Immortal-Slaying, Run Nine

I had one hand on the abbey's bronze gate and the other wrapped around a knife when the system wrote my final condition across the sky. RETURN CONDITION UPDATED: BIND YOURSELF TO ELIAS VALE IN A PUBLIC COVENANT. The letters burned pale blue against the rain-dark clouds. I stared at them until the last word flickered out. "No," I said. The bronze gate didn't answer. It had been built to keep out wolves, not opinions. Behind me, Ashmere Abbey clung to the ridge above the town of Bellwether. Its slate roofs shone with rain, and every window in the eastern wing glowed. Someone had lit the lamps early. The council must have called another meeting. The abbey bell rang once. My left wrist went cold. A small circle of silver script appeared beneath my skin, the system's mark. It had been there since my first day in this world, nine attempts ago. Every time I died or failed beyond recovery, I woke at the same moment: dawn, the day before my arrival at Ashmere. Not a second chance, the system had called it. A sequence of chances. I had used eight. "Show me the terms," I said. The script brightened. New words unspooled in front of me. COVENANT MUST BE VOLUNTARY. COVENANT MUST BE RECORDED BY THE ABBEY. COVENANT MUST BE WITH ELIAS VALE. RETURN GATE WILL OPEN UPON COMPLETION. The first line was a nice touch. It meant the system couldn't take my hand and sign for me. I had checked that in run three, after a pair of silver chains dragged me to the altar while I screamed. They'd stopped inches from the contract, then snapped apart. It had taken me four runs to understand that a condition could be impossible without being technically forced. "Why Elias?" I asked. The script dimmed. That was the system's favorite answer. My knife was a cheap thing I'd stolen from the kitchens. I slid it into my boot and turned back toward the abbey. The gate stood open behind me. It always had. The road down the mountain was slick with rain, but the road had never been the problem. In run one, I'd left alone. I'd fallen through thin ice in a ravine and woken up at dawn. In run two, I'd trusted the abbot. I'd lost my voice in a ceremony meant to make me useful. In run three, I'd tried to force Elias into a binding. The contract had rejected me, and Elias had thrown himself between me and the abbey's warding fire. In run four, I'd asked him for help. He'd said no. I'd left anyway. In run five, I'd stayed and tried to become someone he might love. In run six, I'd called that strategy what it was and hated myself for it. In run seven, I'd found a way out of the valley and used it. In run eight, the mountain had taken everything I'd learned and made a ruin of it. I walked back up the hill. The bell rang a second time. A council meeting. If it followed the same schedule as the previous runs, Elias would be there, standing straight-backed beside the old oak table while Abbot Corren argued that my presence was a threat. That was where I'd find him. The abbey's main doors opened before I reached them. Elias stepped into the rain in his dark wool coat, his brown hair damp at the temples. A silver clasp held his collar closed. He looked as tired as I felt, though we'd spent the last eight runs meeting for the first time. "I was looking for you," he said. I didn't ask how he'd known I was at the gate. He'd found me there in three different runs. "Did the council send you?" "No." He glanced at my boots, then my face. "Are you leaving?" "I was." "And now?" "Now I have a question." He waited. Elias was good at waiting. It was one of his more irritating qualities. "Would you marry me?" I asked. For a moment, the rain seemed louder than the abbey bell. Elias's expression didn't change, but his hand tightened on the edge of the door. "Why?" "Because the sky told me to." "That's not a reason." "It's the only one I have." He looked past me toward the gate. I followed his gaze and saw the muddy tracks my boots had left on the path. "If you want my help," he said, "ask me for it. Don't ask me to make a promise you don't mean." "I mean that I need to go home." "I understand that." "No, you don't." "You're right," he said. "I don't." It was the first honest answer he'd given me in this run. I hated that it made it harder to dislike him. The bell rang a third time. Elias held the door open. "The council is waiting." "Will you tell them I asked?" "I won't tell them anything you haven't agreed to share." I went inside. The silver mark beneath my wrist cooled, and the system displayed one final line. QUEST ACTIVE. I had until the next full moon to make a choice. After that, the gate home would stay shut—or something worse would begin.