Mother of Learning. Arc 3 Incomplete

Deciding he couldn’t just backpedal now, Zorian nonetheless decided against mentioning time travel in any way and settled for making something up. He told Zenomir about him overhearing a plan to invade the city during the summer festival. At first he dismissed it as some kind of prank because of its ludicrous nature, but when the two cloaked figures noticed him eavesdropping and started throwing spells he didn’t recognize at him, he grew concerned. Zenomir took him a lot more seriously than Zorian thought he would, and told him to go home and leave everything up to him from now on.

Huh. That went surprisingly well — at least Zenomir hadn’t dragged him off to the police station to give a statement right away, though he suspected something like that might be in his near future. He paced nervously around in his room, unable to sleep and steadily losing the fight to keep his growing apprehension in check. Smart or not, the deed was done, and now the only thing he could do was wait and see what the consequences of his decision would be. For him and for everyone.

A knock on the door interrupted him. Strong, confident knocking that nonetheless only lasted for a second or two — completely unlike the knocking of anyone he knew.

«Coming!» Zorian called out, suspecting it was someone coming to talk to him about the story he told Zenomir. «What can I- urk!»

Zorian stared dumbly at the blade sticking out of his chest, his mouth opening in an unvoiced scream. He had just enough time to look at his assailant — a short figure dressed in loose black clothes and a faceless white mask — before the blade was painfully wrenched out of his body and then immediately inserted again into his chest cavity. Again and again and again…

When darkness consumed his vision he was actually glad he was dying. Being repeatedly stabbed in the chest hurts.

Zorian’s eyes abruptly shot open as sharp pain erupted from his stomach. His whole body convulsed, buckling against the object that fell on him, and suddenly he was wide awake, not a trace of drowsiness in his mind.

«Good m-!»

Kirielle was cut off as Zorian shot upright, eyes wide in fright, gasping for breath. He was killed! They killed him! He told someone about the attack and he was killed that very evening! How the hell had they even found out that fast!? Was Zenomir in on the attack or were they just that well informed!?

«Nightmare?» Kirielle asked.

Zorian breathed deeply, ignoring the phantom pain in his chest as he did so. «Yeah. Definitely a nightmare.»

Zorian knew he should focus on what Ilsa was saying, but for the life of him his mind wouldn’t stop dwelling on what had happened. In retrospect, he shouldn’t be so surprised at that particular turn of events — an invasion of that scale cannot be kept secret without some hefty inside help, so of course they’d find out about anyone raising an alarm about them! And besides, if stopping the invasion had as simple a solution as notifying the law enforcement, surely Zach would have already done it and Zorian wouldn’t be repeating this month for the third time.

Although, he was starting to develop a healthy dose of respect for these… restarts. This was the second time he died and he only went through this month thrice. He seemed prone to dying. Didn’t Zach say something about him always getting blown up in that initial barrage unless he did something about it?

He snapped back into the real world when he realized Ilsa had stopped talking and was looking at him intently. He gave her a questioning look.

«Are you quite alright?» she asked, and Zorian noticed her glancing at his hands. Why would she-

Oh.

His hands were shaking. He was probably quite pale too, if the skin on his hands was of any indication. He rubbed his hands together a few times and then balled them up into fists to reassert control over them.

«Not quite,» Zorian admitted. «But I will be. You don’t have to worry about it.»

She stared at him for a second longer and then nodded.

«Very well,» she said. «Do you want me to teleport you to the Academy? I can’t imagine riding the train in the state you’re in is going to be very pleasant for you.»

Zorian blinked, at loss what to say. He disdained train travel at the best of times, so an offer like this was a godsend at the moment, but… why?

«I don’t want to inconvenience you…» he tried.

«Don’t worry, I was going there anyway,» she said. «It’s the least I could do for getting to you so late and taking the choice of your mentor away from you.»

Well, that much was true. Xvim really was a horrible, useless mentor.