Scarlett turned.

A woman stood there, deep purple hair framing her face, gold-rimmed glasses perched on her nose.

Yamina. But not the vacant girl from before. This was the real Yamina Ward — taller, older, and with sharp focus behind her eyes. She wore flowing emerald robes trimmed with gold, the embroidery glimmering faintly against the vast, glowing sea beneath them. From her feet, a ribbon of violet shimmer wove across the surface, stretching back into the distance.

Scarlett followed it with her gaze.

It actually split into two directions. One stretched towards the horizon in the direction Scarlett had come. The other bent sharply past her, threading towards the fractured island of chaotic Fate.

"Senior Wizard Ward," Scarlett said.

Yamina dipped her head. "Baroness Hartford."

Silence settled. The ocean of Fate beneath them seemed to murmur faintly, as if stirred by their presence.

Scarlett studied the woman for several seconds. "…What are you?"

Yamina's eyes lingered on her, searching. "I'll answer. But first, may I ask something in turn?"

"…Go on."

"What are you? What exactly is Baroness Scarlett Hartford?"

Scarlett frowned. "You do not know?"

"I suspect," Yamina replied, "but I don't presume."

Scarlett weighed the question. Weighed what answer to give — what lie, or what truth. Eventually, she made a choice.

"I am an Anomalous One. And…a stranger to this world."

Yamina's brows lifted, just slightly. "I see." Her voice was calm, turning more thoughtful. "I wondered if the two of us might be the same. Apparently not." She studied Scarlett. "Still, I suspected you were something of the sort. Even if I wasn't sure it was you."

"And you?" Scarlett asked.

"You might say I'm something of an anomaly myself. But at my core, I am a wizard. One with a keener understanding of the workings of Fate than most. And a closer connection to it. What form that connection takes… that's harder to explain."

"What is your connection to the Fate in Beld Thylelion? Is there a distinction between you?"

That gave Yamina pause. Her head tilted, purple locks brushing her shoulder. "Why do you ask?"

"I encountered it," Scarlett said. "It took on your form. A younger version."

Yamina's expression flickered. "…I'm sorry for that. I would never intend any harm to you or your companions, and I can assure you it wasn't me. But…it mimicking my shape isn't entirely surprising."

She gestured to the violet trail weaving through the golden threads. Scarlett followed it again, watching the fractured island.

"That trail," Yamina continued, "once led nowhere. Before Beld Thylelion appeared, it simply ended. But now, as you see, it connects to that place."

Scarlett turned back as Yamina pointed in the opposite direction, to the second trail vanishing into the horizon.

"Do you know where that one leads?" she asked.

"…The Forgotten Tower?"

Yamina nodded. "Yes. That is where I am at present."

Scarlett considered her. All this time, no one could tell her where Yamina Ward had gone. It turned out she'd been in the Tower, of all places. Maybe that should have been obvious.

"Why there?"

"It's the only place I know where Fate is warped enough to allow me to interact with this domain," Yamina replied. She arched an eyebrow at Scarlett. "Even then, you should know it's only barely possible because I have a direct tether. Even the gods can't come here. You being here despite that is…strange. Though I suppose even calling it that feels redundant by now."

Scarlett glanced down. The golden surface glowed bright, flashes of the world shimmering beneath — a crooked street in Elystead, a temple bell swaying soundlessly, a child asleep in their bed. Ghosts of the real.

"…What is this place?" she eventually asked.

"Don't you already have an idea?"

"I want to hear you define it. Plainly. In complete words."

Yamina released a slow breath. Her eyes swept the expanse. "I would say it depends on the person. But if I had to name it…" She paused, then tapped her foot lightly against the threads below. "It's the overlook. A vantage beyond the world, outside its cause and consequence."

She gestured downward. "And this is Fate. As it truly is. Stripped of metaphor." Her voice dropped. "And it's a grave."

Scarlett's brow drew together. "A grave?"

Yamina nodded. "You can perceive it, can't you? You must. You are here, after all."

"Countless threads of Fate," Scarlett said. "Stretching across the realms."

Yamina hummed. "Yes. Each thread is a changing directive. Following a path carved out from the moment of this world's inception to its end. Not rigid, necessarily, but definitely predisposed. Every strand carries intent — for each moment it touches. When to influence. When to intervene. When to shift. A lattice of cause and consequence so vast and convoluted that not even the gods could maintain it."

