Chapter Text
She could not sleep.
She must not sleep.
Sleeping would mean her control would slip.
Sleeping would lead to disaster and death.
Sleeping means reliving the horror she saw.
Sleeping means losing everything and everyone.
She cannot lose control.
She cannot lose him again.
"Y-your Maj…esty…" gasped Leander as he struggled to speak and breathe with hot ash in his lungs. He reached for her blindly under the rubble that had landed on him, "you must…escape…"
"I will," Nerea said as she grasped his red soaked hand, "as soon as you rest."
He smiled ruefully, "Of…course, sire. It's…been…an honor…"
His hand went slack in hers.
Nerea opened her eyes with a gasp. Her control slipped again. She must remain diligent.
It's been a month since It happened. The nearby volcano erupted, spewing ash, heat, waves, and destruction over the kingdom. Millions perished on that day and more were lost in the next two days before Nerea unexpectedly found the tome passed down for past generations. A spell book said to be given to the first ruler of Hydropolis by Brineskimmer himself.
The spell she used from the book was similar to Rejuvenate but with a few limitations. Its maximum range depends on the length of its anchor's longest shadow (which was the Great Eye but it's reach went past a few miles away from Hydropolis all around so the nearby islands and Leucippe's Labyrinth couldn't be spared). Time can be reversed to as far as a decade if desired but a year is plenty. The spell can be reapplied as many times as the caster can possibly cast. Its effects are temporary and can be reversed if damaged. If used with a Kingmaker's permission, the spell can be used on a whole nation for as long as the caster is willing to pay the price.
Nerea is willing to pay the price. She must. She can't let them go.
She blinks and an hour passes by. Someone falls off a roof and dies.
Immediately, the clouds in the sky rush by Hydropolis as if in a hurry. Every other minute its either night or day.
Nerea recognizes what this means.
The spell is rushing forward.
With great dread, she watches the clouds suddenly stop.
The ground shakes. A great crack is heard. Hot ash, lava, and sea water rushes to the city.
Nerea runs to the ritual chamber and recasts the spell.
She is returned to the start of the month.
It took a few more retries to figure it out.
Disease leads to death. Death leads to time catching up.
Tall places lead to falls which in turn may result in death.
Murderous intentions and citizens gravely injuring others unsurprisingly tips the scales out of her favor.
What was unexpected was that romance leads to marriage or a romp in bed which then leads to new citizens born. This in turn breaks the spell as well.
(But children who were already conceived before the spell is looped back appeared to be the exception)
It takes her a few cycles to fully figure out the solution.
The Four Pillars of Law go into effect and despite Leander's efforts to steer her into considering repealing them, they remain.
She passes by a woman sobbing in front of the crumbled remains of her home. She has a son, Nerea recalled. The boy had a talent for magic and given time he would be the best of his generation.
The boy's mother suddenly grabbed her arm, an action she suddenly recalled as never happening before.
"Bring him back," she cried in a million voices, "bring them back!"
"Your Majesty!" the shout freed Nerea from her lapse of control.
Ah. That's right. The nobility (or what's left of it) had called a meeting. How embarrassing.
The viscount stared reproachfully at Leander's reddening face, "Once again I see jumping up the ladder hasn't reduced your need for audacity."
As Leander stammered his apologies, Nerea tamped down the urge to start a new cycle for a petty reason.
"How long do you plan on doing this?" said a snake headed man as he walked into view.
"For as long as I am able," replied Nerea as she patted Leander's unseeing head.
The snake headed man hummed as if he was processing her answer.
"But will it be enough?" he asked.
She had lost count how many times she started a new cycle but this one in particular has lasted eight months so far. Her personal best.
Hydropolis falls a week later because a foreign visitor brought a new plague with them.
In the next spell cycle, she decreed that everyone, citizens and foreigners alike, have to follow the Four Pillars.
Leaning on the Kingsbond eases her exhaustion but she can't rely on it all the time.
For now it helps.
"Get us out," says Leander with a legion of voices. "Get us out."
Finally, she had reached a full year. Tomorrow the volcano will erupt and destroy Hydropolis.
She cannot let that happen.
She musn't.
Not until she finds a way out.
It's been twenty full length cycles.
Sleep can only be done in small bursts.
It's all she can allow.
It's the price she must pay.
Her Majesty sways a little and she braces against the wall for a moment. Leander carefully watched as Queen Nerea regained her bearings and carefully walked down the hallway to a spot on the wall that revealed a hidden door.
Intrigued, Leander quickly followed after her.
He finds himself in a round room designed for rituals and tributes to Brineskimmer. Nerea kneels before a small statue, sending her praises to the Kingmaker in Mer.
She slowly stands up and backs away to the center of the room, her back facing Leander.
She raises her staff and draws an intricate rune Leander has never seen before in a well-practiced motion. The rune flashes and the face of a clock lights up on the floor.
