Fig was quiet for once, wings buzzing softly against her shoulder. The gates loomed tall ahead, steel and stone and history carved into every edge. She wasn't sure if it was the wind or her nerves making her chest tighten.
"Trials aren't for another month," he said finally, brushing imaginary lint off his glowing shoulder. "You're early."
Elara didn't move. "A month?"
"Mm-hm. Thirty days and change. Enough time to get your affairs in order. Or steal someone else's."
She exhaled slowly and tilted her head. "What did I do last time?"
Fig's tail stopped flicking. "We're doing this now?"
"Yes. This." She glanced at him sideways. "If I'm stuck in a death loop, I might as well use it."
He groaned dramatically. "You trained. Like a maniac. Slept four hours a night. Ate nothing but turnip stew and regret. And in your spare time—vandalized the walls of noble houses with very pointed death threats."
"Training sounds good but I… vandalized noble houses?"
"With blood. Yours, mostly. Real aesthetic."
She blinked. "That sounds… concerningly on-brand."
Elara thought for a moment. There is probably some truth to what Fig is saying, like training and drawing out stances in abandoned buildings- that would be on-brand. By this time she knows he loves exaggeration and sarcasm.
Fig flopped onto her other shoulder with the exhaustion of a long-suffering sidekick. "You're exhausting, you know that?"
She smirked faintly. "Did I get in?"
"To the academy? Yeah."
Her eyebrows lifted. "Seriously?"
Fig sighed. "You charmed the weapons instructor by beating one of his top students bloody during the trial. You were so dramatic. The crowd gasped. It was a whole thing."
"Okay, not terrible so far…" She smiled. It does not really matter how she got in, it's the fact that she did that excites her.
That would mean she stands a chance to change everything.
"You lasted four days."
She froze.
"What?"
Fig scratched his tiny ear with a hind paw, looking deliberately casual. "Four days. Then you died. Again."
Elara is flabbergasted. That sucks. So close yet so far. That would mean she barely survived two months in her last reincarnation.
"How?"
Fig looks at her like he doesn't understand the question. She gives him another pointed look and he rolls his eyes.
"Stabbed. Again. You are very consistent."
Elara groaned. "Four days? Damn. I'm not good at this."
"You're great at dying," Fig offered cheerfully.
She ignored him, gaze flicking back to the towering gate. Four days. She'd clawed her way in and still only lasted four days. And then got stabbed. Again.
That wasn't just bad luck. That was a pattern.
A trap.
A curse.
"This doesn't feel like fate," she said aloud. "It feels personal."
Fig tilted his head. "Oh no. Not the existential spiral again."
"No, I'm serious." She turned from the gate, stepping off the main path and into the shadow of a stone archway. Sitting down on the ground she starts to contemplate everything that she remembers with the information Fig gave her. "This feels like I've been marked. Like someone's making sure I never last long enough to change anything."
Fig considered that. "Could be. Or maybe you're just chronically unlucky."
She shot him a look.
He cleared his throat. "Right. Probably cursed. That's very trendy these days."
She crossed her arms, thinking hard. "I need to know if this is something written in the stars… or something I can break."
"And how, exactly, do you propose doing that?"
"I need a witch. Or a seer. Or someone ancient and weird who smells like herbs and answers things in riddles."
Fig brightened. "Ooh! I know a lady like that."
"Of course you do."
"She lives near the Mirewood border. Bit odd. Bit murdery. But she doesn't charge much, and she hates fate."
"That sounds ideal."
"Only downside is you'll have to walk straight through Bandit Hollow, the Rotting Steps, and probably at least one cult territory."
Elara rolled her shoulders. "So, the usual."
"You really never take the easy route, do you?"
"There isn't one."
She stepped back from the gate, turning her back on the capital—for now. The month would pass quickly. And when the trials came, she would be ready. But first…
First, she needed to know what she was up against.
If she was cursed, she'd find a way to break it.
If she was fated to die, she'd rewrite the ending.
If the gods themselves wanted her gone—
Then they should've done a better job the first time.
"Lead the way, Fig."
He saluted with his tail. "To the bog witches and prophetic riddles we go!"
And with the gate at her back and vengeance in her blood, Elara headed east—into dark woods and deeper mysteries, toward the answers waiting beneath roots and bone.