Lyra fled. She tore through the night sky, her banshee form streaking between the stars like a comet of pure anguish. The vision of Peter's death played over and over in her mind, each repetition more horrifying than the last.
"Lyra!" Moira's voice echoed behind her. "Child, stop!"
But Lyra couldn't stop, In fact she chose not to stop. The pendant burned against her ghostly palm, and with it came memories she'd tried to bury.
Peter's kindness. His genuine tears. The way he'd knelt before her, accepting death as penance for sins he'd never committed.
She crashed through the roof of an abandoned cathedral hideout, her form crackling with raw spiritual energy. The ancient stones trembled from her power.
"What have you done?" Moira materialized beside her, white eyes blazing with fury. "You revealed yourself to him!"
"He's going to die," Lyra gasped. "And it's not supposed to be me who kills him."
"What are you talking about?"
"I had a vision, it felt so real. Peter dies in three days, murdered by his own aunt." Lyra said as her form flickered between solid and ethereal. "Lady Vivienne will kill him to prevent him from changing the family legacy."
"Good." Moira's voice was cold. "Let the Ravencrests destroy each other. It saves us the trouble."
"No!" Lyra spun to face her mentor. "You don't understand. He's not like them. He's actually good."
"There are no good Ravencrests!"
"Then explain the orphanage. The clinic. The way he tortures himself with guilt for crimes he never committed." Lyra's voice cracked. "He carries my pendant, Moira. He's spent his entire life trying to atone for what his family did to me."
"It's an act. A manipulation designed to make you lower your guard."
"For three years? He's been doing this for three years, long before I was reborn." Lyra floated closer. "And the children, Moira. The way they look at him. You can't fake that kind of love."
"Love?" Moira's laugh was bitter. "You think you love him?"
"I..." Lyra's form flickered. "I don't know what I feel."
"You feel confused. Conflicted. That's normal for a young banshee." Moira's voice softened slightly. "But you cannot let these feelings interfere with your mission."
"What if my mission is wrong?"
"Your mission is justice. Pure, simple justice for the crimes committed against you and your coven."
"But Peter isn't the one who committed those crimes!"
"He carries the blood of those who did. The sins of the fathers"
"Are not the sins of the sons!" Lyra's scream shattered several stained glass windows. "I was burned alive for healing people. How does killing another healer serve justice?"
Moira recoiled from the force of Lyra's anguish. "Child, you're not thinking clearly."
"I'm thinking more clearly than I have since I awoke." Lyra said as she wrapped her arms around herself. "I need to understand these visions. I need to know how they work."
"The death sight is a gift and a curse," Moira said reluctantly. "It shows you the moments when souls are about to leave this world."
"Can they be changed?"
"Some can. Others are fixed points, unchangeable by mortal intervention."
"How do I know which is which?"
"You don't. Not until you try to change them." Moira's eyes were sad. "But child, the cost of changing a death vision is enormous. It requires sacrificing part of your own life force."
"What do you mean?"
"Every death you prevent, every fate you alter, takes years from your existence. Change too many, and you'll fade away entirely."
Lyra absorbed this information. "What about my own death? Can I see that?"
"No banshee has ever been able to see their own death. It's one of the few mercies we're granted." Moira paused. "But there's something else. Something I haven't told you."
"What?"
"The vision you must never, ever try to change is your own death. If you attempt to alter your own fate, the consequences aren't just death." Moira's voice was deadly serious. "It's soul fragmentation. Your essence would be scattered across the spirit realm, never to find peace."
"Why didn't you tell me this before?"
"Because I hoped you'd never need to know." Moira said as she moved closer. "But I see how you look at him. How you care for him. I need you to understand that some prices are too high to pay."
"Even to save an innocent man?"
"Even then."
Lyra turned away, staring out at the night sky. "In my vision, Peter dies because he's trying to change things. Lady Vivienne kills him to preserve the old ways."
"Then let her. One less Ravencrest in the world."
"And one less voice speaking for the supernatural community. One less person working to heal the damage his family caused." Lyra's voice was passionate. "Don't you see? His death serves their agenda, not ours."
"Our agenda is revenge."
"No." Lyra's form blazed with determination. "Our agenda is justice. And justice isn't just about punishing the guilty. It's about protecting the innocent."
"He's not innocent. He's a Ravencrest."
"He's a man trying to do right by the world. That makes him more innocent than most." Lyra said as she faced her mentor. "I'm going to save him."
"Lyra, no. It's too dangerous."
"I'll pay the price. I'll give up years of my existence if I have to."
"You don't understand what you're saying. The death sight doesn't just show you how to prevent deaths. It shows you the consequences of prevention." Moira's voice was desperate. "If you save Peter, someone else will die in his place. Someone innocent."
"Who?"
"I don't know. The visions don't work that way. But the balance must be maintained. Death delayed is not death denied." Lyra felt the weight of this revelation. "So saving him means killing someone else?"
"Yes. And you won't know who until it's too late."
"There has to be another way."
"There isn't. This is the curse of the banshee. We can see death, but we cannot cheat it without consequences."
Lyra was quiet for a long moment. "What if I don't care about the consequences?"
"Then you're not the woman I thought you to be. The Seraphina I knew valued all life, not just the lives she chose to save."
"The Seraphina you knew was naive. She believed in the goodness of people." Lyra's voice was bitter. "And she died for it."
"Yes, she did. But she also saved dozens of lives before her death. She made the world better just by existing in it." Moira's voice was gentle. "Don't let anger turn you into the monster they claimed you were."
"I'm not becoming a monster. I'm trying to save the one person who might actually change things."
"At what cost?"
"Whatever it takes."
Moira shook her head sadly. "You're walking a dangerous path. one that leads to darkness."
"Maybe. But it's my path to walk."
"And if you're wrong about him? If Peter is just a more subtle kind of evil?" Lyra thought about the orphanage. The clinic. The way Peter had wept over her pendant. "Then I'll deal with that when the time comes."
"I won't help you with this."
"I know."
"If you try to save him, you'll be on your own."
"I know that too."
Moira studied her for a long moment. "You really care for him, don't you?"
"I think I do. And that terrifies me more than anything else."
"Love is the most dangerous emotion for a banshee. It makes us vulnerable and reckless." Moira's voice was sad. "It's what destroyed your first life."
"My first life was destroyed by hate, not love."
"No, child. It was destroyed by love. Your love for your patients. Your love for your coven. Your love for justice." Moira's eyes were tired. "Love made you stay when you should have run. Love made you fight when you should have hidden."
"And love is what's making me save Peter now."
"Yes. And it may destroy you again."
Lyra nodded slowly. "Maybe. But a life without love isn't worth living."
"Even if it means condemning others to death?"
"I'll find another way. I have to."
"And if you can't?"
Lyra was quiet for a long moment. "Then I'll make the choice that lets me sleep at night."
"The dead don't sleep, child."
"No. But they remember. And I want to remember being the woman who tried to save someone worth saving."Moira sighed deeply. "Then may the gods have mercy on us all."