Kael did not exist.

  And yet, he was.

  Awareness came in pulses—brief moments of crity in an endless sea of nothing. No body. No heartbeat. No breath. Just consciousness suspended in absolute darkness.

  Am I dead?

  The thought formed and dissolved like smoke. Of course he was dead. He remembered the garden. Era's tears. The dagger sliding between his ribs with expert precision. The betrayal in its most perfect form—death delivered with a kiss by the woman he loved.

  Era.

  Her name brought a surge of emotions—love, confusion, betrayal, forgiveness—all tangled together in the formless void of his existence. With the emotion came memory, sharp and painful.

  "I never thought we'd make it this far," Era confessed, her golden hair spread across his chest as they y beneath the stars. They had made camp in a rare peaceful gde within the Shadow Forest, their companions sleeping nearby.

  "Did you doubt the prophecy?" he had asked, fingers tracing idle patterns along her arm.

  "I doubted myself," she admitted. "My worthiness to stand beside you."

  He had ughed softly at that. "If anyone's unworthy, it's the farm boy pying at being a hero."

  "You were never pying, Kael. You were always the hero." Her voice had been so certain, so full of faith. "Every choice you've made proves it."

  The memory fractured, shards spinning away into the darkness. Other fragments rose to take its pce.

  Thorne's booming ugh as he lifted an entire table during a tavern celebration.

  Marcus teaching him how to pick a lock, the assassin's scarred hands moving with surprising gentleness.

  Vivian's reluctant smile when he'd finally mastered a defensive spell she'd been trying to teach him for weeks.

  Zephyr standing silent sentinel during his nightmares, the elf's quiet presence a comfort in the darkest hours.

  Friends. Family. Betrayers.

  The memories brought no physical pain in this bodiless state, but something like it rippled through his consciousness. If he'd had teeth, he would have gritted them. If he'd had hands, they would have clenched into fists.

  Why? Why kill me if the transformation was inevitable? The question spun unanswered in the void. Why not try to save me? Why not search for a cure?

  The darkness offered no reply.

  Time had no meaning here. He might have drifted for seconds or centuries. Occasionally, he felt a strange pull—like a current in the ocean of nothingness—drawing him somewhere he couldn't perceive.

  Then, without warning, a voice.

  Hello, Kael Lightbringer.

  It wasn't really a voice—not sound waves hitting eardrums—but rather an impression directly upon his consciousness. Neither male nor female, young nor old, it simply was.

  Who's there? He directed the thought into the void.

  A witness. A caretaker. A guide for those between.

  A faint glow appeared in the darkness—not light as he had known it in life, but a different presence in the void. It expanded slowly, revealing a shape that his mind struggled to comprehend. The entity seemed to exist in more dimensions than he could perceive, with edges that folded in on themselves and appendages that moved through space in impossible ways.

  Are you... death? Kael asked.

  A ripple passed through the entity that might have been amusement.

  Death is a transition, not a being. I watch the spaces between life and life. The void through which souls pass.

  Am I... moving on? To whatever comes next?

  That depends on you. The entity's presence expanded, enveloping Kael's consciousness in something almost warm. Most souls pass quickly through this pce, drawn to their next existence by the natural order. But you resist.

  Had he been resisting? Kael wasn't sure. He only knew that he felt unfinished, incomplete.

  I didn't choose to die, he thought bitterly. I was murdered by those I trusted most.

  Indeed. The entity pulsed with what felt like sympathy. Your death serves a purpose in a cycle far older than you can imagine. A cycle constructed to maintain a certain... bance.

  The Demon King said something about a cycle too, Kael recalled. And Era mentioned it before she killed me. What is this cycle? Why does it exist?

  Questions worth answering, the entity acknowledged. But knowledge has its price in the void. Are you willing to pay it?

  Kael would have ughed if he'd had a mouth. What could I possibly have left to give? I've already lost my life, my friends, my future.

  You have your purpose—the drive that keeps you here when you should have moved on. You have your identity—the self-awareness that resists dissolution. Both can be surrendered as payment.

  And what would I get in return?

  A second chance, the entity replied. A new life in which to discover the truth of the cycle and, perhaps, break it.

  Hope stirred within Kael's formless consciousness. You're saying I could live again?

