"Every single fucking time with you, isn't it?"

I was too stunned to speak. My eyes were still fixed on the sky.

"The minute we meet up, the sun turns the whole damn sky red. I know what that means. You sure as hell should know what that means. And now I'm going to die. That's just wonderful."

A red sun like that always meant the same thing. The magic of the world itself was rising, breaking, in announcement. A Deacon was coming.

My muscles tensed from the panic that rapidly set into my bones.

No. Not here. Not now. A group of humans I could handle, maybe a couple of Kindred if they weren't too good, but a Deacon was well beyond me. A Deacon was beyond anyone.

"Let's go," I said, pulling on Jenny's arm.

She half-laughed. "Where?"

"Somewhere we won't die." I didn't much wait for her answer, but she wasn't keen on speaking anyway. I was the same, caught between a daze and panic. For us, it was easier. I knew where to go. I didn't know if the Athenaeum would be safe, but I at least had somewhere to hide. Jenny didn't, but let me pull her along with me with a measure of trust. The people around us quieted, murmuring in disbelief. Screaming and scattering was an option, just not one that occurred to them. A Deacon could never attack a city. Never. It was unfathomable. A red sun wasn't just the arrival. Deacons came by often to preach, unaccompanied by doomsday skies. Rather, it was a Deacon's war cry, an intent to kill, and it only appeared above where they intended to attack.

A Deacon's power was very different from a Kindred's. The real origins of Kindred had always been a mystery. We were born to human and Kindred parents seemingly at random. Some nations, like Espara, had their own theories on how to birth a Kindred, but the resounding academic thought in Senvia, and the one Lyana trusted, was that we were, in very blunt terms, freaks of nature. Uncaused. Unexpected. Our power was contained within our bodies. We were stronger, faster, more durable, better at magic, but ultimately limited to the confines of the flesh.

But Deacons were not born. They were forged. A thing that used to be human, but altered and deformed, imbued with the power of the land. Their power was intrinsic to the earth itself. A red sun announced one's arrival not as a warning, but through the Deacon's magic. It wasn't just some hued discolouration, it was raw power. The sky was being torn apart above us. The Deacon was coming for death.

Everyone in Bell Haven had been treated to a very recent reminder of just how deadly a Deacon could be. A year ago, when Senvia was still around, a Deacon merely fighting within the boundaries of a Senvian province was unheard-of, let alone attacking its own people. And Bell Haven was a city.

"It's insane," muttered Jenny. "How could one just..." she looked around, eyeing the city around us. Some people had started to move, but they did so quietly, like they were afraid of announcing themselves to the world. Their pacing still accompanied by a muttering at most. Silence clad the streets of Bell Haven like a crypt just waiting to be born.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

I pulled her left, right, and back into the square I had first entered into. It was mostly empty now, its crowds having scattered faster than the streets. I crossed it with purpose, almost dragging her along. The Deacon's magic was already tugging at my bones. My face felt red hot and my lungs burned from the strain. The magic in the air was hitting them, but it was the fear splitting me in half that had me practically kneeling. If Jenny hadn't been there, I might have just given up and laid down to die.

Instead, I pulled her along. When we got to the wall where I had jumped down and I pointed out the balcony above, she eyed it incredulously.

"No thanks," she said. "I'm... not in the mood to climb a ladder right now. I need to... I need to just sit down..."

"That's the fatigue," I said, grabbing her and tossing her over my shoulder. She yelped and swatted my head.

"Stop squirming," I said.

"Let me go! What are you doing? Are you insane?!"

I gritted my teeth. "I need you to stop squirming." My hands slipped against the stone at first. I considered punching out hand holds, but it was the sweat covering my palms that made it so difficult to climb. I dried them off frantically on Jenny's tunic and grabbed the stone again. This time, my hands didn't slip. The strain was intense, but I was able to lift the two of us up using the cracks and seams in the wall. Finally, my arm came down on the edge of the balcony and I peered over the wooden railing and into the house. A young man, barely older than a teenager, was staring at me in fear.

It was understandable. A red sun in the sky, a giant dark-skinned woman scaling a stone wall while carrying another woman on her shoulder, and I realised, probably eyeing the boy with an intense stare. It was exhaustion on my part, but I averted my eyes apologetically.

I let Jenny off my shoulder and looked around. The imprint for the ring coin was still there in the wood, etched-like into the grain, inviting the use of my key. The young man was gone, probably telling his parents or hiding from the two strangers on their balcony.

"Why are we here?" Jenny demanded in a hushed voice. "Why are we scaling random balconies? We should be getting out of the city!"

"This," I said, and pressed my ring coin into the wood. My gut clenched as the door to the Athenaeum opened. What if... I shook the thought from my mind. Whatever Eskir's secrets, no matter how much the Athenaeum was an enemy to Senvia, the Deacon wasn't after us. There's no way it could even know. Even if it had laid a trap in the red wastes to detect us, how could it know about the Athenaeum? If it was that much of a threat to Senvia, then if the Empire had known about it, it would have been buried for good a long time ago.

This wasn't about us.

Jenny stared at the unfolding doorway. "What the fuck?"

It looked different this time. Before, the door inside the Athenaeum had opened to the balcony like any other door. This time, I didn't see the Athenaeum at all. Instead of a threshold, it was a shimmering blue mirror covered in a pattern of barrenness like patchy vitiligo. The blue parts reflected us with a tint, half shifting between reflection and arcane haze. The other half, the dulled and barren bits, reflected other things. A forest, a bonfire, an art gallery, a tomb. It was a daze to look at.

"Follow me," I said.

"No way, nope, I'm not doing that."

"Would you rather have the red sun?"

She groaned. "If I die to a magical blue portal that just appeared on a random balcony, I will fucking haunt you for the rest of time."

Jenny extended her hand and touched the mirror tentatively. I did the same, holding on to her with my spare hand. I had no idea if this would work. The Archivist had said it wouldn't, that the coin would only work for me, but there were no other options.

Jenny took in a deep breath like she was diving into an ocean, and we both stepped into the mirror.