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"You said it in Loop Six."
Kael's hand is still on my wrist. His grip didn't loosen after the kiss broke. If anything, it tightened.
"I don't know what that means," he says.
"You do." I pull against his hold. He doesn't let go. "You said, 'If you're going to lie, at least make it interesting.' Right before you put the blade through my ribs."
His eyes narrow. The candlelight catches the edge of his jaw, the line of his mouth. He's deciding whether I'm insane or dangerous. Maybe both.
"I've never killed you," he says.
Yet.
"Not in this loop," I say. "Not yet."
"Stop saying that word."
"Loop?" I smile. It feels like cracking glass. "What should I call it? The resets? The do-overs? The seventeen times I've died in this gods-damned fortress?"
He lets go. Steps back. His hand goes to the hilt of his short blade, the one he keeps on his belt even inside his own quarters.
"You're not well," he says.
I laugh. Can't help it. "No. I'm really not."
"Seraph—"
"Twelve of those deaths were you." I meet his eyes. "Three were Varen. One was poison I couldn't trace. One was a fall I'm still not sure was an accident. And the last one—" I stop. My throat closes.
The last one was me. I slit my own wrists in the bath after I realized the loop wouldn't end even if I ran.
Kael doesn't move. Doesn't blink.
"You need a physician," he says.
"I need the war plans in your study."
That gets a reaction. His whole body goes still, the way a predator does right before it strikes.
"Say that again."
"The plans. Third drawer, left side of your desk. Locked with a ward key you keep in your boot." I tilt my head. "Or did you move it after Loop Fourteen? You did that once before."
His blade clears the sheath. Not all the way. Just enough that I see steel.
"Who sent you?"
"Ashveil. Obviously." I don't look at the blade. I look at him. "But they don't know about the loops. No one does except Lya, and she only believes me because I told her how she dies in Loop Nine."
"How."
It's not a question. It's a command.
I swallow. "Varen puts a knife in her back when she tries to get me out. She bleeds out in my arms and tells me to run. I don't. That's the loop where you burn me alive in the courtyard."
Kael sheathes the blade. Walks to the window. His shoulders are rigid.
"You're telling me I've executed you twelve times."
"Thirteen if you count the one where you just watched."
"For what?"
"Espionage. Treason. Consorting with enemy agents." I count them on my fingers. "Once for murder, but that was a bad loop. I killed Varen first and you didn't ask questions."
He turns. The moonlight through the window makes his face a study in shadow and bone.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because you're starting to remember." I take a step closer. He doesn't move. "That line you said after the kiss. 'If I wanted you dead, you'd be cold already.' You said that in Loop Eight right before you changed your mind."
His jaw tightens. "I don't remember."
"You dream it. Don't you."
Silence. Long enough that I know I'm right.
"Fragments," he says finally. "Your face. Blood on stone. A blade I don't recognize."
"Ashveil steel. Melted down from my mother's crown." I touch the collar of my dress. Beneath the fabric, my pulse is hammering. "You kept it after the first time. Used it every loop after that like some kind of ritual."
He crosses the space between us in two strides. Grabs my shoulders. Not rough, but not gentle either.
"If this is real," he says, "if I've killed you twelve times, why are you still here? Why aren't you running?"
"Because running doesn't work. I've tried." I don't pull away. His hands are warm through the thin silk of my sleeves. I can feel each finger, the pressure, the heat. "The loop resets three months from the day I arrive. No matter what I do. No matter where I go."
"Then what's the plan?"
"Steal the war plans. Get them back to Ashveil. End the war before the reset."
His grip tightens. "You just admitted you're a spy."
"I am."
"And you think I'll let you walk out of here?"
"No." I meet his eyes. They're gray, the color of smoke over iron. "I think you'll help me."
He laughs. It's a short, bitter sound. "Why in the frozen hells would I do that?"
"Because in Loop Fifteen, you figured it out on your own." I reach up, slow, and touch the side of his face. He doesn't stop me. "You found the proof. Confronted me. I told you everything."
"And?"