  Not as you were, the entity cautioned. The natural ws cannot be so easily circumvented. But your essence—what made you Kael—can be born anew in a different form.

  The meaning became clear. As a demon, Kael realized. That's the cycle, isn't it? Heroes become demons. Demons fight heroes. Over and over.

  You begin to understand, the entity acknowledged. The question is: what will you do with that understanding?

  Kael considered the offer. A second life. A chance to uncover the truth behind this cycle of heroes and demons. Perhaps even a chance at justice—or was it vengeance?—against those who had betrayed him.

  What exactly would I be giving up? he asked cautiously.

  Your immediate purpose. Your conscious knowledge of why you have returned. You will be born anew, innocent and unaware. Your memories and identity will remain, but buried deep—accessible only when you are ready to recim them.

  How will I know when that is? How will I remember anything at all?

  The entity's presence pulsed. Growth through adversity reveals what is hidden. Pain uncovers truth. When your new form faces trials that echo your past, memories will resurface. First as dreams, then as knowledge.

  So I'll forget everything until some random event triggers a memory? Kael's consciousness roiled with frustration. That could take years—decades!

  It is the price of circumventing the natural order, the entity replied, unmoved. Your soul must be allowed to develop naturally in its new vessel. Forcing full awareness too soon would destroy both.

  Kael would have sighed if he could. What choice do I really have? Drift here forever or accept your terms.

  There is always choice, Kael Lightbringer. Even in the void between. The entity's presence shifted, revealing glimpses of other paths—dissolution into peaceful nothingness, onward movement to realms he couldn't comprehend, even a faint possibility of true resurrection that glimmered briefly before fading.

  But none offered what he truly wanted: answers. Justice. The chance to understand why his trusted companions had turned on him so easily, why this cycle existed at all.

  I accept, he decided. I'll pay your price for a second chance.

  Wise, the entity seemed to approve. Now, release your purpose. Let go of your conscious intent. Trust that your deeper self will remember when the time is right.

  Kael focused on the burning questions that had kept him anchored in the void—Why was I betrayed? What is this cycle? How can it be broken?—and deliberately loosened his grasp on them. It felt like untethering himself from an anchor, like falling without fear.

  Good, the entity murmured. And now your sense of self. Not your soul or your essence, but your identity as Kael the hero. It must sleep until you are ready.

  This was harder. What was he without his identity? What remained if not Kael Lightbringer, the farm boy who became a hero? The memories of his life—his parents' faces, his first sword lesson, the weight of responsibility when the prophecy chose him—all seemed to define him.

  Let go, the entity encouraged. What is essential remains. What you truly are cannot be lost.

  With great effort, Kael released his grip on his identity. It didn't vanish but rather folded inward, compressed into a dense core within his essence—present but dormant, like a seed waiting for the right conditions to sprout.

  Immediately, the void around him changed. The endless darkness gained texture and direction. He felt himself moving—or being moved—along a current that hadn't been perceptible before.

  What's happening? he asked, his thoughts already simpler, less defined by his past.

  You journey to your new beginning, the entity expined, its presence beginning to fade as the current strengthened. Remember this: the cycle can be broken, but not by force alone. Understanding is the key.

  Understanding what? But even as he formed the question, Kael felt knowledge slipping away. Who was he asking? What cycle needed breaking? The concepts grew distant, important but no longer urgent.

  Farewell, soul-who-was-Kael, the entity's fading presence whispered. Until we meet again between lives.

  Then it was gone, and Kael—no, not Kael anymore, but something simpler, purer—was rushing along the current, drawn inexorably toward a distant point of connection. The journey through the void accelerated, time and space bending around his essence.

  Ahead, he sensed a vessel waiting—unborn but alive, developing in darkness not unlike the void itself. A demon child growing in its mother's womb, its forming consciousness a perfect hollow that his essence could fill.

  As he approached this new beginning, the st fragments of his identity as Kael Lightbringer folded away into the deepest recesses of his soul. His final coherent thought was not of betrayal or revenge, but a simple, determined promise:

  I will remember. Someday, I will remember.

  Then his essence merged with the unborn demon child, and the void between was left behind. In the Rebirth Cavern deep within the demon realm, a pregnant demoness gasped as her child kicked with sudden, unexpected strength—a new life carrying an ancient soul.

  The cycle continued, but this time, perhaps, it might unfold differently.