Chapter 25:
This Time, It Will Be Real
The wind carried the echoes of forgotten promises, but this time, Errin refused to be swayed.
He had chased illusions before—memories that flickered and faded, dreams that dissolved the moment he reached for them. He had lived lives dictated by fate, shaped by forces unseen, tossed between paths not of his choosing.
No more.
"This time, it will be real."
His voice was steady, his resolve unshaken.
The past had been a storm of uncertainty, a dance with destiny where he had never truly led. But now, he would hold first. He would no longer let unseen hands decide for him. No longer surrender to the whims of fate, no longer let the tides of memory pull him in directions not his own.
"I won't be making any reckless, unbridled decisions."
Not again.
Not even destiny would dictate his steps.
Every choice, every step forward, would be his alone.
If he was to lose, it would be by his own hand. If he was to win, it would be because he fought for it. If he was to love, it would be because he chose to.
For too long, he had been caught in the cycle of fate, forced to relive, to remember, to forget.
But now, he was free.
And freedom was terrifying.
The unknown stretched before him—not as an illusion, not as a story already written, but as something waiting to be shaped.
By him.
He exhaled.
Then, with deliberate intent, he took the first step of his new path—
One chosen, not by fate.
But by his own will.