'm hesitating."
She gripped his shoulders. "Then don't do it! Stay! Fight it!"
He met her eyes.
Tears slipped from his—just one.
"This is the first time in hundreds of loops… I don't want to die."
The next morning, the sky was different.
The cloud was gone.
Time was moving again.
And the sacrifice was waiting.