Nerea chants in Mer and the clock's hands start spinning backwards. It spins as she chants and it spins as she chants and it spins as she chants and-
Leander wakes up in his bed. The diary in his desk, he discovers, has lost a year's worth of entries.
This has happened before, hasn't it?
The citizens of Hydropolis react with shock, confusion, and anger as the Four Pillars are announced. Leander experiences a sense of déjà vu as a near riot buzzes until the Great Eye makes a noise as if producing a high pitched tone. The crowd calms and Leander watches with alarm as it disperses.
What…what has Her Majesty done to Hydropolis?
He senses a presence and he looks around to find nothing.
His unease remains unsettled.
It grows when he hears a voice in his head say, "Make it stop."
Stop what, it never provides.
Yet Leander's curiosity grows.
"I have discovered the source of the Queen's madness," declares Leander one day. He feels oddly detached, as if he was sleepwalking.
"And with the authority as I have as Archon," he continues, "I annul the Four Pil-"
Nerea restarts to a new cycle.
"This is rather disappointing," says the snake headed man as the north tower collapses, "I expected something better-"
"Leave then," Nerea demands, "for I am doing this my way."
The man stares for a moment.
"As you wish," he decides.
The man never walks into her dreams again.
She hears of nations falling and forming every few year-long cycles. Such is the way of this world.
The only other nation that remains consistent is Ding Dong Dell. It's rather impressive.
Eventually, however, it too will fall.
Someday, only Hydropolis will remain.
Leander follows the oblivious Nerea to a round room designed for rituals and tributes to Brineskimmer. Nerea kneels before a small statue, sending her praises to the Kingmaker in Mer.
She slowly stands up and backs away to the center of the room, her back facing Leander.
She raises her staff and draws an intricate rune Leander has never seen before in a well-practiced motion. The rune flashes and the face of a clock lights up on the floor.
Nerea chants in Mer and the clock's hands start spinning backwards. It spins as she chants and it spins as she chants and it spins as she chants and-
Leander wakes up in his bed. The diary in his desk, he discovers, has lost a year's worth of entries.
This has happened before, hasn't it?
The citizens of Hydropolis react with shock, confusion, and anger as the Four Pillars are announced. Leander experiences a sense of déjà vu as a near riot buzzes until the Great Eye makes a noise as if producing a high pitched tone. The crowd calms and Leander watches with alarm as it disperses.
What…what has Her Majesty done to Hydropolis?
Leander purchases a new journal and stores it in his arms band for safe keeping.
The feeling of déjà vu stops until lunch.
It doesn't full stop until the year is over and he follows Nerea to the ritual chamber.
While she's not looking, Leander makes a mark in his blank journal and returns it to his arms band.
He wakes up in his room. He goes to his diary in his desk. It has lost a year's worth of entries.
He checks the journal in his arms band and finds it marked.
From the secret journal of Leander Aristides:
I asked a visitor what year it was under the pretense that Hydropolis has a different calendar system.
One hundred and seventy-two years have gone by without anyone noticing.
You should rest, says Brineskimmer as he hovers near the ceiling. Let me watch for a day.
"I cannot," mutters Nerea to the apparition, "I cannot."
The cycles blur and the days and dreams mix. Only reassurances from Brineskimmer keep her from resetting too early.
(The Kingsbond seems to be giving her less energy lately)
Folsense has fallen. Survivors speak of a man wearing a golden snake mask attacking the much hated Duke which had led to the Kingmaker going wild and destroying everything in sight until nothing was left standing.
Hydropolis can only host the survivors for a few days to let them rest before they move on to their journeys to better lives elsewhere. They can't stay permanently.
The idea of Brineskimmer attacking indiscriminately quiets the whispers of rebellion for a while. They don't rise again until the end of the year.
The first wave of protests was being planned when Nerea starts a new year long cycle.
(Leander makes his fiftieth mark.)
At one point there's word of a new nation called Goldpaw. Its people, whenever one visits, focus on fate, the stars, and luck.
They find the stars over Hydropolis both fascinating and terrifying, Leander would report. Yet once in a while they still come back. It's not enough to ban them from giving Hydropolitans ominous fortunes.
(Master Pugnacius sees the stars and then sees Nerea. He doesn't give her a fortune or pity.)
And then one day the masked man appears in Goldpaw and tries to hand them Folsense's fate. A group of exiled Dellians intervene and Goldpaw is spared. The Dellians decide to form their own nation instead of taking back Ding Dong Dell with Goldpaw's grateful assistance.
Someday they'll come to Hydropolis too and leave oblivious to forming friendships falling before they could even florish.
"It has been three hundred years," the man in the snake mask says one day in the throne room. The guards and priestesses eyeing him with suspicion reassure her that, unfortunately, this is real.
The same man who appeared in her dreams when she knew they were dreams a long time ago.
The same man who annihilated Folsense and tried the same with Goldpaw.
He's here.
"Has it?" Nerea keeps her face blank as she tilted her head as if in confusion.
"Yes," confirms the man, "and nothing has changed." His mask hides his expression but she can feel his judgement.
