“Sit, Einar,” Tania pointed.

“What do you want from me, Tania?”

“I will tell you a story.”

Einar frowned. “A story?”

“I will tell you a tale of two fools. One is about a fool who chased the wrong woman and the fool who surrendered to the wrong man.”

“This sounds familiar,” Einar said. “Is this about the Old Man and her Lady? She’s beautiful, Tania. I can understand why and you should know it already, right?”

“That my Nolan is under her spell? That from the very beginning she had cast a spell the moment she laid eyes on him? Nolan’s a tall man with fine features. He likes to think of himself as average when all the training and the strengthening had made him fit and beautiful to others. I pity him. Do you know that I know what that woman had done? I had peered into her mind when we fought. When I gathered power I was able to peer her mind. Power corrupts any woman and age and she is no exception.”

“So you are saying that.”

“That he’s been trapped for years now. I know because I suffered with him. Einar, the memories of Ciara are vanishing from his mind, not that he wanted to, but because his mind was telling him to let go. He loved that woman so madly that he followed him for thirty years and the only Ciara who wanted to be with him. Has died with a sword in her stomach. She had escaped the abyss only to die of grief.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The War Maiden’s ritual allows the War Maiden to gain the memories of the Past War Maiden. Usually, only their skills and powers would only be gain - but she gains all of the memories. From every possible War Maidens, that existed. The Ciara who had gained all of this has become another - different from the Ciara who wept beside the grave and killed herself out of heartbreak and grief. I can never hate that Ciara. But this Ciara is different. A twisted woman who had learned a twisted love.”

Einar folded his arms. He was speechless.

“This has happened so many times, Einar,” she admitted. “I’ve seen this scenario so much that it was a surprise to see that I had escaped. That we had escaped from the loop. The end of the loop is the time where all of the other divines opened a crack in that world. This is better, but I fear that he might crash.”

“Old Man, will break?”

“Yes,” she nodded. “He will. Some of his beliefs were rooted in her. He’ll lose his foundations and I’m afraid that I will not be enough to catch him, support if he does. The weight that the man carries is a burden. And I carry my weight.”

Einar bit his lower lip and grimaced. “Why does this Ciara want him badly? Does this mean that all of the Ciara that I knew and Old Man Nolan knew was a lie? I heard that they had children. Was that an act as well?”

“No, I think she wasn’t acting. I felt genuine love. Not the torturous love that she had pained him. She had gathered the memories of her family and yet somehow she still takes the same path. No, not that she could ever escape. The Pale Shine Lady and the Burnt Woman had to exist.”

“But why him? Why the Old Man? Why does he have to be the victim?”

“He was put into the role,” She said. “Most of the roles are not passed and is not inherited. But he had inherited a role and I don’t know why and how - but Nolan can pass his memories. He had incarnated his memories into another and he had done this for the past cycle. Now those memories have started degrading and the memories are disappearing from his mind.”

“Why tell me all of this?”

“Because he considers you his son. And I need to share this burden off my chest. You have the memories of Nolan. So you must know that there is a memory that he hid from his self.”

Einar froze. She knew that those memories are. It was the memory of a man who had lost to fate. A man who devoured the dragons and the wraiths; it was the memory of the one that dined on the flesh of the Overlord of the Demons. It was the memory of a man who had abandoned his kindness. It was a man who had tried to slay Ciara’s evil.

“It only happens in one timeline.”

“I know,” said Tania. “And it will do him good if he had that power now.”

“For what purpose?”

“To save him. He’s going to die, Einar. His soul barely functions and before long it will shatter. I am barely holding it together.”

Einar closed his eyes for a second. He said, “Maybe, that’s for the best.”

“Do you hear what you are saying!?”

“I do. I do. Father Nolan, he’s tired, and he knows it. But his beliefs won’t allow him to take his life and he won’t ever crush his soul.”

“You are saying this, to the one you call father.”

“Yes. Because I know his pain more than anyone. I lived his pain. Tania, you know him well, and you know that my father would not resist death’s clutches. He would welcome it and be glad of it. He’s a tired old man who had been fighting pointlessly, Tania. Why can’t you let him rest? What do you hope to expand his lifespan?”

Tania’s face crumpled. “I don’t want him gone. I don’t want to be without him. I know that I am being foolish. I know that this is madness. But I have lived this madness long enough to love it. Einar, is it wrong to save the life of your soulmate? Is it so wrong to be this foolish? I just want to be with him. I just want him to live on his foolish wish of journeys and dreams of peace.”

And she confessed.