She took a step closer to Scarlett. "In this way, the world has been nudged forward. A subtle guidance over eons. All to reach the exact configuration it has today."

"You speak as if you have known it intimately. More so than the gods."

A sardonic curve touched Yamina's mouth. "In a way, yes." She paused. "Do you know how Fate came to be, Baroness? This grand architecture of order? Surely the question's crossed your mind. It looks awfully purposeful, doesn't it?"

"It does." Scarlett regarded her carefully. "I have tried to answer it for some time, but I still do not know. Do you?"

What were the limits of Yamina's knowledge? Did she have any understanding of the system Scarlett was familiar with? Of the game?

"Not all of it," Yamina admitted. "But I understand aspects."

She drifted forward, standing beside Scarlett. Together, they looked at the fractured island of Fate, where the sea of threads broke like shattered glass and twisted into malformed chaos. The raised fissure refused to settle, and that indistinct shape at its heart continued pulsing.

After a quiet moment, Yamina lifted her hand. "That. What do you think it is?"

Scarlett studied it. "…A fracture in Fate. The anomaly around which Beld Thylelion was formed. Beyond that, I cannot say." She turned slightly. "You are stalling. Get to the point."

Yamina let out a sound that was part sigh, part subdued laugh. "Apologies. To be entirely honest, I've never been able to speak of these matters with anyone else. It's not a subject for casual talk. And it's also deeply…personal. There is so much to be said, and I find it surprisingly hard to know where to begin." Her gaze flicked towards Scarlett. "That said, you are not exactly a model of transparency yourself, if I recall."

Scarlett said nothing.

The woman's tone eased. "I said this place is like a grave, didn't I? I meant it both metaphorically and literally." She swept her arm towards the fracture. For a moment, her robes looked almost translucent. "This chaos is all that remains of what existed before Fate took on its current form. Before the world moved on."

"You said that Fate has guided this world since its inception," Scarlett pressed.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"I did."

"…Then is it correct to say that this—" Scarlett gestured at the core, "—is its corpse?"

"More or less," Yamina replied. "Though technically, I think the corpse is everything around us. What you see there is closer to the original self. A dead fragment of that being."

Scarlett eyed her. "What sort of being was it?"

If this being's remains had birthed Fate—if the threads beneath her feet, the entire structure governing this world, had been formed from its body—then what did that mean? Could this ancient thing be the source of her system? The reason she was here? Or was that separate?

She had thought the Anomalous One held true power. And maybe the gods. Yet they still operated within the framework this thing had left behind, which begged the question…

How powerful must it have been? Was it a god on a higher tier entirely?

"I don't know what it truly was," Yamina said. "I've only ever touched what it left behind."

She raised her hand. The violet tether trailing through the weave sparkled in response, drawn by her movement.

"I only know that it died," she continued, her voice lower now, carrying something distant beneath it. "Well and truly. But a piece of it fractured when this world came into being. Something splintered, like a tiny will. Not a soul. Not even a thought. Just…a remainder." Behind her glasses, her gaze hardened. "And as unfortunate as it is — that remainder shouldn't exist."

Her tone sharpened.

"It's unstable. Fundamentally incompatible with the world as it is. You can't write a new verse using a dead language no one remembers. Its very presence threatens to corrode everything else."

Scarlett's eyes followed the violet tether winding from Yamina into the fracture.

She'd reached a similar conclusion in Beld Thylelion. She hadn't quite understood the Fate there to be different from the Fate outside, but she had felt it pressing, building towards a rupture.

"I don't know the full details of that time," Yamina went on, "but the Zuver must have realised it. Understood, at least in part, what the fracture represented. But they couldn't undo it. So instead, they used Fate itself to contain it. They tied the weight of creation—the Fate interwoven with Beld Thylelion—and struck a geas through every working they could layer. They disappeared the fracture along with the ruins, buying our world more time."

"…I have never heard any of this," Scarlett said. "Thainnith never revealed anything of the sort."

Yamina turned to her, faint puzzlement in her eyes. "Thainnith? You speak as though you've met him."

