Prophet of the Crimson Dawn

Chapter 3: Blood and Silver

"We aren't going to stop it, El," Solvren said, his voice hollow as he stared at the mark on the woman he loved. "We’re the ones who are going to invite it in."

Elarienne stepped back, her hand flying to her throat to cover the shimmering eye. "Sol, stop it! You’re talking like a madman. It’s a birthmark. My mother had one, and her mother before her. It doesn't mean anything!"

"The bird, El! The raven with the gold eyes—it was right there!" Solvren pointed at the empty fence, his finger trembling. "It was in the vision. It was sitting on my shoulder while the city burned. And that mark... I saw it on the throne. I saw it on the blade you were holding."

"There is no bird, Sol!" Elarienne shouted, her voice cracking with a mix of fear and frustration. "Look! There’s nothing there but wood and moss. You’re seeing things that aren't real. You’re letting a nightmare ruin your head."

Solvren grabbed his temples, his breath hitching. The "map" in his mind flickered like a dying candle. He saw a flash of the gate—the South Gate—splintering under the weight of something massive. In the vision, it happened at sunset. But the "ghost-image" was shifting, turning darker, moving closer to the present.

"The South Gate," Solvren whispered. "We have to go. We have to get to the North side of the city. Now."

"Why? Sol, talk to me like a person, not a prophet!"

"Because the wall is going to break!" he yelled, grabbing her hand and pulling her toward the weaver’s district. "I saw it. At sunset, I thought, but it’s moving up. The time is changing, El! The twenty-four hours... it’s shrinking. I don’t have a day anymore. I might only have minutes."

"The walls haven't been breached in three hundred years," Elarienne panted, struggling to keep up with his frantic pace. "The Sentinels are there. Mirellia is on duty today. She’s the best captain we’ve ever had. We’re safe, Sol."

"Nobody is safe!" Solvren banked around a corner, his eyes darting to the sky. "I can see the shadows bleeding into the air. Can't you smell that? It smells like old copper and rot."

"I smell the bakery and the morning rain," she replied, her voice small. "Sol, please. You’re hurting my wrist."

He loosened his grip but didn't stop. "I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I just need to get you behind the inner sanctum walls. If we can put enough stone between us and the gate, maybe the vision won't happen. Maybe if we change the 'where,' the 'what' won't follow."

As they neared the intersection leading to the main square, a tall woman in silver-and-blue plate armor stepped into their path. She held a spear tipped with enchanted glass, and her eyes were sharp as a hawk’s.

"Solvren? Why are you running like the Hells are chasing you?" Mirellia Seraph asked, her brow furrowing. "And Elarienne, you look like you’ve seen a ghost."

"Mirellia, thank God," Elarienne gasped, leaning over to catch her breath. "Sol is... he’s having an episode. He thinks the South Gate is going to fall."

Mirellia looked at Solvren, her expression shifting from confusion to professional concern. "The South Gate? Sol, I just came from there. The wards are holding at full strength. There hasn't been a ripple in the perimeter for weeks. What did you see?"

"It’s not a ripple, Mirellia! It’s a rupture!" Solvren stepped toward her, his voice frantic. "I saw it. Huge, pale things with too many limbs. They aren't wild beasts. They’re... they’re curated. Like they were grown for this."

Mirellia sighed, resting her spear against her shoulder. "Look, I respect your 'gift,' Sol. You’ve saved Silas from a bad fall and predicted the frost for the farmers. But the city walls are built on Ancient foundations. They don't just 'rupture' because of a bad dream."

"It’s not a dream! In my head, I see the gate falling in six hours," Solvren said, his eyes widening as a new image overlaid his vision. "Wait... no. No, that’s wrong. It’s not six hours."

"Sol?" Elarienne reached for him.

"It’s now," Solvren whispered. "It’s happening right now."

A sound like a mountain cracking in half echoed through the city. The ground beneath their feet buckled, sending a shockwave that shattered the windows of the nearby apothecary. A plume of black smoke, thick and oily, rose over the rooftops in the direction of the South Gate.

"The wards..." Mirellia gasped, her face going pale. "They didn't even flare. They just... died."

"Mirellia, don't go!" Solvren shouted as the warrior instinct kicked in and she began to sprint toward the smoke. "I saw you! I saw what happens to you if you go there!"

"It’s my job, Solvren!" she yelled back over her shoulder. "Get the civilians to the cellar! Sound the bells!"

"We have to help her," Elarienne said, her voice suddenly losing its tremor. She wasn't looking at Solvren anymore; she was staring at the smoke with an intensity that made his skin crawl.

"No! We are going North!" Solvren tried to pull her, but Elarienne stood like a pillar of salt.

