1223-11-12
Rose Montague:
Julius.
"750 + (15 + 50) + (39 + 50) + 1,"Julius began. "Rose, do you know what that equals?"
"Honestly, not off the top of my head, Julius."
He leaned back a little. "If you fought someone nine hundred and five billion times and you lost every single time, when would you finally give up?"
"I am not sure," I replied. "I would have given up already. It would be impossible to remember one billion fights, let alone nine hundred and five."
"What if I told you that this world, this timeline, is stuck in a single cycle of a fight between two men?"
"I would…" I paused.
"You would call me insane?" he asked.
"I would not say that. If someone has a goal worth keeping alive. If someone has a person worth keeping alive, then all those losses would not matter as long as the goal is still in reach."
"I am happy you agree."
"So who is it?" I asked. "Who is the person you are fighting for?"
"What makes you think there is a special person?"
"I would say it is because of our meeting. You were happy that I was a girl. That is not something anyone says for no reason."
"What have you come to think of me?" Julius asked.
I took a moment to look around the garden. The halls were calm. The guards stood watch. My father was speaking with a merchant he had sent out earlier.
The sun is bright above us. I was not sure how to answer him.
"You are very interesting," I said. "But to be honest, you look tired."
I looked into Julius's blue eyes. They looked worn out. It felt like he already knew what I was going to say. Nothing seemed to shock him. Nothing I said surprised him. I had tried to catch him off guard many times while he and his father stayed in the castle. He never reacted. He walked these halls with calm confidence.
He had done all this before.
He had walked these halls before.
Even this conversation felt practiced. He is giving himself reminders from a life I could not see.
"Julius," I said, breaking the silence, "Since you know the future, why do you struggle to beat the person. Why are you stuck fighting in this endless conflict?"
Julius sighed. "It is not that easy."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Well," Julius replied, "what if both sides remembered everything? Both sides remember every game they played, every run they lived through. The enemy and I are both trying to reach the perfect run."
"That would make it harder," I said. "But even then, I don't understand how you have not won once in billions of runs."
"Rose," Julius said coldly, "would you bet your life on a coin flip?"
"I would. It depends on the stakes."
"What if the coin had trillions of sides, but you needed only one or two specific results?"
"That would be much harder."
"Every run I go through is like that," Julius said. "The enemy and I have only fought in about one hundredth of the runs."
"Why is that?" I asked.
"Every person in this world, whether it is Amelia or Ana or Itsuki or Lucius or Morgan or Neith or Norah or Ramses or Tafari or Utsuho or you or Yukari, goes through a small coin flip to be born. They might be born a different gender. They might be born with different eyes."
"Does eye color really matter that much?"
"Sadly, it does. Yours matters the most. Only Tafari's matters more."
"What does mine change?" I asked.
"It means a lot. Trust me."
"Are you flirting with me?"
"No. The point is that every run I live through has to be perfect just to reach the fight with my enemy."
Who is Tafari? I wondered. My father keeps bringing him up. He calls him an ally, but I have never met him. I have met almost all our allies, but Tafari feels different. His name means nothing to me.
"Who is Tafari?" I asked Julius. "Have you met him?"
"Not yet," Julius said. "But he is incredible. And he cares about you more than anything."
"He cares about me? Why? Is he not a serial killer who killed his father? Did he not wipe out dragons on his continent? Did he not kill two Tethambians who fled to his country after the Tethambian slaughter? I have no idea why my father chose to ally with him. I don't know why Pallas chose to either."
"Trust me," Julius said. "You will come to like him."
"I doubt that."
"A reputation is only what a country chooses to show the world."
"So you were friends with him. In one of your runs?"
"Yes. Very good friends."
"I can see him having a better reputation. I imagine events would go differently as well," I said. "If someone is born a different gender or kills someone they were not meant to kill, that would change many events. It could change their reputation."
"Clever girl. The enemy and I will be trapped until I win and am sealed."
"Aldric," I said. "You mean the dead warrior king."
"Yes," Julius replied.
"What happens if everything does not go correctly in the run or in general?"
"When you are older," he said. He stood up and stretched before turning away. "They are almost here."
"Julius, I have two questions."
"What is wrong, Rose?"
"If you know the past and the future, who is Tafari and the other person you mentioned? Will I ever meet them?"
"I cannot tell you the future. If I do, it will not happen."
"Then why tell us there will be a peace meeting uniting the nations if you will not tell us when?"
"Because your panic is irrelevant to the fixed point in this timeline."
"This timeline?"
"You will see all of us again on July two, twelve twenty five. But you will be late."
"Again, what do you mean?"
"Sadly, Ada, I will not see you until then. I wish you good luck."
When I heard that name, I heard cries. I heard sobs. I heard pain that did not belong to me.
Who is that? Why does that name hurt so much?
"Ada," I whispered.
"Let us go, Julius," his father said. He walked back and gave me a small smile.
Julius was pulled close. His father lifted him with ease. The man's eyes looked worn and tired. He glanced at the woman beside him. She knelt down next to me.
One of Julius' attendants. The women watched as his father left.
"Do not listen to what he says," the woman told me with a soft smile. "He is just a child with strange dreams."
"Julius," I yelled as his father dragged him away. "Are you serious about starting a war if my father does not agree to splitting Crylos?"
Julius shouted back, "Ten nights after the Tar surrender, all will be realized."
I had heard the generals call him insane. I had heard men whisper that his ideas were impossible. Even his own father dismissed the plan for a false civil war. But I did not see it that way. I was not sure why I trusted him. I only knew that he drew my attention in a way I did not understand.
Julius, the son of Vale, one of my father's greatest generals. A noble who ruled over Crylos with a warm hand. My father had told me that the people there were always fed and never needed aid. Crylos is self-sufficient because of Vale.
I had seen war. I had seen mothers and sons torn apart. Why would Julius want to create one?
Yet I wondered. If I had his knowledge of the future, would I start a war too?
What If I knew the actions of every person. What if I knew the names of my enemies? What if I knew the names of my allies before they were born.
What If I could predict every move before it happened.
I would be unstoppable.