"I met a fragment he left behind. In the Veiled Library. He passed on a legacy of Zuverian knowledge." Scarlett's voice tightened. "But none of it mentioned this."

Yamina considered her for some time, as if processing her statement. Then she adjusted her glasses slightly, seeming to speak to herself more than Scarlett. "It's possible that other actors were involved in the final banishment of the fracture. That would explain the gaps. I've found almost nothing reliable from that part of the record."

"Other actors?" Scarlett asked. "…Such as The Gentleman?"

Surprise flickered across Yamina's face before her expression grew more distant. "Perhaps. Are you familiar with that man?"

"I am."

"…I suppose that shouldn't surprise me." Just the faintest hint of frustration seemed to slip through the woman's tone. "I've personally tried to make contact with him countless times. But for some reason, it's as if he always manages to avoid me." She shook her head, then turned her gaze back to the fracture. Silence stretched.

Finally, she spoke again. "You and I…we are different. One might say we are opposites. Where you resist Fate, I am a product of it."

"A product?"

Yamina's voice grew subdued. "If someone were to manage the insurmountable task of tracing the threads of Fate of all the realms—every line from start to finish, from the birth of time to the last breath—there would not originally have been a single one tied to 'Yamina Ward'. Not anywhere."

Her gaze dipped briefly, then shifted to Scarlett's wrist. Where the Orrery was. "That artifact you carry. Have you had it since we first met?"

Scarlett glanced down at the familiar device. The metal face. The twin pointers. Still motionless. "…No. I acquired it in the Veiled Library."

"Mm, that does line up. It took me some time to notice. Rather cruel design. May I guess? It tracks discrepancy from Fate?"

"It does."

Yamina tilted her head. "How did it react when you first checked it near me?"

Scarlett raised a brow. "Mildly. There was a reaction, but not strong."

"…There was actually a reaction?"

"Yes."

Yamina blinked once, then smiled — small and strange, but genuine. "…I didn't think it would register anything at all. That's…a pleasant surprise."

Her attention sobered as her gaze returned to the fracture. "To the point — 'Yamina Ward' is not a person that Fate ever wrote into its design. If not for that—" she gestured to the violet tether, glowing faintly as it ran to the fracture's core "—I wouldn't exist."

Scarlett considered her. "…Are you suggesting it created you?"

"It's a close enough description," Yamina said. "My father was never meant to have children. Some people are more deeply entangled in Fate's weave, and the threads would never have permitted him to sire a child. For someone like you, I imagine those restrictions barely register. But for most, Fate is not something they can casually oppose. It works in vast, far-seeing trajectories. And it always gets what it wants in the end. There is nothing in this world that can rewrite Fate." She hesitated. "Except Fate itself."

Scarlett looked from Yamina to the fracture.

So that was why the woman had always seemed so distant from everything Scarlett had come to expect from the game's world. She was a divergence, but one that came from Fate itself. A product of its own change. A flaw it had made room for.

But still—

"Why?" she asked. "You claimed this fracture has no consciousness. Why would it fashion something like you?"

Yamina touched the rim of her glasses. A faint glimmer passed across the lenses. "That's a bit like asking a priest why their god gave them purpose," she replied. "I don't know an answer that satisfies, and I was never properly given anything. But I know I have a role to fulfil."

Scarlett's eyes narrowed. "And that role is?"

"…A catalyst, perhaps?" There was uncertainty in her voice. "Or something adjacent to it. A component in a larger reaction. Unlike you, I have never really had the means to go against Fate."

"You claim as much, but is that truly the case? Have you not already done so on several occasions? Arnaud told me the story of how he met his wife. It sounded to me as if that may have involved your interference in Fate. And if you possess as much knowledge of Fate as you do, then does not your awareness alone alter its outcome?"

The woman shook her head. "You misunderstand Fate. It touches nearly everyone, yes, but it doesn't dictate every step. Arnaud and his wife weren't fated, but nor were they forbidden. Their meeting was a point of low significance to Fate's ultimate destination. Without it, his life would've stayed on a similar course. It is partly true that those who become aware of their fates may resist them, and that resistance alone introduces variation. In some cases, the right person at the right moment might shift their entire life, and Fate simply adjusts on a grander scale. But my fate is much, much more set. The same conditions that allow me to exist are the ones that bind my choices."