The man later leaves the city but she hears his voice in her head.
"You have done nothing."
For several nights he reappears and experience has taught her how to not react. There is no way he's actually there, after all.
The first night he says as his staff seems to shimmer, "You refuse to move forward. You refuse to see what's ahead."
The next night he says, "Your people aren't living. They are stagnant. Some will never get the chance to grow."
The third night he says, "You love him, don't you? You love all of them. Let them go. Let him go."
On the fourth night he says, "What gives you the right to call yourself Queen if you don't truly serve?"
And then at last he says, "Isn't it time you finally rest?"
At last Nerea says tiredly, "Help me."
The man ominously smiles triumphantly but she couldn't bring herself to care.
Over the course of the month leading to this cycle being a quarter of the way over, she plans. Before the cycle is over, she will hand over power to Leander once he passes trials she has given him. She will teach Leander the spell to keep Hydropolis safe. She will transfer Brineskimmer's bond to him.
And then at last she can rest.
(She senses a vague feeling of disapproval from him. She dismisses it. He was never here in the beginning. What does he know of watching your nation, your people crumble before your very eyes?)
Opportunity arrives in the form of the exiled Dellian boy king who chose to start over. It's been reported that his new country and Goldpaw have formed a pact. His presence could only mean he wishes to do the same with Hydropolis, not knowing it will only be valid until the cycle is complete.
The engagement stunt the foreigners pull has the right effect. The citizens buzz with conflicting feelings. Leander seems annoyed by the intrusion in the daily routine yet he at first attempts to keep them away from her until she demands with a slightly raised voice to bring them to her.
They sail away to collect the Aether and the man in the snake mask suddenly returns.
"It is time," he declares.
"Of course," says Nerea and she taps the floor with her own staff. In front of the entrance to the King's Cradle, the great whirlpool that disrupts the trip door pathways dissipates.
They leave unannounced. The palace guards will raise the alarm in a few hours.
The direct path to the Cradle itself opens once her presence is detected. Some part of Nerea is disappointed by this fact.
Then again, there is no delaying the inevitable.
However, the closer they get to the Cradle, the clearer Nerea's mind becomes. His influence is weakening. She doesn't think her companion is aware of this and it shall be his undoing. She has to do it quick before her own exhaustion tries to claim her again.
"Now," intones the man once they at last reach the cradle, "open your heart. Relinquish your Bond to me."
Nerea feels the urge to obey but easily overcomes it, "Never." A spell forms around her staff and she slings it at the man with ease. He blocks it with a barrier.
"How disappointing," he says.
"I refuse to relinquish my power to you," Nerea declares as she unleashes several spells. Her opponent deflects most of them but one hits him in the shoulder.
"I am trying to help you," he says as a brief aura of darkness oozes around his shoulder, healing it.
"Your so called assistance means death of my people!"
"Or it could free them from their prison!" he argues back as he sends an ice spell snaking towards her. "For that's what you have done!"
Nerea jumps out of the way and forms a trident out of magic. It collides with a barrier and when it breaks away, the man is gone.
He hits her side with his snake headed staff and she stumbles.
"When I had first caught on that Hydropolis had entered a time loop, I was fascinated," says the snake headed man who then ducks away from a fireball. "I thought I had found the solution. That I could prevent my own grief and heartbreak. But you did nothing else once you got it to work. You never sought to seek out safer lands. You never tried to go any further than a year. You did nothing that would allow Hydropolis to live! You deny yourself comforts just so you can continue the same tedium for three centuries!"
He unleashes whips of dark magic and one manages to grab Nerea. Despite her struggles, she could not break out of it. She could only watch as the man approached her with his staff gleaming with purple.
Calm starts to fill her. Her struggles cease and her bonds release her.
"Now, I shall set your people free. They will live and they will die. Hydropolis' fate will no longer be worse than death."
He plunges his magic encrusted hand into her chest.
The Kingsbond snaps.
Brineskimmer rages.
Somehow, she did not die. Leander did not die. Hydropolis did not die. The foreigners who came with Leander to rescue her did not die. Somehow Brineskimmer's wrath has been routed. Somehow the spell still holds despite there being no Kingsbond to power it. King Evan's Kingmaker theorizes that since she had repeatedly renewed the spell for so long, it caused a delaying effect. It will not last forever but it will give her more time to do what's right.
Nerea breaks the truth to her citizens and they surprisingly forgive her for it. She had been protecting them from danger for so long in silence. She had been both selflessly and selfishly giving everything she had for Hydropolis' future.
Her people are free to leave Hydropolis while there's still time to do so. They are free to explore the world for the first time in three centuries. Hopefully, they'll find a place to call home.
By the year's end, the spell will naturally fade and the volcano will erupt. What remains of Hydropolis when its people are gone will be claimed by ash, lava, and waves.
Nerea will have to make a decision on whether or not she establishes a new nation to lead before the destined day arrives.
And then she can finally rest.