Aspen's perspective shifted, sliding across the calcified floor. Past the body's feet. Past the hem of bone-white silk now stained with ash.
Six circles spiraled across the floor, drawn in that same gray ash. They curved inward, tightening like a noose toward a curtain-way that seemed to lead to the outside. At the center of each circle sat a triangle drawn in ash.
T-That's ash. Is that Lyra's magic?
And triangles mean the spirits are allowed to see. So she set this up. She predicted this.
Her death.
The perspective lurched again, pivoting back into the room and toward the bed. Aspen's view dropped to the floor beneath it.
There was something there. A shadow. But too dark, too solid to simply be light's absence.
What... is that? Her perspective snapped back to the doorway.
To him.
The young man knelt on the floor. His midnight hair fell forward, obscuring half his face. But Aspen could see his eyes. Blue. Wide. And hollow. That man… is that the Omen? Or some other killer? They said he was a man. Why am I being seeing this?
Then her view lowered. He had an icy blade in his stomach.
Crystalline and impossibly thin, like frozen light made steel. It protruded from his gut at an angle, as if he'd driven it in himself.
He was unmaking.
Threads of him—not flesh, not light, but something woven between—frayed at the wound. They peeled away in long, gossamer strips, dissolving into the air like silk caught in a slow fire. His fingers flickered: dead, alive, dead again. His lips moved to the same beat.
O... livia...
The name didn't escape as sound, no, it carved itself into the air. Aspen's sternum ached. He's beautiful. His knees buckled further, unraveling. The impact made no sound. Aspen etched his face into her memory. Every fraying edge of him.
And then he was gone. One with the air.
The room was empty.
Just ash circles. Bowls. Fungus.
And the body on the floor.
The body she was in.
✦
"—ermit. Hermit."
Aspen's head snapped up.
Back in the great room. Ribcage ceiling. Aqua mushroom light making everything a shade sickly. The table where she'd been sitting just moments—hours?—ago.
Her hands were locked around the edge of the wood, knuckles white. Splinters bit into her palms.
High Priestess stood at the opposite end of the table, head cocked. Her green eyes were narrowed. Analyzing.
"What," her voice gained its steady, "is wrong with you?"
Aspen's mouth opened. Then closed. Her tongue was too thick. The burnt sugar smell still clung to the inside of her nose.
I just saw someone die. No, that was Lyra.
Or is it me in the future?! Wait no no no, I could never make those ash things. That was ritual. That was Lyra.
That was Lyra. I just saw how she died.
"I…" Her voice cracked. She swallowed, tried again. "I saw it. Her death."
High Priestess's wings went rigid against her back.
Raine, who'd been sitting by Aspen, made a sound like she'd been struck.
Quinn's weathered face crumpled. "Whose..?"
Aspen looked down at her hands. At the aqua veins pulsing beneath skin she didn't belong in. "H-Hers. Lyra's. I think—I don't fully—"
"Describe it." Raine leaned in, her eyes glinting through fresh tears. "Now."
Shit. Aspen's breath came shallow. The necklace pulsed against her throat, but it couldn't keep up. "I-I smelled this like burning sweet smell and then there were these… circles. Like ash circles or something on the floor. Six of them. And I saw a triangle in each of them. And—"
"A triangle?" High Priestess prompted. "As in…"
"Yes! It seemed like she wanted to let the spirits see."
Raine's face went white. "N-No, there's just…" She bit her lips tight enough to bleed, holding back tears.
"What else did you see?" Quinn stood up, attentive.
Aspen glanced at Raine before responding. "There was someone. A boy, like… young. A teenager. And he had dark hair and a blade in his stomach and he just… he dissolved. He was dying or something, I don't know!" The words tumbled faster. "He had no wings, and before he disappeared, he said a name. Olivia. I don't know who that is, but—"
"He must have stabbed her." The words sheared out of Raine, honed and shaking. If a tongue could kill.
