Drake sat on the edge of his bed, the rough-spun wool of his blanket scratching against his legs. He wasn't staring at the darkness of his small room; he was staring into the darkness behind his own eyes, trying to parse the fragments of the vision that clung to his mind like cobwebs.
Was it all just a dream? It felt like more. It felt like a warning etched into his soul with a cold needle.
He lifted a hand, surprised to see it shake, and wiped the cold sweat from his brow. His heart was a frantic drum against his ribs, a lingering echo of the pure, unadulterated terror that had seized him. It had been terrifying… a deep, primal fear that resonated in his bones, not just his mind.
His gaze, almost against his will, was drawn to the egg on the stool beside his bed. In the weak grey light of dawn filtering through his window, it looked different. Overnight, it had transformed from a symbol of promise into something ominous. The cracks webbing its surface seemed deeper, darker. A strange, almost imperceptible presence—a feeling of being watched—seemed to leak from it, a silent, cold vapor that made the air in the room feel heavy and charged.
What was happening?
The answer surfaced from a half-remembered lesson: prophecy. It was a rare and volatile ability among spirits, a trait that spoke of immense power and deep connection to the unseen threads of fate. The visions were never clear, never literal, but echoes of possibilities—shadows of what might be.
A confused, breathless sound that was half-laugh, half-sob escaped his lips. If this was true, then the spirit waiting for him wasn't just strong. It was momentous. Perhaps even cursed. The weight of that thought was suffocating.
He pushed himself up, his movements sluggish as if the nightmare had stolen his strength, and stumbled to the washbasin. The water was bitingly cold. He cupped it in his hands and splashed it violently on his face, once, twice, as if he could scour the lingering dread from his skin, could shock the memory of the bound figure and the chilling greeting from his mind. The water dripped from his chin, but the cold clarity he sought didn't come. Only the numbness remained.
On the morning of his promised day, Drake walked to the village square with leaden feet. The familiar path felt alien. The usual cheerful chatter of early risers and the scent of baking bread were there, but they were muted, dampened by an invisible blanket of anxiety he couldn't shake.
At the center of it all stood the small stone altar, and above it, the serene face of the woman carved in marble. He'd always found solace in her sightless gaze, but today her smile seemed sad, her outstretched hand offering not blessing, but a futile warning. The gentle gurgle of the fountain that adorned the wide marketplace sounded less like music and more like a desperate, endless gasp.
The peace was a fragile illusion, shattered a moment later.
From the direction of the western gate, the sounds began. Not the normal ambience of the village, but the harsh, metallic clatter of armored plates and the tense, barked orders of men preparing for violence. Soldiers—a dozen of them—stood in a grim semi-circle just outside the main entrance. Sunlight glinted off their polished iron armor, a cruel parody of celebration. Each man was flanked by a companion spirit: a hawk with ruffled feathers, a large mastiff that growled low in its throat, its eyes fixed on the village, a wildcat that paced with restless, twitching energy.
At their head stood a commander, his authority etched into the set of his jaw and the proud emblem of a golden phoenix blazing on his ornate chest plate. His voice, when it came, was sharp and carried effortlessly, a weapon in itself.
"Form up! Weapons ready! We cleanse this blight at sunset!"
The command hung in the air, a death sentence.
… Drake couldn't bring himself to go home. He spent the dwindling hours of the day trapped in a horrible limbo, seated beneath the gnarled oak at the edge of the square. His favorite book lay open in his lap, but the words were a meaningless jumble. He couldn't read about fictional heroes when real monsters were at the gate.
His attention was utterly, terrifyingly consumed by the egg nestled in the grass beside him.
It was changing. It was no longer inert. Now, it pulsed. A faint, rhythmic, and utterly alien thrum vibrated through its shell, a deep, resonant beat that felt less like the promise of life and more like the slow, patient awakening of something ancient and deeply shadowed. It was a dark heart, waiting for its moment to begin beating in earnest, and it held Drake in a trance of dread and awful, irresistible fascination.