"You might be the reason they died."
The woman's voice was grave, her gnarled fingers tightening around Blazar's wrist like roots digging into stone.
Sunlight bled through the dusty attic window, catching the silver streaking her dark hair—not the kind of grey that spoke of age, but of a life leached by visions too terrible to bear.
Each strand seemed to whisper of horrors witnessed, futures glimpsed, and innocence lost to the cruel gift of sight.
The Seer sat across from her at a table of polished black oak, its surface scarred with countless runes carved by desperate fingernails—some still bearing traces of dried blood from those who'd sought answers they couldn't handle.
The wood itself seemed to pulse with a malevolent energy, as if it had absorbed the despair of every soul who'd sat where Blazar now trembled.
Blazar tried to pull away, but the Seer's nails bit into her skin like talons, drawing tiny beads of blood that seemed to dance and shimmer in the filtered light.
"No, it can't be," she choked out, the words tasting like ashes and regret. Tears burned hot trails down her cheeks, each sob shaking her frame as if her very soul was trying to escape the terrible truth being forced upon her.
The salt of her tears mixed with the bitter taste of fear on her lips.
The Seer's voice dropped to a whisper that slithered between Blazar's ribs like a cold blade: "Your soul is a beacon, child. A lighthouse in the darkness that calls to things better left sleeping."
Her eyes, milky with cataracts yet somehow still piercing, seemed to look straight through Blazar into dimensions unseen. "Beasts will stalk you—first with curiosity, drawn by the sweet scent of your aura..." A pause, heavy as a hanging blade, thick with the weight of inevitable doom. "...then hunger. Oh, such terrible hunger."
A pendant—cold as a winter stream and smooth as polished bone—was slammed into Blazar's palm with enough force to bruise.
The chain slithered between her fingers like a serpent seeking warmth, its links oddly warm despite the pendant's frigid touch. Strange symbols etched into its surface seemed to shift and writhe when she wasn't looking directly at them.
"Listen well, child," the crone hissed, her breath carrying the scent of herbs and decay. "Wear this—it will cage your aura like iron bars contain a wild beast. But it won't..."
A dry chuckle escaped her throat, like dead leaves scraping against tombstones in an autumn wind. "Well, it won't change your chaotic destiny. Nothing can alter what the stars have written in blood."
"What destiny?" Blazar spat, her voice raw as a fresh wound torn open by thorns. The words came out strangled, desperate, as if speaking them might somehow make them less real.
The Seer's smile didn't reach her eyes—couldn't reach them, for they had seen too much suffering to ever truly smile again. "The kind that breaks you into so many pieces, you'll forget what wholeness ever felt like."
Outside, the wind howled through cracks in the walls that hadn't been there moments before, as if her very presence was already beginning to tear reality at its seams.
"You'll draw monsters like moths to flame, like sharks to blood in the water. This trinket will hide you—from being noticed or smelled out easily."
Her bony finger, pointed at the pendant before tracing a cold line down Blazar's arm that left goosebumps in its wake. "But stay too long in one place, let anything get too close, lower your guard for even a heartbeat?"
A sigh escaped her cracked lips, carrying the weight of countless doomed prophecies she'd delivered to souls just as lost as this one. Each breath seemed to steal a little more life from her weathered frame.
"You'll reap the consequences."
Blazar's eyes flew open.
Her chest heaved as if she'd been drowning, sweat painting her back in icy strokes. The haunting memory clung to her like a second skin, the pendant's ghost-weight still burning her palm.
"Fuck this life," Blazar growled into the predawn gloom of her cramped quarters, her voice echoing off walls that seemed to press closer with each passing hour.
Stretching until her joints popped like gunshots in the silence, she wrinkled her nose at the stale stench of fear-sweat clinging to her body like a second skin.
No ensuite bathroom—of course not. Luxury was for nobles with titles that still meant something, not some forgotten noble like 'Orion spade'.
Her fingers raked through her hair—a wolftail cut with shaved sides that had once looked rebellious and now just felt practical.
The short, spiked bangs fell into her eyes, and she pushed them back with growing irritation. Everything about this place grated against her nerves like sandpaper on raw skin.
She sucked air through her teeth, the sound sharp and frustrated in the morning stillness.
This only meant one thing: the dreaded public bathroom. The thought of sharing space with dozens of male students.
"Why is the universe against me?" Blazar growled through clenched teeth, her fist connecting with the mattress in a muffled thump that did nothing to release the pressure building in her chest.
She paced the narrow confines of her room like a caged animal, shoulders tense with barely contained energy, her bare feet wearing a path in the threadbare carpet.
The walls seemed to close in with each step, and she found herself counting heartbeats just to keep from screaming.
I'll wait until everyone's gone, she decided, fingers drumming an agitated rhythm against her thigh hard enough to leave marks.
Then—
A knock.
Her heart hammered against her ribs as if trying to escape, and for a wild moment she considered pretending she wasn't there.
"May I come in?" Vyne's voice carried through the thin door, too cheerful for her current mood, too bright for the darkness that seemed to follow her everywhere.
"Whatever," Blazar answered, not bothering to mask the irritation that scraped her throat raw.
The door creaked open on hinges that needed oil, revealing Vyne's lanky frame leaning against the doorframe with practiced casualness.
His sharp eyes—too observant—immediately caught the deep grooves marring the metal like claw marks from some beast.
"Whose claws are on the door?" he asked, running his fingers over the parallel gashes with the careful touch of someone who understood violence.
Blazar exhaled through her nose, a sound caught between exhaustion and exasperation, her arms crossing over her chest in a gesture that was part defense, part defiance. "You don't even want to know."
Vyne's lips quirked in what might have been amusement if his eyes weren't so calculating. "Let me guess."
He tapped his chin in mock thoughtfulness, but she could see the gears turning behind his casual facade. "Dante."
"Lucky guess." She shrugged, the motion deliberately casual even as her nails bit into her own biceps hard enough to leave crescent-shaped marks.
The name alone made her stomach churn with a mixture of fear and something else she didn't want to examine too closely.
"What was he doing here?" Vyne asked, shutting the door behind him with a soft click that seemed to seal them both into the room's oppressive atmosphere.
"Marking me as his prey," Blazar spat, the words tasting bitter as medicine on her tongue. The memory of those predatory eyes sent a shiver down her spine that had nothing to do with the room's chill.
Vyne let out a low whistle that managed to convey both sympathy and a healthy dose of concern. "Damn! Sucks to be you right now. Really, genuinely sucks."
"Thanks for the comfort," Blazar acknowledged, her voice dripping with enough sarcasm to peel paint from the walls.
"What are you here for?" she demanded, finally turning to face him fully.