Just as the letter said, at 7:00 pm, a young guardswoman comes to my room to lead me through the winding palace.

Ichormai is a palace with three layers: the outer palace, the inner palace, and the kernel. Lesser officials and foreign dignitaries stay in the outer palace. The inner palace is populated by bloodline nobles and high-ranking officials, and there is also a combat school for high-blooded scions.

The kernel is reserved only for the princes, their families, and specially invited guests.

First we pass through the outer palace, filled with innumerable paintings and sculptures and with floors of marble and walls of filigreed white, black, and crimson accents. Entering the inner palace feels like stepping into a different world: It’s more garden than palace, filled with colorful plants and grassy courtyards. Open wooden hallways stretch throughout, and beautiful stone and metal statues peer out from foliage and flowers. Where the outer palace felt echoey and almost unpopulated, the inner palace is fecund: vitality is everywhere, and people are found in every hall and manicured plot, conversing, meditating, reading...even sparring.

I can’t help but smile seeing all of the energy and exuberance. The inner palace...it’s idyllic, tranquil, but also full of humanity.

But we don’t stop there. The guard leads me through a winding side corridor until we come before an imposing, vault-like door. The immediate vicinity almost feels like a servant’s passage: dust and dirt gather in the corners of the hall, and the floor looks obviously more weathered, its stone discolored in areas and marred by scratches. The marble even dips down in one area, as though enough people have walked on it over the years to press the stone down.

“We will wait here,” the guard says, her voice stoic and posture stiff. “The prince will come when he is ready.”

He must know we’re here with his ability to see the future and all. Sure enough, about ten seconds after we’ve stopped, the door opens. The guard looks at me, face expressionless.

“He’s ready to receive you,” she explains, tilting her head towards the empty doorway.

I nod my head. This entire wing of the palace has been understandably warded against detection magic, including my ability to sense vitality and death energy. I can’t sense anyone on the other side of the door.

I walk forward into the portal, leaving the guard behind. The door shuts behind me, gasping air as it closes, reminding me of the entrance to a vault...or tomb.

I find myself in a long hallway that naturally expands into an open, many-windowed room. The room’s tiles are ornate, but also rustic, nothing like the expensive marble outfitting the outer palace. The walls also convey a sense of age: they are a gentle off-white, like the pages of an aged book, or slightly yellowed teeth. Tied to support pillars near the walls are expressive tapestries depicting epic scenes, filled with people bearing weapons, offering tribute, and riding horses. The tapestries are a dark navy, giving the impression of a night sky bearing the imprint of human history.

I hear the calls of birdsong, and notice a pair of uncaged parakeets hanging from the tapestry on the right wall, one green, one blue. Underneath them is a small vessel of water filled with small toys. One of the birds appears to be wearing a cloth diaper, of all things.

And there, at the very back of the mostly-empty room, body mostly-concealed by an old divan, is a figure shrouded in sunlight. His head is tilted to the side so that I can see one eye and the profile of his nose and jaw. Cornsilk hair shines white, his sun-kissed eyelashes like the points of stars. His hair is long, obscuring his forehead and ears, stretching down to his shoulder blades.

“So you’re the one,” he says, turning so that I can see both blue eyes. His arms drape over the intricate wood of the divan, casting short shadows on its dark, floral cloth. His face and figure are androgynous, lanky and well-toned, features sharp and classically aquiline. A small but ornate hair ornament lies next to his right ear, its gems casting little blue shadows on his beige robe.

“Hello,” I say, wondering how there can be so much bright sunlight in the evening. “I am Ignatius Dunai, Corona of Godora.” I wait for him to introduce himself, but he remains quiet, the corners of his mouth curling up ever so slightly. “I presume that you are the Crowned Prime.”

He snorts at that. “Call me Euryphel.”

“Not Karen?” I ask.

“Never Karen. Though if I’m not mistaken, you ask people to call you Ian, a shortening of your middle name.”

I nod. “It’s true. So, His Majesty Karen Euryphel Selejo...thank you for inviting me.” He technically invited me for dinner, but I don’t see any tables or chairs, nor do I detect any food. I feel a bit awkward standing in the middle of the room.

“I have questions for you,” he says, hands fiddling with a stray thread on the divan. “Why,” he begins, inclining his head, “are you the center of everything?”

