Entering the third door, Henry was once again in his room in the Sinclair castle.
Standing in the corner as a silent, emerald-tinted observer, Henry looked at his eighteen-year-old self. The contrast was a physical ache.
This Henry was two years younger, his hair cropped short in the style his father demanded, his facial features still holding a trace of boyish softness and missing the damage caused by two more years of extensive alcoholism.
But the rot was already there.
He watched his younger self sleep for hours, a heavy, unresponsive drunken stupor that wasn't the rest of a warrior, but the blackout of a wastrel. When the boy finally stirred, he dressed with a clumsy, agonizing slowness. His fingers fumbled with the silver buttons of his tunic, his eyes bloodshot and unfocused. He looked pathetic—a young master drowning in a shallow pool of his own making.
The remnants of the previous day's drinking left Henry with a gnawing hunger, a familiar pang that felt like the unmistakable grip of hangover hunger. With a slight dizziness still lingering, he trudged toward the dining room. Meanwhile, the real Henry was forced to follow not too far behind.
Entering the dining room, he found his mother, Sarah, was already there.
"Henry," she said, her voice a low, melodic tremor of restrained hurt. "We missed you last night. Why didn't you come to my birthday dinner?"
The memory-Henry didn't even have the courage to look her in the eye. "I didn't feel well, Mother," he muttered, staring at the wall just above his mother. "My head... it was pounding. I must have caught a chill."
The real Henry, watching from the third-person perspective, felt a wave of nausea. He remembered now. He hadn't been sick. He had been so incapacitated by the discovery of what would become his favorite ale, gruit, that he had forgotten the world existed, let alone the woman who had birthed him.
From his vantage point, the real Henry saw the subtext that his younger, drunken self had been too blind to notice.
Sarah stood there, her gaze lingering on his trembling hands and the faint, fermented scent that clung to his skin. She didn't scream. She didn't call him a liar.
Instead, a look of profound, crushing disappointment settled over her beautiful features. It was a grief more violent than any troll's hammer.
"I see," she whispered, her shoulders slumping just a fraction. "Then you must rest. I only hope you feel better soon, my son."
As she turned to leave, her emerald eyes dimmed with a sadness that the memory-Henry was too self-absorbed to see, but the real Henry couldn't look away from.
The first step his mother took out of the dining room was the exact moment the third door reappeared, bringing him back to the void to finish what he had started.
The green ball-shaped light wasn't just hovering over the fourth door; it had expanded, its radiance now so thick it felt like walking through radioactive syrup. The light pulsated in time with the shame still burning in Henry's chest—the image of his mother's disappointed eyes and the memory of the lie he'd told to cover his drunken stupor.
The bright green light seemed to be calling him over. Henry didn't hesitate. He couldn't. The shame from the third door was a physical weight that made standing still impossible. He shoved the heavy wood door open and was spat out into the humid, perfumed air of a gambling den.
Standing in the corner of the dim, velvet-lined hall, the observing Henry watched his seventeen-year-old self. He looked younger, his hair even shorter, his face unlined by the dark circles and dried skin that would define his appearance in the future.
He was leaning over a craps table, a manic, desperate grin on his face as he looked at a hostess. She was older, draped in sheer silks that clung to her curves, her eyes professionally bright as she cheered for his every roll.
To the seventeen-year-old Henry, she was a goddess he was wooing with his prowess and his purse. To the real Henry, she was a vulture. He watched her eyes dart toward the pit boss every time Henry dropped another heavy pouch of Sinclair copper on the table. She wasn't impressed by his skills; she was calculating her commission on his stupidity.
He spent the entire afternoon there, chasing a smile that was bought and paid for, while the sun dipped below the horizon and the real world—his family—waited for him.
The memory shifted with a sickening lurch, transporting him to the moonlit courtyard of the Sinclair estate. The air was cold, snapping the seventeen-year-old Henry out of the gambling den's haze.
There, standing near the castle's entrance, was Howard Sinclair.
At nineteen, Howard was everything Henry wasn't. He was broad-shouldered, his posture a perfect line of military discipline, his eyes reflecting the calm wisdom that had already earned him the respect of the border Knights. He was the true heir, and to Henry, he was a walking reminder of everything he would never be.
It was Howard's nineteenth birthday. The banquet had ended hours ago. The guests were gone, the candles were stubs, and Howard was alone in the dark. It was clear to the real Henry now that it was no coincidence his brother was here, like he had thought when he had lived this the first time.
Henry watched his younger self freeze. He saw the flash of guilt on his face, followed immediately by the toxic surge of pride. The seventeen-year-old Henry started to turn back toward the shadows, hoping to vanish before he was seen.
"Henry?"Howard's voice was warm, genuinely relieved. "I thought you might have been in some kind of trouble. I was worried. Where were you? You missed the dinner, brother."
Henry wanted to scream. He wanted to reach out and shove his younger self toward Howard, to force him to hug his brother and beg for forgiveness. Instead, he had to watch the weakness of soul take the wheel.
"It's none of your business where I was!" the seventeen-year-old Henry snapped, his voice high and defensive. He stepped into the light, his clothes smelling of cheap perfume and stale smoke. "And honestly, Howard? It's just a birthday. It's not that important. Stop acting like the world revolves around you just because Father made you next in line for the title."
The silence that followed was deafening.
Howard didn't shout. He didn't pull rank. He simply stood there, the light of the moon catching the sudden, sharp hurt in his eyes. He took a long, slow breath, his shoulders dropping as if a great weight had been placed on them.
"I'm sorry, Henry," Henry said softly, his voice devoid of any irony. "I didn't mean to upset you. I just... I missed you at the table."
With a final, lingering look of pity, Howard turned and walked away into the dark, leaving Henry and his younger self in the courtyard.
Henry realized that Howard's superiority wasn't a weapon used against him. It was a shield he had fashioned to justify his own cruelty. Howard loved him, and Henry had spat on that love because it was easier than feeling small.
He had used his brother's light as an excuse to curl up in the dark.
The realization came with the fourth door's appearance, which led him to the fifth and final door.
In the void, there was no more ball-shaped light guiding him. The green radiance had finally found its destination, and it didn't just hover—it possessed the fifth door. The light was so bright you could no longer tell it was made of wood and iron; instead, it shone like the finest piece of jade.
Despite the frantic pace at which Henry had thrown himself through the earlier doors, he faltered at the threshold of the fifth. The absolute finality of it hung in the air like a physical weight, forcing him to pause. He stood there for a heartbeat, staring into the unknown, before finally steeling his resolve and stepping through.
Immediately, he was met by a light more brilliant than anything he had ever witnessed. It was the same vibrant emerald as the orb that had guided his journey, but its intensity was so blinding it forced his eyes shut.
When he finally managed to open them, the void was gone.
He was lying in his own bed within the familiar stone walls of Sinclair Castle. But he wasn't an observer this time; he felt the weight of the blankets, the warmth of his own breath, and the solid reality of his own limbs. He looked down at his hands—they were smaller, his skin unblemished by the mistakes of his future. His features were younger, his body revitalized.
A shock of pure adrenaline jolted through him as he realized the magnitude of what had happened.
"Holy shit," he croaked, his voice cracking with the pitch of a teenager. "I'm back."