[This post contains dark themes. Please skip this one if it's not your thing.]

Kehlbins turned the gwethdesuan in his hands, inspecting it carefully in the gray light just before the sun's rising. A faint smile passed his lips, and he placed the gweth in his nightsilk duffle bag. He rose to his feet, removed his spectacles and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He gazed out over the Middens from high atop the observatory, before raising his eyes to the constellations above him.

He carefully studied the stars, glimmering like dew drops in wakening light of morning. His attention was drawn to the constellation of the Wolf, and then the Spider, and he began to feel the pull of events beyond his own senses. For a moment, he closed his blue-white eyes, and felt his consciousness flowing into the endless ripples of probability.

He was in a kitchen – pots and pans sat on a counter. It was night, but Yavash shone through a nearby window, bathing the area in crimson light. Two figures stood before him: one cloaked and holding, in its right hand, a dark and menacing blade. The other was a woman with short gray hair, and all around him where children sitting or kneeling, children of all the races of Kermoria. Many were weeping, others frozen. All were staring at the cloaked figure and the woman.

The menacing figure stepped forward, and the woman screamed, “no!” in a panicked voice, spreading her arms wide. She stood between the figure and the children. The figure said nothing, and plunged its blade into the woman's chest. She gasped, and fell to the ground. A pool of blood began to form around her, and she struggled to breathe. Many of the children screamed, but Kehlbins sat frozen. The figure took a step toward one of the children, and its blade descended. The dying woman gasped a scream, and grabbed the leg of the figure. Many of the children ran. The figure turned its attention to the woman again, and its blade rose and fell. Blood pooled, and then the figure approached Kehlbins. He wanted to look up, but he could not move. He heard a voice rasp, “you are the one,” and felt a rough tug on his hair. He heard an ear-piercing scream.

Kehlbins' eyes flew open. He was sweating and shaking violently. He noticed his spectacles on the ground broken, and he took a few seconds to regain his breathing and sense of himself. The place in his vision was known to him. The woman was known to him. He had met her at his friend's wedding.

Kehlbins' brow hardened with a fierce determination. His black greatcoat whipped behind him as he rushed down the stairs of the observatory, sprinting towards the Middens orphanage.