I chuckle. It’s the same question from his note. “Do you want to guess?” I’m still unsure whether I’ve correctly guessed that being in a dilation loop interferes with End practitioner fate-sight.

“Everything is tangled...and points to you. Every arrow of fate points...toward...you.” He pauses. “Even mine. None of this is real, is it?” His tone is suddenly playful, his expression like that of a cat playing with a mouse.

I cough out of shock, swallowing air the wrong way. “It’s real for me,” I retort. “But for you...no.” How did he come to that conclusion so quickly? Even after seeing my dreams, Ajun’ra was quick to deny the possibility.

He closes his eyes and basks in the sun for a moment, face serene. Quite unlike how I would expect someone to act if they found out that they’re not actually real.

“Why are you stuck, here, in an unreal world?” the prince asks. “I can tell by your accent that you’re from eastern Shattradan, though you aren’t from house Gilly or Illalios.” The most powerful families in Gent, Solar, and Koria, the eastern provinces. “How did you come to the Ho’ostar peninsula?”

I smile. The SPU primarily speaks Swellish, the language dominant in Shattradan. As a Solar native, my Swellish is slightly more lilted and has harder consonants than the SPU pronunciation. In Selejo, where Academia Hector is located, the vernacular tongue is Luxish, which is also the language of Godora and Menocht.

“I am just as baffled as you. One day, I woke up in a many-layered temporal loop, one I have yet to exit.”

Euryphel’s only sign of emotion is the slight inward pull of his eyebrows. “You woke up in a dilation loop without any recollection of how you entered?” He pushes himself off the divan and walks over to one of the windows, proceeding to sit on the sill. “Then you don’t have an escape word?”

I chuckle dryly. “If I did, I would have used it by now.”

His gaze is thoughtful. “How long have you been in the chamber?”

I exhale a sharp breath. “A few years. I lost track for a while in the beginning.”

The prince chuckles darkly. “What a nightmare.” He shakes his head. “Whoever did this to you...what they’ve done is deeply immoral.” He points to the now-vacant divan and says, “Do sit.”

I recline on the old divan, its well-worn fabric soft and comfortable.

“The worst part is,” I say, expression dour, “that I probably agreed to do this.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Before the loop...I had not awakened my affinity.”

A look of understanding enters the prince’s eyes. “I see. Some people would do anything for the hope of awakening.”

There is silence for a moment.

“This is the first time we’ve spoken, isn’t it?” he asks.

I nod.

“When I used to use the royal dilation chamber as a child,” Euryphel explains, “I hated interacting with people in it. I could never forget that they weren’t real, that their memory was temporary.”

“Before the loop, I was afraid of people,” I confess. “At least inside of it, I’ve learned that what others think is largely unimportant.”

The prince laughs, his eyes bright. “You don’t really believe that, do you?”

I wave him off. “Regardless, like you said, I too try to avoid any unnecessary social contact. Though as the loop has worn on, I’ve found myself growing increasingly desperate for someone to talk to.”

“Someone who will remember,” Euryphel nods.

“Or, at the very least...someone who knows.”

“I guess I’m better than nothing,” the prince says, his mouth quirking. “This has been a refreshing conversation.” He walks over to the divan and sits on the left armrest. “Now, tell me everything.”

—

By the end of my brief recounting, the prince has an inscrutable look in his eyes.

“You know, I thought I was lonely,” he murmurs. “But you are, by far, the loneliest creature I’ve ever met.”

I turn away. “You’re overstating it.” Surely prisoners in isolation cells are more lonely, aren’t they? My ordeal is nothing compared to theirs. “But why are you lonely?” The Crowned Prime is surrounded by people: attendants, nobles, family members. He is young and handsome, something like 28 years of age, and I can imagine his quick wit and even temperament an easy addition to social gatherings.

“When you’re as powerful as us,” he begins; I’m not sure if that’s a royal “us” or he’s referring to me as well. “People see you as more than what you are. A man, but not of the same flesh; a person forged not of iron but steel.”

I understand immediately. How do you treat someone with the power to kill millions, someone like me? You can’t help but distance yourself, conceal yourself...pretend that nothing has changed. Too little power, and you’re helpless; too much, and you’re a threat.

At this point, it’s quite late, and I have yet to eat anything...unsurprisingly, my stomach growls.

