Relief cooled her chest like moonlight; with memory intact, she could map the maze, rebuild the sequence, and find a way out.

So we return to the old knot. Lucimia didn’t lose her memories. Her Authority Power must have tugged at the Blessing of Reincarnation, clashed, and dragged her through rebirth still remembering.

But there’s a bug, a grain of sand in the gears.

She’d concluded Yuna had reincarnated more than once. Why was there no memory before, yet memory now, a missing thread in the tapestry?

Even the Blessing of Exemption from corruption seemed unable to exempt this; if it could, she would’ve kept memory last cycle, a shield failing an arrow.

Fine. She had to ask Yuna herself; only the keeper knows the teeth of the key.

Thinking more was smoke in wind.

Weariness drifted down like dusk. “Time to sleep.”

Lucimia flipped off the light. She slid under the blanket, cocooned like a silkworm, curled her whole body.

“Answer me... answer me... answer us...”

Sure enough, the familiar whisper welled up, fog lifting from a ravine.

Her awareness was tugged downward like into deep water; Lucimia opened her eyes.

The familiar altar, the familiar Magic Array, and that familiar priestess stood like stone and chalked lines.

She wore the same risqué lingerie as last cycle—midriff, thighs, shoulders, navel bare. Red liquid splashed from her hands across the Array like wine and blood. Her serpentine waist swayed into dance, and her mouth poured an ancient hymn.

The hymn circled the wide altar like wind around pines, airy and strange; lingering notes clung to stone like mist.

Calm spread like warm tea. Lucimia didn’t panic or scatter her thoughts; she listened to that ethereal song.

She couldn’t grasp the words, yet she heard it—the winding melody carried endless sorrow, night rain on empty stairs.

Her emotions rippled, unbidden, like leaves in a sudden gust.

It felt like watching anime in her past life, hearing a gorgeous song—no lyrics understood, yet the mood poured through like light through paper.

In short, it was beautiful, sweet as spring water.

When the Array kindled red light like embers, the priestess hurried to her knees.

It was coming. Just like the first night last cycle—the priestess bowed, the offering made, and that dead pig would be sent to her bed... Wait. Where’s the pig?

Lucimia fixed her gaze on the altar’s heart. The dead pig that should lie there was gone. Bare stone held no offering.

What was this? Why was it unlike before, the script rewritten by an unseen hand?

Where was that pig with kicking legs, gaping mouth, eyes glazed with endless terror?

Oh, and it had sprouted maggots, white rice writhing.

No, seriously—where’s the pig?

Lucimia scanned the surroundings like a hawk. No pig.

Instead, at the long steps to the altar’s left, several black-robed figures slowly carried a long, oval shape upward, a coffin-smooth bundle.

The silhouette felt familiar, a shadow remembered from a dream.

As they drew near, the reason snapped into focus.

It was the second night’s ritual from her dream—Yuna, wrapped in cloth.

But this time, on the very first night, a cloth-wrapped shape was carried up and laid gently at the altar’s center.

How had things shifted like this, currents bending under a hidden moon?

Was Yuna beneath that cloth?

She focused, gaze taut like a bowstring, on the offering.

A black-robed figure pinched a corner and lifted it, peeling dawn from night.

First came the flash of long pink hair. Then a black blindfold. A blank face. A body mostly bare, only key places bandaged. The identity was clear. No one lay there but Yuna.

How could this be? Yuna was supposed to be offered on day two. Yet she had arrived on day one.

Lucimia remembered their talk while she washed Yuna, steam curling like clouds.

Yuna had been abducted to a small place called Kalan Village. Later, Lucimia’s followers raided the village and took Yuna away, night blades in a quiet town.

According to Yuna, she had been bound days earlier, not newly seized the day after the pig sacrifice, threads of time already braided.

So did Yuna use some method this time to make the black-robed change the offering, a fingertip nudging the tide of fate?

Lucimia watched the ritual in silence, a stone lantern under rain.

She tried to open her mouth again. It did nothing, words sealed like wax.

“Ah—Great Lady Olivya, our revered deity. Your loyal believers offer your most beloved sacrifice. We beg you to rain down Blessing upon all.”

“Blessing—!” the many black-robed below echoed in one voice, surf pounding a dark shore.

Black mist surged, swirled up Yuna from the Array’s center, and smothered Lucimia’s sight. Her consciousness sank again, a stone dropping into a deep well.

...

A familiar ceiling, white plaster like a cold sky.

That was Lucimia’s first thought upon waking, rising like a bubble.

She turned her head. A slender girl lay beside her pillow, chest rising and falling, breath even as tides.

Lucimia extended a finger and poked Yuna’s cheek, tapping a small drum.

“Poke-poke.”

“Don’t poke me, Big Sister Lucimia.”

“Uh...” Lucimia withdrew her finger, pulling back a fishing line.

She had a storm of questions. Yet with the girl so close, she didn’t know where to cast the first line.

“I’m sorry... I misunderstood and thought you were setting me up. I even hurt you with a knife.” Guilt sifted like ash. In the end, she chose to apologize again.

“It’s fine. Big Sister Lucimia, I don’t mind.”

“Huh? You look like you knew I’d keep my memories. You’re not surprised at all?” Her eyebrow lifted like a sparrow’s wing.

Lucimia had concluded Yuna had reincarnated more than once. Since Lucimia lacked memories before, Yuna should assume this cycle’s her had no memories, logic laid like stones.

Yuna should’ve been startled by that. Yet she behaved as if she’d long expected it, calm as still water.

“That’s because... of Big Sister Lucimia’s Authority Power...”

“My Authority Power?” Threads crossed in her mind. “So it did interfere with your ability?”

But if so, why did it trigger only this cycle? Why not before, a seed choosing now to sprout?

“What exactly is my Authority Power? Yuna, do you know? And—and, what’s your ability, precisely? What’s the exact effect? Is it a Blessing? If it’s a Blessing, can the Exemption Blessing exempt it? Will my parents keep memories like me? And more—why were only you and I not replaced last cycle? Is that because of my Authority Power?”

Lucimia fired questions in a cascade, stones skittering down a slope. Yuna’s head felt swollen; she hurriedly shook it.

“...Too many questions.”

“Ah, sorry...”

Yuna smiled. She slowly sat up in bed and leaned against the headboard, a cat finding sun.

“Um... Big Sister Lucimia’s Authority Power—I can’t say.”

“Why?”

“Because—rules.”

“Rules?” Lucimia pressed. “What rules?”

“The rules of my ability,” Yuna answered.

“Rules to an ability...” Could abilities have rules? Lucimia didn’t understand at all, like trying to read running water.

But she believed Yuna about the rules. Otherwise, last cycle Yuna could’ve simply said she was reincarnated, laid out what would happen next, and told Lucimia everything—blah blah—beans spilled from a jar.