"You said you'd help me break it." My thumb brushes his cheekbone. His skin is rough, scarred at the temple. "We had six days. Then Varen found out and poisoned your wine. You died in my arms and I reset twelve hours later."
His breath catches. I feel it.
"You're lying."
"I'm not."
"Prove it."
I drop my hand. Step back. His arms fall to his sides.
"The scar under your ribs. Left side. You got it in the Siege of Greyveil when a spear went through the gap in your plate." I count on my fingers again. "You have a sister named Mara. She's dead. Killed in a skirmish eight years ago and you blame yourself because you weren't there. You drink black tea, no sugar, and you hate the taste but you drink it anyway because your father did."
His face is stone.
"You talk in your sleep," I add. "In Loop Twelve, we had three weeks before it all went to hell. I learned a lot."
He turns away. Runs a hand through his hair. I can see the tension in his spine, the way his shoulders rise and fall.
"This is insane," he says.
"I know."
"If you're telling the truth—"
"I am."
"—then we're both dead the moment Varen finds out."
"Not if we're faster."
He looks at me over his shoulder. "Faster how?"
"The plans. Tonight." I cross to his desk. It's oak, scarred from years of use, covered in maps and dispatch reports. I trace the edge of the largest map, the one showing the full spread of the Seven City Alliance. "There's a location marked here. Third grave on the map, you called it. It's where the phoenix heart is buried."
Kael goes very still.
"How do you know that name?"
"You told me. Loop Fifteen." I tap the map. The ink is old, the parchment worn. "You said if the heart wakes, the war ends. One way or another."
He crosses to the desk. Stands beside me. Close enough that I feel the heat of him, the weight of his presence.
"The heart's a legend," he says.
"It's not. And you know where it is."
His hand comes down on the map. Palm flat over the marked location. "If I give you this, you'll take it back to Ashveil."
"Yes."
"And they'll use it."
"To end the war."
"To destroy Ironfate."
I don't answer. Because he's not wrong.
His jaw works. He's weighing it. Treason against trust. The fortress against me.
"What happens if I say no?" he asks.
"You kill me in forty-eight hours. I reset. We do this again."
"And if I say yes?"
"I don't know." I turn to face him. We're too close. I can see the flecks of blue in his gray eyes, the faint scar at his temple. "That's the truth. I don't know what happens when we go off script."
He searches my face. Looking for the lie. For the crack.
"You're asking me to betray everything I've sworn to protect," he says.
"I'm asking you to trust me."
"I don't trust you."
"I know." I don't look away. "But you want to."
His hand moves. Slow. Comes up to my face, thumb at my jaw, tilting my chin up. His eyes drop to my mouth.
"This is a mistake," he says.
"Probably."
He leans in. Stops a breath away.
"If you're lying—"
"I'm not."
His mouth brushes mine. Soft. Testing. Then harder, his hand sliding into my hair, pulling me closer. I taste smoke and black tea and something sharper, like steel.
The map crinkles under my hand.
And then the room shifts.
Not the kiss. The air. It goes cold, so cold my breath fogs. Kael pulls back, his hand still in my hair, eyes wide.
"What—"
The map glows.
Red light bleeds up from the parchment, from the spot marked third grave. It spreads like blood in water, tracing the lines of roads and rivers, filling in the borders of the Alliance.
Kael swears. Yanks his hand off the map. The light doesn't stop.
It pulses. Once. Twice.
And then I feel it.
The phoenix heart. Waking.
It's been asleep for sixteen loops. Buried under ash and iron and years of war. But now it's awake, and it knows I'm here.
My chest burns. I gasp, double over. Kael catches me, his hands on my arms, holding me upright.
"Seraph—"
"It's waking," I choke out. "The heart. It's—"
The light flares. Blinding. The map curls at the edges, smoking.
And then it's gone.
The room is dark again. Just candlelight and moonshine. The map is whole, unmarked, like nothing happened.
Kael's still holding me. His grip is iron.
"What the hell was that?"
I can't answer. Because I'm staring at the map.
At the third grave.
At Ashveil.
Back home, in the crypt beneath the skyhold, something is moving.
Every corpse in the royal tombs opens its eyes.