“Oh, we were supposed to eat dinner, weren’t we?” the prince says, massaging his jaw absentmindedly. “Hmm, most of the servants are likely home to their families by now, including the kitchen staff.”

“I’m fine,” I retort. It sounds like the prince has already eaten.

“You know,” he murmurs, ignoring me. Eyes glinting in the light of the ever-sunny windows, he says, “we could go out and eat.” The way he says “go out” makes it sound like he’s planning something scandalous.

I give him a look. “Wouldn’t someone recognize you?”

Euryphel shrugs. “Possibly. But it’s not too difficult if you’re wearing the right thing and aren’t trailed by an entourage of guards and sycophants.”

I nod slowly. “Alright.”

“Besides,” the prince says, “I have an inkling that there’s a place we can go that will help you solve this layer’s puzzle and get you one step closer to leaving the loop.” He waves me on with a hand as he slides off the window sill and onto the floor. “First, follow me out of the sun room.”

The room sure is aptly named.

He walks to the back of the room, following the hallway in the direction I came from. He even walks to the vaulted door I used as an entrance. But when he gives the door a light tap, it opens like it weighs nothing, and the room beyond its threshold is not the dingy hallway I expected. This room looks like the proper bedroom for a prince: massive, lit by an overhead chandelier, and outfitted in tasteful furniture. The prince walks confidently to the smallest of three large dressers and pulls the second drawer from the top. He immediately begins to compare three plain, brown tunics.

Is that entire dresser...just filled with nondescript reg clothes?

The prince turns back to look at me, then shakes his head and places the tunics back in the drawer. He closes it and instead opens the drawer on the bottom, withdrawing a white linen shirt and a pair of black trousers.

He tosses these onto the floor, then walks over to a different dresser and takes out a red jacket with gold embroidery. He carries this jacket to his bed, grabbing the shirt and pants on his way with his foot and punting them onto the massive bedframe.

“I can’t dress down too much,” he explains, grinning. “I need to match with you.”

The prince faces away from me toward his bed, then undresses. I turn away out of politeness. I wait about a minute, then peek over. The prince has transitioned from dressing to applying some kind of makeup to his face. He sits at a small wooden vanity, his hands controlling a fine brush with practised ease.

After another five minutes of makeup, the prince wipes his hands on a heavily-discolored rag and opens a jar of brown mud. He sticks a finger in it, then dabs some onto his closed eyelids. The mud quickly absorbs, and when he opens his eyes, they are no longer blue, but brown.

I must admit...Euryphel is skilled in disguises. He has his long hair in a tail, tied with a leather thong, with a few strands framing his face. His features are even sharper than before, the shadows of his cheeks and nose enhanced, making him look older than he is. His eyebrows are thicker and slightly darker, matching his butterscotch-brown eyes, and the combination of jacket, shirt, and pants gives him the air of a wealthy bachelor.

“You must have a lot of practice sneaking out,” I comment. “I’m impressed.”

“Not as much as you’d think,” he says, sighing. “You know, I have about a billion things that need doing, and I’m neglecting all of them. It’s making me slightly antsy, even if none of them actually...well.” He arches an eyebrow.

“I still can’t quite wrap my head around how willing you are to believe none of this is real,” I murmur as the prince leads me from the room.

He steps into a pair of boots, tugs them on, and opens the vault-door. This time, I see him struggle a bit, like the door is heavier. When it opens, we’re standing in the outer palace, in some kind of small, empty salon.

I turn back and laugh when I see the door has a “SERVANTS ONLY” sign hanging on it. The prince grins and chuckles back.

“I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t experienced it before myself,” he explains. “I’ve been in a dilation chamber loads of times, and it’s always the same...except all the arrows point at me, rather than someone else.”

The prince hasn’t moved since we emerged from the door.

“I suppose that makes sense,” I reply. “Where are we going, by the way?”

“Oh, apologies; we’re just waiting a moment.” He walks back over to the “SERVANTS ONLY” door–the one we just came from–and opens it without any issue, revealing a passageway clearly intended for servant use. “Our exit to the street is just through here.”

We navigate the dimly-lit hallway, eventually arriving at a green wooden door that the prince opens with a kick.

“Ah, finally, fresh air,” he exclaims, breathing in deeply and laughing. “Real stars.” He turns to me and puts a hand in his pocket. “What kind of food do you feel like? My treat!”