I-Is that why I had ash on my… oh my god. It's all clicking together.
This can't be a dream. It just literally can't.
There's too much at play. He killed Lyra, she wanted the spirits to see.
She brought me here.
"Lyra." Raine's hands twisted in her robe—one, twice. Her glassy eyes were fixed on Aspen, her bottom lip was bitten bloody. "He came. He already came. He killed her."
But then…
"No." High Priestess turned to Raine. "That doesn't make sense. And don't forget your words, even with this curtain we must be careful. If it killed her, then why are we still alive?"
"How does it not?" Raine's voice cracked higher. Her eyes shot to High Priestess. "She saw the death! She saw—"
"If it had come," High Priestess interrupted, "we would all be dead. Why would it go straight for her? And just to kill her? Moreover, would nobody have noticed its scent? And how would it have tricked the Spirit of Grace?"
Quinn rubbed her jaw, wings shifting thoughtfully. "Fair point. But then again, it's not like Grace told Hierophant much."
Aspen spoke up. "Maybe it saw her as a threat? She was clearly preparing for him—it to arrive, so she knew before anyone else. What if it knew that she knew?"
They froze.
High Priestess's eyes locked onto Aspen. Not analyzing anymore. Hunting.
"How," she said, voice dropping low, "would you know that?"
Aspen's breath caught. "I—what? I don't. I'm just guessing based on—"
"Based on what?" High Priestess took a step around the table. Her wings flared slightly, like a predator smelling blood. "How is it that you're perceiving things that nobody else can? And if your senses are accurate, you've woken after the Omen killed the last Hermit. She wanted the spirits to witness her death, why? Is this not auspicious?"
The others stared at Aspen.
"I'm not—I just saw what I saw and I'm trying to—"
"Trying to what?" Another step. "Tell me, Hermit. Not only that, you said you came from somewhere beyond our tree, where you lived without wings. Now you mention that the Omen has no wings." High Priestess's hand drifted to her forearm, to something beneath the fabric. Her breath grew ragged for once. "You—"
Raine shot up from her seat. "High Priestess, wait, that doesn't—"
"Stay out of this, Raine. You're emotionally compromised." The command was sharp enough to make Raine flinch back.
Quinn stood slowly, wings spreading slightly. "Easy now. If she was a threat, she wouldn't have divulged this. She doesn't even have her previous strength. Girl can't be blight."
High Priestess didn't look away from Aspen. "Hermit's have always been strange. She had access to ritual knowledge, divination records, council communications. She knew the Omen was coming—specifically for her—and didn't tell us?" Her jaw tightened. "That's a conspiracy. And she planned… this." She gestured to Aspen.
The implication hung in the air like smoke.
This?
"I didn't ask to be here! I don't even know how I fucking got here!"
All this... this stupid ritual conspiracy talk when I'm the one who was brought here AGAINST MY WILL!
"Don't you?" High Priestess tilted her head. "You are in communion with the Omen."
"I—" Aspen's voice caught. She couldn't even hear the necklace pulsing frantically against her throat. She opened her mouth to say more, but nothing came out. Is she gonna attack me? Can I even resist?
Quinn cleared her throat.
The air reset.
"Girl. Think for a moment. If the past Hermit planned this, why would she pick someone with no training? No strength, wrong scent, and too Pip-minded to be secretive?"
Thank you!
High Priestess still watched Aspen like she might bolt, tapping on her forearm. Something beneath the fabric glowed. Her wings flared.
Did she call him? What was that light?! Aspen spoke quickly, a drop of sweat running down her chin. "L-Look! S-She was on the floor. Dead. And remember, when the Omen was dissolving, he had this ice-sword in his stomach. Maybe she—"
High Priestess stole the air from her lungs.
The room got colder.
The mushrooms began to dim.
The air was dominated by one scent.
Peonies.
High Priestess spoke from somewhere beneath words.
Where is the Omen, stranger?