Book 1 / Act I.
Prison Escape
Saif and Lynx wander day and night in the dense forests, hiding from guards who are after them ― though they seem to have fallen behind a lot. They'd need to protect themselves if they were discovered, but Saif is reluctant to give a weapon to Lynx; he is still a criminal, after all. After some time, Lynx ends up getting himself a pair of blades that he's supposedly used before his capture, but at night, Saif always confiscates them for safety and sleeps in an orb of protection spell. But to be fair, Lynx doesn't seem like someone who wants to cause any trouble; in fact, he seems pretty frightened and doesn't remember most things from his life before the spell ― not even the fact that he was a criminal, nor why he would be one ―. He even feels pretty bad about having ever caused any trouble.
Saif tells him about the people they should avoid, mainly Prince Cecil, the royal military captain who's the greatest witch in all of Serin and the one who formulated the spell called 'Fate Reweaver'. He is the only one who's able to use this spell as well. Saif also tells him about their plan: retracing Lynx's route, revisiting the places he has destroyed, and trying to prevent them from happening; since now that he is awakened, these events will happen again in reverse order. All the while, they should head to Thar Nua, where Serena had died.
They head off on their journey, but it is soon cut short ― it only takes a couple of days for Captain Cecil to find them. He came alone and seems rather detached, but expresses his disapproval of Saif's betrayal as a guard. Just as Saif and Lynx are about to enter the impossible fight against him, a masked fighter, Jinhai, shows up. Despite his hidden identity, he carries an ethereal aura. According to Saif's knowledge ― though he has never seen him in person before ―, he is the infamous rebel who constantly terrorizes the royal military, of which Cecil is the captain. Cecil states that he's never met him in person before, but heard about all the trouble he’d been causing. Jinhai is now here to enter the fight against the Captain on Saif and Lynx's side.
Although the fight is much more balanced with the strong ally on their side, the great witch still seems to have the upper hand. At one point, Jinhai's mask gets knocked off. Everyone notes to themselves that he has a surprisingly kind and gentle face. His human ears transform into aquatic ones, and now, with his face markings also being visible, they can all tell that he’s a naiad. It is very rare to see male naiads, but it explains his strength and exceptional fighting skills. As Jinhai’s feather hair accessories become visible, Saif asks how he got them, because they look like his own. Lynx asks if they had fought before, but Jinhai tells them that he's not the type to collect rewards from defeated enemies, even if they had fought. As they continue the battle, Saif uses light magic that not only knocks Cecil back for a moment but also blinds Jinhai. They soon continue the fight, and although Jinhai evades all of Cecil's physical hits, navigating with echolocation, he seems very frightened ― not from the attacks, but from the realization that he'd gone blind. As soon as the Captain realizes that he stops his attacks, he never intended to kill Jinhai after all. Jinhai, scared and trying to protect himself, lets out a high-frequency scream ― naiads are known to be capable of ―, paralyzing Cecil for the moment. Saif and Lynx, being a little further away from the sound, recover quickly and escape the scene. The witch takes a final look at Jinhai, who clearly seems to be panicking, sitting on the ground with a vacant stare. Cecil leaves him behind and goes after his escaped targets.
Book 1 / Act II.
Captain Cecil and the Rebel
Criminals who have caused trouble on a massive scale are put under a spell that erases their existence, rewriting history and preventing destruction. A druid named Saif is one of the guards at the dungeon in the depths of the Laeves Forests, where these criminals are kept 'asleep'.
For many years, while watching over them, Saif's eyes always wander back to the nameplate "Lynx Valnian". Reading the name fills his heart with an unusual sorrow. He wonders if he knew this person while he wasn't under the spell. This person's strong build certainly resembles that of a criminal, and his face looks troubled even in sleep.
One day, Saif chats with the young Bookkeeper Wise. The boy just recently inherited the role of maintaining the log of every version of events that have happened in the world. His library has a book dedicated to every timeline rewritten since then, for each sinner. Of course, all ends with destruction and the culprit's capture. As they chat, Saif mentions his lover Serena, who died in a fire, and how much he misses her. Wise, to ease Saif's mind, mentions that in one version of events, Saif's lover survived and probably lived a happy life.
