It is crumbling.

Vikus is a man of hope. He yearns for the light in every darkness, the silver lining. Every day, he tries to forge the future he would have liked to have — where it is not a common occurrence for people to be slain or forced from their homes, where parents did not tell their children to hate another's, where families are whole and do not plot behind each other's backs.

Sometimes, he cannot help but wonder if it is all crumbling between his fingers. Relations are worse than ever. The plague… he sees the bodies in his sleep at times. The writhing pups. His wife leading the slaughter, like Sandwich pouring poison in the streams. He can hardly stand to be at home anymore, yet he yearns for it. All the signs he should have seen. The weight that lingers on his back, never to relent after all these years, it is the same that has wrought her iron hand. The people they lost. Plans going awry time and time again.

Why did you not tell me about the plague? he had screamed, heart pounding so fiercely he had to lean against a wall, afraid his body was tearing itself apart.

So your hands would be clean, had been her quiet answer.

The gnawers will be at Regalia's walls shortly. Perhaps it would have been inevitable. There is no stopping a war now. His heart had nearly broken when he heard what Luxa had said in Hades Hall. A child speaking the Vow to the Dead with such conviction. A child starting wars. Had they known about the nibblers earlier, had they stopped the gnawers… Vikus knows what Solovet would say. That, had the plague worked, it would never have come to this.

Vikus passes by the museum and finds that it is occupied. He steps in and aches at the sight. Gregor stands with Sandwich's sword in hand. The sword he had once so fiercely rejected. His hand clutches the hilt with resolve. Oh, let him let it go. Let him be another sort of warrior. Only he cannot be, for Vikus' last hope is the Prophecy of Time.

"Have you found all that you need?"

It is the point of no return. It is the last time Gregor will have the option of laying down his sword with impunity.

"Yeah." Gregor's hand tightens on the hilt. "Yeah, I think I've got it."