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The wound in his leg pulses like a second heartbeat.
Infection curls around the bone now, he can feel it spreading, whispering to him in the early hours before sunrise, when even the sky has forgotten how to hope. Every step is a negotiation. Every breath is a contract he’s breaking. Still, he walks.
He knows where this ends.
It’s not a secret anymore, not to him. Not after the ravine. Not after months of silence and rot and the wind that screamed only his name.
He doesn’t have to be a genius to understand what’s happening to his body. Or his mind. The gem has burrowed into his forearm like a parasite, has rewritten his nerves, has carved out the soft parts of his brain and left only instinct behind.
He sees her sometimes.
Mel.
Not the real Mel, the one who came back from captivity he never even asked about changed, marked, distant, but the Mel who whispered to him in the dark.
The one who smiled when he touched her cheek in the morning, who told him he ‘could still be good’, even after everything in the ravine. That version isn’t real. He’s not even sure she ever was.
But when he closes his eyes, he dreams of her.
Of soft sheets and tangled limbs and the weight of her head on his chest as he finally, finally falls asleep. Her voice, a lullaby:
“You’re safe now. You’re home.”
Jayce hasn’t slept properly in years.
It will never let him say goodbye.
He knows that too.
He can’t tell Caitlyn he’s sorry for missing her birthday for the first year without her mother. Can’t thank her for helping him hide how much he was spiralling when things started to slip.
Can’t tell his mama he kept her locket with him in the ravine even after he lost his coat. The chain burned his neck in the sun, but he never took it off.
He can’t tell Mel he loves her. Not anymore.
That window is sealed shut.
He destroyed it with suspicion and accusations and a half-hearted apology delivered through clenched teeth because his soul was already halfway gone. He couldn’t bring himself to fall to his knees and beg her to remember who they’d been before the separation, before his fucked up mind, before his obsession turned him into a stranger. Because part of him knew she had already started grieving him.
And the other part—
The part that still remembered her body, her voice, her laugh—
It didn’t want her to stop.
Let her keep mourning. Let her believe he died in the ravine.
Because he did.
The Viktor who gave him the gem had been eerie. Gentle, almost. He spoke in riddles, as if Jayce already knew the ending.
“You’re the only one who can stop him,” the mage had said, eyes glowing with some semblance of mercy. “You’re the only one he’ll still listen to.”
Jayce had wanted to scream.
Had wanted to shove the weight of what he needs to do back into the man’s hands and tell him: No. You’re wrong. I’m not the hero. I’m the mistake.
But he hadn’t.
Because even then, shivering, starving, his leg cracked like glass, he knew what the partner who wasn’t his partner meant.
He knew what had to be done.
He sits alone the night before the final fight.
Viktor’s constructs are tightening their hold, the hive swelling with voices, pulsing like a city-sized heart. The sky above is violet with tension. Somewhere across the bay, Mel is likely preparing something sharp with Shoola. Caitlyn is watching the walls, loading and unloading her gun. His mother is praying in a house too small for her grief.
And Jayce is here.
Just a man.
Not a champion. Not a symbol.
Not the “Defender of Tomorrow.”
Just someone very, very tired.
He stares at the stars. He can’t remember the last time he looked at them and didn’t feel crushed.
But tonight, they look… still. Distant. Peaceful.
He thinks, not for the first time, that maybe he wasn’t meant to make it out of the ravine.
Maybe the Viktor who saved him had been wrong.
Maybe it would’ve been kinder to let the rot win.
And then…he laughs. Quietly. Almost fondly.
Because he understands now. That saving Viktor isn’t the point. That winning isn’t the point.
It’s about giving up the right to see what happens next.
It’s about making sure there is a next.
He will go tomorrow. He will fight. He will die, maybe screaming, because his body is breaking faster than he can rebuild it.
And maybe, maybe, he’ll see who he’s been missing on the other side.
Not Mel. Not Caitlyn. Not his mama.
But the version of himself he used to be.
The boy with wide eyes and a hammer too big for his arms.
The one who still believed he could change the world without ruining it.
And a father who will tell him he did his best.
When he finally lies down that night, he lets his head tilt back, arms spread slightly like he’s waiting for the earth to take him.
He closes his eyes.
Not to pray. Not to hope.
Just to rest.
‘And afterwards, you come home and rest.’
His mother’s voice. A memory, or maybe just a wish.
‘You always do.’
Jayce lets out a breath.
And for the first time in years, he believes her.
He looks forward to it.