Spring returned. My second spring in this cycle. The snow turned into a gray slush, and the earth into a sticky jelly that tries to devour your boots with every step.

  I watched the world change around me. The children were growing at a frightening pace. It seemed like only yesterday Tizor was tangling himself in his own swaddling clothes, and today he’s already racing around the yard, bumping into every corner. On the doorframe in the kitchen, Aya and Alastor had established a "growth chart." They methodically measured Erol and Yara’s height, carving new notches into the wood with a knife.

  — "Whoa, Erol, five whole centimeters over the winter!" Aya’s voice boomed, beaming with pride. "You’ll catch up to Alastor soon."

  When they finished, I walked over to the frame and leaned my back against the old mark. Lucia ran her palm over the crown of my head and froze. Her hand touched the exact same line that had been made a year ago.

  Not a single millimeter.

  I hadn't grown. My bones, my muscles, my height—everything was locked at that cursed "fifteen-year-old" point. Inside, I felt... empty and bitter. The children become adults, the demons find their humanity, but I am just a statue frozen in time.

  — "Don't let it get to you, Zen," Lucia said quietly, noticing my sour expression. "Eternity has its own standards of beauty."

  It was time to go to the city. The mud was so deep that the wagons kept getting stuck up to their axles. The horses were sweating, Alastor was grumbling, and I just stared at the road.

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  We pulled onto the main road, rutted with deep furrows from hundreds of heavy convoys. With a nasty, wet squelch, our wagon sank into one of these trenches. The wheels simply followed the established track, and turning aside was physically impossible.

  Lucia, sitting on the driver's box next to Poverty, looked thoughtfully at the wheels spinning in the mud.

  — "You know, Zenhald..." she began in her "teacher" tone. "Humans spend their whole lives searching for their rut. They pull into it because it’s easier. You don't have to choose a path, you don't have to think—the road itself leads you forward."

  She pointed to a driver ahead of us who wasn't even holding the reins; his horses were walking through the deep furrows on their own.

  — "They try to pull out of it when they get bored or scared, but they never quite succeed. The walls are too high, and the mud is too sticky. The rut becomes their fate. They think they’re moving toward a goal, but in reality, they’re just following whoever drove here before them."

  I looked at the muddy trench beneath the wheels. — "Are you talking about life?"

  — "About your curse," she smiled sadly. "Your cycles are the deepest rut in the world. Every fifteen years, you pull into the start of the path and roll along it until you hit the dead end of oblivion. And every time, you think that this time everything will be different... but you're still in the rut."

  I stayed silent. Lucia’s words echoed strangely inside me. This whole world was one massive rut. The demons returning to Hell. The humans repeating the mistakes of their ancestors. And me, unable to grow even one pathetic centimeter.

  — "Then we just have to break the wheels," I said, closing my eyes. "If a wagon can't turn, it should stop being a wagon."

  Lucia laughed. — "Typical Zenhald."

  We continued our journey.