Every morning for five hundred years, Eira had awoken to the taste of blood in her mouth.

So, the day that she awoke with little more than bad breath, she knew something had shifted.

Something had changed.

Something was wrong.

Yet it was so right.

“Mama!” she called, dashing out of her small bedroom into the archaic passageways of the Witches’ fortress.

The fortress had stood tall for five hundred years despite all that it had seen— war, enslavement, tortured souls. With each new day, it crumbled and creaked in different places. Eira had no idea how much longer it could hold under the pressure of centuries, but she hoped it would at least stay whole until they came.

They, the ones who would reverse the curse, who would save the Witches from their infernal immortality.

“Mama!” Eira called again as she ran through the halls, feeling the smooth granite against her fingertips as she guided herself, the cool morning floor chilling her feet. She had wandered these passages so many times over the past five centuries that she had memorized how many paces it would take her to reach the end of each one.

One, two, three, four.

Her hand reached for the curve of the wall’s corner as she turned left.

One, two, three, four, five.

Another corner, this time a right.

Again and again, she counted her footfalls, her hands skittering across the curve of the walls, reaching for air at each turn, marking each passage by its distinct smells, the warmth and coldness of its stone, the number of doors that led from its walls. This is how Eira had walked through her life for she could not see through the foggy gray that covered her eyes.

The gray that had blocked not only her vision but her Vision, her Sight, for five hundred years.

But then, she had awoken without craving the Mage blood that kept her alive despite her warped Magic. Certainly, that changed things, did it not?

“Mama!” Eira cried more urgently as she came to the Sacred Chamber, the womb of the Witches’ fortress and the seat of all their broken Magic rituals. The young Witch could feel her mother’s presence here, having learned over centuries of seeing nothing to recognize her by her smell, her aura, her feel.

“Eira,” her mother, Nanami, whispered, as she glided almost soundlessly across the floor toward her daughter. Eira could feel concern radiating in waves from her mother’s body as she tenderly cupped her daughter’s warm brown cheeks. Eira placed her own hand on top of her mother’s, her cloud-gray eyes unblinking and coated in puzzled confusion.

“What ails you, my child?” the elder woman, leader of all the Witches, asked, her breath grazing warmly against Eira’s sweat-lined forehead.

Eira bit her lips nervously, summoning the words to her tongue.

“I think…I think…I—I believe my Visions have begun,” she finally whispered, squeezing her mother’s hand as she leaned against the elder Witch’s chest. She could hear Nanami’s heart beat faster, her breath stop for a moment, ragged with surprise.

“What?” Nanami breathed, quietly. “The Visions?”

“Yes,” Eira said, her voice shaking. “They are coming. The ones who we have awaited for five hundred years—the vagabond saviors.”

Eira could hear Nanami’s gasp, feel the shock reverberating through her body as her bushy fox’s tail, a remnant of her cursed Shape-Shifter Magic, curled around her daughter protectively. Nanami placed a gentle hand against Eira’s midnight colored curls, gripping the girl closely as she cried in relief.

“Are you sure?” the mother whispered joyously into her daughter’s ear, her wet tears tickling Eira’s bare shoulders. “Is the curse really coming to an end?”

“It is,” Eira confirmed. “I awoke this morning without craving Mage blood. It was the first sign I Saw all those years ago….before I became cursed.”

Nanami nodded quietly against her daughter’s head, a quiet relief replacing centuries of tension she had held tight in her jaw. Eira could feel her mother’s face relax against her head as she kissed her daughter’s hair. The younger Witch couldn’t help but relax into her mother’s embrace as well, the shock of realizing that her Visions would hold true melting away with her mother’s warmth.

After five hundred years of tortured immortality, of drinking Mage blood to keep alive, of fighting against the Sorcerers—freedom was just beyond the horizon for the Witches.

But their quiet relief was short-lived as a low hum reverberated through the room. Mother and daughter turned to the source of sound which sat in a glass case upon a central dais.

“The Stone of Flame,” Eira breathed, turning toward the sacred crystal the Witches had sworn to protect with their lives. After centuries of sitting beside the Stone for hours on end, of learning its curves and its jagged edges, its quiet harmonies, its warped blessings, Eira could recognize its energy in her sleep. She didn’t need to see it to know it was the source of the sound. “Something has called to it.”

“Yes,” Nanami agreed, her head turning away from Eira no doubt to see the crystal. She released Eira’s hand, her footsteps clicking toward the center of the room. “I wonder—”

CRACK!

A blast of pulsing lightning shot forth like a circular wave from the Stone.

“Eira!” Nanami screamed, shielding her daughter as the blast rocked the room, crashing into the scrolls once stashed safely into the hollows of the sandstone walls. Hundreds and hundreds of papers and parchments clattered to the ground, the sounds of their flapping intermittently broken by the cacophony of breaking glass.

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Eira crashed into the floor, her cheek pressed hard against the cold stone as she felt her mother’s warm body wrap around her.

“I’m fine, Mama,” she insisted as she shifted uncomfortably, tugging at her arm which was bent awkwardly behind her.

As she wrenched it away from beneath her mother’s body, a spray of broken glass flew over the Witches’ heads. Eira screamed as the shower of shards embedded themselves into her hands, a sticky river of blood winding between her fingertips.

“We need to get you out of here,” Nanami gasped, trying to drag her daughter out of the crumbling room.

But then, Eira tripped over three tubes containing scrolls, and fell to the ground, crying out again as more glass dug into her hands and blood spouted like microfountains from her skin.

“Your fingers!” Nanami screamed, tugging the young Witch to her feet as her blood painted the floor.