Saif, determined to see Serena again, decides to wake up a criminal. Listening to his intuition, he concludes that if anyone's, it must have been Lynx's version of history where the girl is alive. At night, Saif wakes Lynx from the spell, and they escape from the scene together.
Book 1 / Act III.
Bonding
After Saif and Lynx escape, Saif uses some spells to disguise them and avoid being further followed. Just as they plan, Cecil gets lost in the forest for a little while, confusing even simple directions. Once he realizes that the area is under a spell, he flies above and abandons the search for the time being.
As the two continue their journey, they spend a lot of time in the forests of Laeves. They acquire different clothes to hide their identities, and food from either small villages or the wild. One time, while trying to cook in damp weather, Lynx arranges leaves in a unique way, and he can easily light a fire with them. Saif is taken aback because it is a method he himself came up with as a child, so he wonders how Lynx would know about it. He asks him, but the elf still doesn't remember much.
Time goes by, and one night Lynx starts crying and tightly hugs Saif, admitting he's starting to remember what he experienced while he was 'asleep'. It was very unpleasant. He tells Saif that everyone enclosed in a never-ending white space he calls Oblivion is in a time loop, never moving forward. For all the time he was asleep, he was going around in it, searching for a person named Saif. He encountered all kinds of people, the other criminals under the spell. They all seemed to be in their own little worlds, reliving the experience that led them to destruction. Some were reliving a traumatic moment that turned them into the villains they'd become. Still, he says not all of them were bad people, recounting the example of the doctor who tried to find a cure for a horrible illness but accidentally ended up inventing a virus that spread around the world. He was reliving the moment of naive joy, the moment when he thought he found the cure, then realizing what he had done. Lynx walked around for all these years in a panicked state, searching for Saif, because he really needed to tell him something. He asked around, but none knew who he was. He went around in circles, always coming back to each one of them, seeing all relive their own moment again and again, but he himself could not break free from the cycle either: he always seemed to forget that he had already asked. He felt he might have already been there, but he was never sure, so he went back hundreds and hundreds of times. But now he doesn't remember what he wanted to tell Saif, nor who he is to him. Saif feels sad, because even though he also has a slight feeling that Lynx is someone important to him, he doesn't remember either ― and is still trying to keep some distance since he's a criminal.
Continuing their journey, they reach a town where Lynx remembers he might have been before. They arrive at a horrible scene, with all houses burnt down, people burnt to death, or killed otherwise. They can not do anything now. Lynx starts panicking terribly, looking at what he has supposedly done. Breathing heavily, he falls to the ground and throws up, and Saif has to drag him away from the scene for fear that the Captain might have asked for Lynx's route from the Bookkeeper and would make an appearance too.
Book 1 / Act IV.
Grabbing the String
Cecil, now knowing the rebel is a naiad, goes to Tír Ríoga to search for him, in case he knows where the two might be hiding or is hiding them himself. After arriving and walking for a while, he sees a room-sized pink bubble by the shore, with a light pink-haired naiad inside. He goes around it to find an opening, looking at the girl whom he secretly finds quite endearing, but quickly shakes the feeling. The girl, Seely, is so in her own world, passionately writing something in a notebook, that she doesn't even notice him. When Cecil tries to knock, he accidentally pops the bubble, frightening the girl. He quickly apologizes and asks if she knows anyone with light blue jellyfish-like hair. The girl tells him he must be looking for Jinhai and admits her surprise since Jinhai doesn't have friends who would want to visit him. Cecil tells her they are not friends, and she warily asks if they are enemies. Since Cecil suspects the girl might not tell him Jinhai's whereabouts if he says yes, he says he's only here to talk.
