General Jack's Rebirth

BLOOD ON THE LANTERNS

The night had begun in pure splendor; silk banners drifted from the carved warm glow of a thousand lanterns. Perfumes of sweet jasmine, lotus, and midnight plum layered the air until the entire hall smelled like a palace. Stringed zithers were in a corner, guests laughed over cups of peach wine, and servants carried trays of gold-plated delicacies.

Ashina's appearance was a shocking one to General Jack; he wasn't expecting her presence at the party. Ashina is the only sister General Jack has, the only blood left by their parents before they died.

Ashina had never looked happier; her cheeks glowed pink with warmth and laughter, and she moved lightly through the crowd, whispering to her sister, sharing knowing glances with Miller, her fiancé, and touching her belly with an unconscious tenderness she thought no one else had noticed.

"Ashina is still pregnant!" Jack's memory flashed briefly to the last time he saw Ashina in a pool of blood of her and her child, but now it's just her pregnancy.

Jack noticed; Jack always noticed. She had planned to tell the kingdom after the party. Announce her pregnancy, announce her future husband; instead, the world split.

"General Jack!!"

His voice tore into the hall like a blade; a palace maiden, hair disheveled, eyes wide, collapsed at Jack's feet, barely catching her breath as she lifted trembling fingers toward the east wing.

"C... Come quick, the women's reception hall, it's... It's." Jack didn't wait for the rest.

He shoved past her, sprinting down the corridor. Fabian and several guards thundered behind him, armor clanking, boots scraping stone, and the music faded, swallowed by the pounding of Jack's heart.

Ashina lay sprawled on the polished marble, her silk gown fanned around her like a fallen lotus. Her sister knelt over her, crying uncontrollably, hands shaking as she tried to lift Ashina's head. Miller, her fiancee, was pale as ash, hovering helplessly like a man who had already lost everything.

Jack slid to his knees so fast the floor burned his skin. "Ashina! Ashina, stay with me."

Her chest rose barely, her breaths were thin threads of air, too fragile, too wrong.

"She was smiling," Miller choked. "She was laughing, Jack. She said the room felt strange, and then... Then she just collapsed. She's pregnant, Jack. She doesn't want anyone to know yet, but..."

"I already knew," Jack whispered, his voice trembling for the first time in years.

Ashina's eyelashes fluttered weakly, her fingers twitched, but before Jack could speak, a horrifying scream split the hall.

"Look! Look at the Wall!" Heads turned, gasps exploded like gunfire, and pinned to the far wall with a ceremonial dagger was a piece of torn, embroidered cloth.

Dark, heavy, and blood-streaked, the sigil on it, a serpent coiled around a crescent moon, was unmistakable. The symbol of House Nightshade, Jack rose slowly, veins turning to ice.

He pointed a shaking finger across the hall at the tall, dark-haired noble standing stiff as a statue.

"LORD RYKER OF NIGHTSHADE," Jack growled, voice sounding half human, half beast. "You murdered my father."

The room erupted in terrified whispers; Ryker's eyes widened not with shock, but with outrage layered over something he didn't want anyone to see.

"General Jack," he said coolly, "I have denied this accusation countless times; I did not." He declared, but Jack cut him off sharply.

"Then explain this." He reached inside his coat and pulled out the matching scrap, the same cloth his father had gripped in his dying hand, the hand Jack saw covered in blood in his first life, moments before rebirth dragged him back 10 years.

Gasps spread like wildfire across the hall; even the musicians fell silent. Miller swallowed hard. "Jack, there's no evidence!"

Ryker's face tightened. "Convenient, General, very convenient, if only you could produce evidence on the same night I killed your father."

Jack stepped closer, heat radiating around him like wildfire ready to ignite. "Ryker, tonight the truth stops hiding." But Ryker didn't flinch and didn't blink either.

But what if General Jack has evidence for his accusations? What if he was there when everything happened?

He simply stood there with that eerie, unsettling stillness Jack remembered from his last life, a stillness that felt less like innocence and more like someone listening to a whisper only he could hear.

Jack felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck; something was wrong, terribly wrong.

Then the floor trembled, a dull rumble shook the hall, rattling lanterns and sending wine cups rolling across tables, and the marble cracked in thin jagged lines.

The lanterns flickered, dimming as if air itself was being drained. "What... What in the gods' name is that?" Miller whispered.

Fabian rushed back into the hall, breathless. "General! The royal healer—he's missing! His entire chamber is destroyed; something ripped the place apart!"

Panic surged through the hall, women screamed, servants dropped trays, and young nobles scrambled for the exit that refused to open as if sealed by an invisible force. It was supposed to be a PEACE TREATY PARTY, but it's more than that.

Then it happened: a sudden wind, cold and unnatural, like the breath of a tomb, blew through the sealed hall and extinguished half the lanterns in one violent sweep.

Darkness swallowed the room; only the candles near Ashina flickered stubbornly, and Jack saw it: the look in Rykr's eyes showed no fear, not shock; it showed he'd planned for such a day.

"You know what's happening?" Jack snarled. "Don't you?"

Ryker didn't answer; he didn't have to, because in that moment, the shadows above them began to twist, like ink stirred in water, like something ancient waking from sleep.

A glowing symbol burned itself across the ceiling, jagged, shifting, spiraling like a broken halo, not Ryker's mark, not human, the insignia of King George, the God of War, the same thing Jack saw a moment before his death in his previous life.

The same entity that whispered to him as he bled out on the battlefield, THE SHADOW ASSASSINS—that name echoed in his memory.

Miller's breath hitched. "Jack... That mark, it only appears before a kingdom of woodpeckers, and there's a prophecy that breaks it."

Slowly, Ryker took a single step backward toward the thickening shadows behind him; his voice dropped to a chilling whisper. "General, you remembered your death... But you didn't remember all of it yet."

His words made it known to him that he wasn't alone in this; his rebirth wasn't the first to happen; there is someone who has been in the same situation as me before.

"I think I might have died more than once," he whispered to himself, hitting his hand tightly in anger. "What are you talking about?" he asked, trying to get into details with him; he knows something he doesn't.

Ryker gave a thin, tragic smile, like a man revealing a truth too heavy for mortal hearts. "Your father wasn't the only one killed that night."

Silence, then with a sickening crack, the marble floor split open beneath Ryker's feet, black smoke curled around him like serpents, and lanterns burst one by one, glass raining over the screaming guests.

Ryker locked eyes with Jack and whimpered, "You were supposed to die too."

The shadow swallowed him whole; he vanished. The hall erupted in panic, shouts, and running footsteps, with chaos everywhere. Jack turned back to Ashina and felt her pulse stutter, once, twice.

"No... No... Stay with Ashina! I can't lose you again, not in this lifetime."