Scarlett was quiet for a time. "…Perhaps I simply fail to see it clearly. But what is it, exactly, that you cannot change? Even with your understanding of Fate—greater than any other I have met—what stops you from simply walking away? Choosing otherwise?"

She had seen how Fate could gently push — how it could build pressure, twist decisions into inevitabilities. If you weren't aware of it, she could understand how that soft coercion, over time, might become indistinguishable from certainty. But if you saw it all clearly, didn't that open the possibility of choice? Wasn't surrender what made it immutable?

Yamina gave a muted, wry laugh. "You're overestimating me. I don't see nearly as much of Fate as you imagine. As an Anomalous One, haven't you seen more of it?" She met Scarlett's eyes. "And even if I could oppose it, I'd be sawing at the bones of what I am. My path was shaped the moment I was born. I was never meant to stray far."

Scarlett's expression darkened. She'd heard something like that before. From Arlene. That same resignation dressed as acceptance. It irritated her just as much now as it had then. And she understood it even less now.

Yamina seemed to notice. "Still," she said after a pause, "I did try. In small ways."

She held out her hand, and with a glitter of light, a spellbook appeared. Scarlett had seen it before. The binding was dark and reinforced with etched silver, with arcane sigils woven along the spine in looping strokes of purple thread.

Yamina opened it, turning pages filled with glyphs, arcane formulae, spell matrices, and various diagrams of neatly written notes. Near the end, she stopped. These pages were different. No sigils, no diagrams. Only dense handwriting.

Scarlett frowned. The script was off. Still neat, but different. Almost like Yamina hadn't been the one to—

Her eyes widened. "Is that—?"

Before the thought was finished, Yamina closed the book.

Scarlett's gaze snapped up. "Where did you get that?"

Yamina watched her carefully. The corner of her lips curved up slightly. "I wondered if you might have some idea what that was. You've run into one before, haven't you?" She hummed, tapping a finger lightly on the cover. "That's interesting. I'd like to hear more. But unfortunately, that will have to wait."

Scarlett stepped closer. "Where did you get that book?" she repeated. "Did you create it? Are there more? What are their connections to Fate?"

She was certain of it. That book was the same kind Arlene had possessed. And the first princess.

"I didn't make it," Yamina said. "And no — believe it or not, it isn't tied to Fate. At least, not directly. I wasn't aware of other books, but I suspected there might be more."

With a flick of her fingers, the book vanished.

"With that said," she added, "I cannot speak further about it now. There are several hoops I need to jump through before doing that. A little caveat of me having it to begin with. I won it in a bet, if you can believe it."

Scarlett's eyes did not leave the woman.

Yamina's lips thinned slightly. "In any case, I won't be able to stay here much longer. Not like you. Every minute burns through Anemorite Catalysts faster than the Isle's ever budgeted for. When I return, there is a non-negligible chance the Council will throw me in a holding cell once they realise what I did to the reserves."

Scarlett suppressed the urge to press her further.

"…Next time we meet," she said, "we are going to have a proper conversation about that book."

"Well, if we can. I look forward to it. Sincerely."

Scarlett turned back to the fracture. "…You were waiting for me here, were you not? You knew I would come. You sent Arnaud. And you left that note."

Yamina chuckled. "Did he read it?"

"He did. How did you know it would be relevant? Were my movements that easily traced through Fate?"

"Oh, hardly," Yamina said. "I can only truly observe Fate directly while I am here, and I've only entered this domain twice before. Once, many years ago when I was young, under highly unusual circumstances. And once again, about a month ago, to prepare for today."

She folded her arms. "My research in the Veiled Library was part of that effort. During that second visit, I did glimpse hints of the disturbance Beld Thylelion would cause, but I couldn't see you specifically. Only that something disruptive like you would appear. The density of Fate there made it clearer, and Arnaud's presence gave me a reference point. Even then, I had to make a number of educated guesses to anticipate your involvement."

Scarlett nodded slowly. That was a small comfort, at least. She hadn't been completely laid bare before Fate's sight.

"Then why are you here?" she asked. "What was the role you spoke of? You referred to yourself as a catalyst."

Yamina was quiet for several long moments.

"I would like your help," she said at last. "To kill Fate."

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