After receiving directions from Seely, he quickly finds Jinhai. He’s in his naiad form, sitting beside a stone on the shore, crying and constantly trying to wipe his tears, ineffectively. Hearing someone approach, he tries even harder. As soon as he recognizes the sound of Cecil's boots, thinking that the Captain's here to kill him, he gets scared and tries to back off into the water. Suddenly, he is forcefully dragged underwater by long vines, pulling him to the depths of the lake. He is helpless: blind, caught off guard, and thinks it's the great witch's doing. These alive, strong vines have never been present in Tír Ríoga's peaceful lakes before. Cecil jumps in and drags him out to the shore. When he lets go of Jinhai, the naiad looks in the approximate direction of Cecil, both frightened and confused, and quickly swims away.
Cecil doesn't want to bother him anymore in this state and guesses that he doesn't know about the runaways' whereabouts anyway. He wants to leave, but Vree's voice appears inside his head, telling him to stay for a while. Vree, Cecil's double, who remembers past versions of the world, has finally discovered a pattern. According to him, all past versions somehow managed to keep Cecil and Jinhai from meeting. Sometimes it seemed like a coincidence, but at other times, like this one ― something or someone seemed to actively prevent the two from talking. Cecil is told to sit and wait patiently until Jinhai comes back, because Vree is sure that if they were fated to meet, he would. After a while, Jinhai really does come back. He lets out sound waves while hiding behind rocks to check if Cecil is still there, but he eventually gets closer himself upon realizing that the Captain is not there to hurt him.
Even though they are supposed to be enemies, as the two begin talking, they find themselves getting along surprisingly well. They even share their reasons for doing what they do, trying to convince the other of their own views. Jinhai, even if he doesn’t remember what or who he might have lost in the constant rewriting of history, feels it is not right to have innocent people disappear as a side effect of the spell. And Cecil explains that even though Jinhai is right about that, he still saves more lives by wiping out the causes of mass destruction. While they certainly don't approve of each other's methods, they do realize they share the same goal: achieving a better future.
Cecil asks whether Jinhai is okay with him changing the past now, when he'll catch Lynx, since he would also get his sight back. But Jinhai ― a little hesitantly ― says that he would still not want it to happen. Cecil says it will happen regardless, so at least he shouldn't cry anymore about losing his sight.
Jinhai suddenly gets emotional again; he is definitely not in the best mental state. He gets overwhelmed by the fact that he doesn't know how to call the other person and feels ashamed talking to him without knowing how to address him. Cecil starts recounting the various names and titles others call him by. He is frustrated that people mistake his last name, "Prince," for a title, when he is, in fact, not a prince. After Cecil lists all the various options, Jinhai tears up because he still doesn't know how to address him. The Captain sighs and tells him it is fine to just call him Cecil.
Book 1 / Act V.
A Healing Haven
Cecil, on his way back to Eaveton, the Capital, visits a graveyard outside the city. As he silently watches a gravestone, two of his subordinates walk up to him. They ask who rests there, and Cecil tells them that, like most of the graves he has set up in this garden, it has no name, since he couldn't remember it anymore by the time he got here. It was one of his subordinates who was erased as he rewrote history, and in fact, it was a friend of the other two, because he remembers they were always hanging around as a group of three. Hearing this, the two subordinates decide to stay for a while after Cecil leaves.
When he arrives at Almerry Palace, His Majesty, King Yahui, immediately welcomes him. He has a friendly banter with Cecil about wanting him to be his successor, which Cecil once again refuses. Cecil asks how Vree is doing, just as Vree arrives. Vree is Cecil's creation and double, and he holds most of Cecil's memories. Since Cecil is the one casting the Fate Reweaver, his memories of the old world don't get erased, which is why he figured out a way to transport them into a double so that he could continue his job without breaking down mentally or emotionally.
Vree, mostly due to his horrible state, always stays at the castle under King Yahui's care. Yahui sees both of them as his sons ― partly to make up for the emptiness after losing his wife and child to the Fate Reweaver's side effect.