Eira stumbled, following the guidance of her mother’s warm hand—but that was when she felt the rumble beneath her feet, a tremor so low, so quiet, that she would not have noticed it if not for the centuries she had spent carefully listening to the vibrations around her.

Before her mother could realize what had happened, Eira had wrenched her bleeding hands away and had pushed Nanami to the ground, running towards the second pulse of energy, ready to protect her mother at all costs—

“EIRA!” Nanami screamed, her voice raw with terror as the young Witch took in a full blast of the Stone of Flame’s chaotic radiation. Eira had not even a moment to cry out as her body thumped against the ground like a broken doll.

A dull buzz filled her ears, but even in her frozen state, she could hear Nanami shuffling toward her over broken glass and torn scrolls. Tears choked the older Witch’s voice as she whimpered, flipping over her daughter’s body, her soft fingers brushing Eira's smoke streaked cheeks. The young Witch could feel her mother’s hands threading through her matted curls while she tried and failed to staunch Eira’s bleeding nose, the wet blood already soaking into her chest through her thin nightgown.

“No, no, not my brave girl,” Nanami choked, cradling Eira’s body to her chest, rocking back and forth as uncontrollable sobs shook her body.

Eira couldn’t die, no she couldn’t, please, please….

The young Witch gasped loudly, her eyes flashing open, no longer gray but a strange mix of swirling silver-and-gold. Nanami swallowed her trembling tears, touching the girl’s face tenderly, her relieved laughter echoing through the quieting room.

“Eira? My dear girl. Eira, is that you?” Nanami breathed, her voice clogged by tears and snot.

Eira said nothing for a moment, listening to the Stone of Flame’s dying hum as her consciousness returned, wild realization buzzing in her mind for her eyes, her mind— they were no longer the same. She was not the Eira of five centuries before but neither was she the Eira of five minutes ago.

She had been transformed by the Stone.

Or rather, something had transformed it.

Or someone.

The girl gulped twice and closed her eyes before finally breathing deeply. She couldn’t believe it.

“It’s back, Mama,” she whispered in disbelief, her new silver-and-gold eyes wandering about the room, looking beyond what lay there to a place far away from the fortress’s crumbling walls. “I can See.”

“You can see?” Nanami breathed, her voice laced with incredulity.

Eira rose on unsteady feet, her bloodied hands streaking her face as she pointed to her swirling eyes. “No, Mama. I’m still blind, but my Vision…the Stone has returned a fraction of my Sight Magic. Do you know what I See now?”

“No, I don’t,” the older Witch said gently, squeezing her daughter’s shoulder with concern. Eira knew her mother must be wondering what the Stone had done to her, worried about what it had changed, what else it had broken, though, for once— it had broken nothing. “Tell me, what do you See?”

Eira opened her mouth, ready to spill the words about everything that swam before her mind’s Eye—but stopped herself.

What did she See beyond blurred scenes and splashes of color?

She needed a clearer picture— a crisper image, a concrete idea—so she released her mother’s hand, shutting her Eye to the outside world as she delved into her Vision.

Come on, come on, she told herself determinedly. You can do it.

Five hundred years without Sight practice had certainly left Eira rusty, but already, she could feel the familiar tug of her limited Magic guiding her along.

At first, she buoyed in an endless darkness—a pitch-black so deep that no light could escape. Eira’s Eye anxiously awaited for something, anything until—yes…what was that?

From the abyss sprung forth spiraling, chocolate-colored curls, chestnut eyes, and copper-tan skin bobbing in a river of poison.

Betrayal.

Internal agony, ripped to shreds, tears slicing hearts like knives. Breathless, choked, broken trust.

Eira reached out, trying to see more through the hazy fragments, but before she could, she was quickly whisked away to another image— this one flecked with roaring blood, fractured souls, and the scorching flames of a dragon’s jagged jaw. A pair of obsidians stones, a braid of onyx thread, a gleaming, metal serpent, blood-red pearls, a flash of pale, sallow skin—and red-hot rage emanating in waves of heat so overpowering, Eira could feel her lungs burn to ash.

Yet, as quickly as the flaming anger came, it left, replaced with a frigid, watery abyss. Eira’s teeth chattered as she waded through the icy liquid, searching for something—anything— in the dark, dark ocean—

There!

An orange flame bloomed before her eyes. Eira paddled faster and faster toward it, a sun of porcelain skin rising from the horizon followed by a smattering of freckled stars and shocking moons of pale blue writhing and twisting in unnatural angles against the backdrop of the night.

A girl.

Eira was seeing a girl.

A girl just like her.

A girl in pain.

With a crack of thunder, the sky split in half as rain, wind, earth, fire, and blood mixed together in a deadly storm that ripped at the very fabric of the Vision, exploding in amber light, until Era’s gold-and-silver eyes flashed open, crackling like metallic lightning.

She gasped loudly, her heart pounding against her rib cage as she held a hand to her neck, steadying her heavy breaths.

“What is it? What did you See?” Nanami cried rushing to her daughter’s side, her clammy hands gripping Eira’s face firmly, urgently.

Through the dizziness of her mind and mouthfuls of air, Eira managed to get few words out. “I–I Saw—”

“ — you Saw—” Nanami encouraged, coaxing her daughter to sit down so that she wouldn’t fall from her trembling.

“I Saw three people,” Eira finally breathed out, the air in her lungs settling as she leaned against a broken table. “Two Mages and a thief—”

“Oh?” the older Witch whispered, wondering what this could mean. She opened her mouth to ask, but Eira interrupted, her unseeing eyes somehow piercing Nanami’s heart with eerie accuracy as she said,

“ —and they will destroy the very thing that keeps our universe in balance—”

Nanami’s heart stopped. No. Impossible.

“ —the Stone of Flame.”