"She’s going to die, isn't she?" Elarienne asked, her voice eerily calm. "In your vision. You saw her die."

"I... I saw her pinned," Solvren stammered. "I saw one of those things... it has a stinger, El. It’s not a quick death."

"Then I’m not leaving her," Elarienne said. Before Solvren could react, she broke into a run, following Mirellia into the chaos.

"El! Elarienne, come back!"

Solvren chased after them, his foresight screaming. The world was a mess of overlapping timelines. He saw a cart exploding three seconds before it happened; he saw a screaming woman trip over a fallen beam and hauled her up just as the wood crashed down. He was moving through a graveyard of possibilities, trying to find the one path where they lived.

They reached the South Gate plaza. It was a massacre. The massive oak-and-iron doors hadn't been broken; they had been melted. Slithering out of the gap were creatures that defied logic—pale, translucent hounds with ribs that functioned like extra legs, their heads nothing but vertical maws lined with golden teeth.

Mirellia was in the thick of it, her spear dancing. She was a whirlwind of steel, but there were too many. A hound leaped from a balcony, its weight slamming into her back. She went down, her spear skittering across the cobblestones.

"Mirellia!" Elarienne screamed.

One of the larger hounds, a monstrosity the size of a carriage, loomed over the downed captain. Its tail, tipped with a pulsing, violet barb, arched over its back.

"No!" Solvren lunged forward, but a secondary vision hit him so hard he fell to his knees. He saw himself standing over Mirellia’s corpse, his face covered in a golden mask, laughing.

The beast struck. The stinger whipped forward, aimed directly at Mirellia’s throat.

But the strike never landed.

Elarienne was there. She hadn't picked up a spear. She hadn't used a shield. She had simply reached out and caught the stinger with her bare hand.

The violet poison hissed against her skin, but she didn't flinch.

"Elarienne? What are you doing? Get back!" Mirellia choked out, staring up in horror.

Elarienne didn't look back. Her voice sounded different—deeper, vibrating with a resonance that made the air hum. "You shouldn't have touched her. She’s not part of the harvest yet."

"El?" Solvren whispered, his heart freezing.

Elarienne’s grip tightened on the stinger. She didn't pull. She just closed her eyes, and the veins in her arm began to glow with a dark, pulsing crimson.

"Give it to me," she commanded.

The beast let out a sound that wasn't a roar, but a shriek of absolute agony. Before Solvren’s eyes, the monster began to collapse in on itself. Not from a wound, but because its very blood was being pulled through its skin. The red fluid didn't spill on the ground; it rose into the air in fine, misty ribbons, swirling toward Elarienne’s open palm.

She condensed the blood into a jagged, vibrating sphere. With a flick of her wrist, she sent the sphere flying. It struck the other hounds with the force of a ballista bolt, exploding into razor-sharp shards of frozen gore that shredded the monsters instantly.

Silence fell over the plaza, broken only by the crackle of burning timber.

Mirellia scrambled backward, her eyes wide with terror. "What... what are you? That’s Forbidden. That’s the Blood-tithe. Where did you learn that?"

Elarienne stood in the center of the carnage, her chest heaving. The pale hounds were nothing but heaps of cooling meat. She slowly turned around, her hand dropping to her side. The skin where the stinger had touched her was perfectly healed, without even a scar.

"Elarienne?" Solvren approached her slowly, his hands held out as if approaching a wounded animal. "You... you told me you didn't have any magic. You said the Mark was just a mole. You lied to me."

She looked at him, and for a second, the warmth returned to her hazel eyes. "I had to, Sol. I didn't want it to be true. I thought if I never used it, if I never admitted it, the vision wouldn't come for us. I was trying to save you from me."

"You just killed a dozen Shade-beasts with a thought," Mirellia said, her voice shaking as she struggled to stand. "That’s not 'saving' someone. That’s a death sentence from the High Council. They’ll hunt you for that."

"Let them try," Elarienne said, her voice turning cold again.

She reached up and wiped a splash of dark blood from her cheek. As she did, the afternoon sun caught her face. Solvren gasped, stumbling back.

The hazel was gone.

For a fleeting, terrifying moment, Elarienne’s eyes glowed with the exact same crimson hue as the sky in his apocalypse. The hollow, divine indifference he had seen on the throne stared back at him through the face of the woman he loved.

"The harvest has started, Solvren," she whispered, and the golden-eyed raven landed on a nearby ruin, letting out a single, triumphant caw. "Don't look so scared. I’m doing this for us."

Solvren looked at his hands. For the first time in his life, his foresight was completely dark. The twenty-four hours were gone. There was only the "now," and the "now" was drowning in red.