Cecil warns them that if it takes too long for him to find the runaways, ordinary people who got lost when he erased Lynx might start reappearing. And if that happens, when he catches him and people disappear again, relatives might break into the castle until their memories of their loved ones disappear once more. Because civilians barging in has happened before, he, also being the King's bodyguard, will hurry back to protect them. Vree tells him it would still be best if Cecil caught Lynx early, so he will also go his separate way to help with the search. This, of course, doesn't mean that he can leave the castle; instead, he will use a white owl as his eyes to search through great distances.
Book 1 / Act VI.
Lilanaserine
As Saif and Lynx continue their journey northwards, they grow closer and closer. They both find it surprising that the two of them could ever get along so quickly. Saif starts to lower his guard around him and doesn't confiscate his weapons at night either. One time, they get to a cliff where Lynx gets closer to the edge to look for the next village, and Saif thinks that he might jump off because he might not be able to cope with the things he's done. But Lynx tells him that even if he jumped off, Saif would surely catch him. Saif is surprised that he knows about his other druid form, a white eagle that would, in fact, be able to catch the other.
The two hurry to the next settlement. This time, they're not late, and it still seems perfectly fine. However, as they walk around, houses and people gradually start vanishing, and their surroundings become a tragic scene. This makes them realize that even if they are in time, they cannot do anything to stop the destruction from happening again. Eager to still get something back, Saif starts rushing straight to Lilanaserine to meet Serena. Lynx follows him, and after running day and night, they finally get to her village.
As they arrive at their destination, Saif immediately goes to check Serena's house, but there seems to be no one at home. When they enter the living room, Saif starts to feel dizzy out of the blue when he looks at the large closet located there. He doesn't understand why he'd feel so horrible about a piece of furniture, so they look inside, but there's nothing particular in there.
They leave and end up in the nearby clearing, still not finding Serena. Suddenly, a horrible storm appears, causing a massive forest fire, and Saif realizes that it's the same one that trapped Serena in her house when she died. Someone shouts Saif's name, and he sees his lover, who is coughing, and her clothes are a little burnt, but she is alive. They rush towards each other and hug tightly. Lynx watches them with a smile, but after a few moments, he slowly starts to regain the rest of his memories, and his smile fades.
As he's hugging Serena, Saif starts slowly vanishing as well. Lynx shouts and has a breakdown. Saif doesn't understand what's happening and breathes heavily as panic starts to take over.
When he's almost completely vanished, Cecil appears, jumping towards them, and hits Lynx with his magic before anyone can react. After the bright purple light of the spell dies out, Saif looks around and sees Lynx put back under the spell next to the Captain, who's watching them, panting a little. Saif turns to Serena, who's starting to disappear before him, while he's starting to regain his form.
As he realizes it's either him or the other two who has to go, he stares blankly, visibly on the verge of tears. Cecil turns around with Lynx on his shoulder and heads back to Laeves, so that Vree, watching through the witch's eyes, wouldn't have to remember another heartbreaking scene...
Book 1 / Act VII.
I chose you
The memories Lynx regained before he was once again captured were of the times when he and Saif were best friends. One night, a storm caused the fire in Serena's village, trapping her inside her house. Lynx noticed the fire from afar and rushed to tell Saif, because Saif would get there much faster flying than he would on foot. Saif got to Serena just in time before the house started to collapse and threw her outside, but the heavy closet inside the room fell and crushed him. Lynx, who couldn't handle losing Saif, would only blame himself for warning him about the fire. He went on a violent rampage, knowing that if he killed enough people, the Captain would put him under his spell ― rewriting the past so that he never told Saif about the fire because he never existed, and so Saif would continue to live.
Epilogue
Cecil, after bringing Lynx's body back to The Forgotten Delves, returns to Almerry Palace. Vree welcomes him. To his surprise, he is neither broken nor wearing his usual forced smile; this time, he seems determined, with a committed light in his eyes, and gives Cecil back a particular set of memories connected to Jinhai. He tells Cecil that if there's one person they need by their side to start changing how things are, it is the Rebel.
Cecil, now accompanied by Vree, goes to Tír Ríoga to put a spell on Jinhai that partially reveals his hidden memories of the past, including the memories of their newfound friendship.
