What Watches Through My Eyes

The ravine reeked of old death and older magic.

He led me down paths not meant for living feet, where the stone itself bore claw marks from things that hunted when the moon was young. Both crescent marks throbbed with each step deeper into the cursed ground.

"Shadow-beasts used to nest here," he said, voice barely carrying over the wind that shouldn't exist this far down. "They fed on wolves who thought divine blood made them untouchable."

Good hunting ground, something whispered. Not him. Not entirely me.

"And now?" I asked, though part of me already knew.

"Now it's perfect for what you're becoming." He stopped at a circular clearing where rocks formed natural platforms. Dark stains marked the stone—blood so old it had become part of the mineral itself. "The Council would burn this place if they could. But some grounds are too ancient for their small fires."

He turned to face me, fresh scratches across his collarbone. Testing the space before bringing me here. Always testing. Always careful—except now his careful had an edge like a blade wearing thin.

"First lesson for killing holy men," he said. "Stop thinking like prey that learned to bite. Start thinking like the thing that ends kings."

Yes, the shard pulsed. Finally.

Training began simple. Too simple. Strike the marked stone. Pull back before impact. Show control. Show restraint. Show that the power answered to me, not the other way around.

I failed.

Silver flame erupted from my fist just before contact, turning the target stone to molten slag. But instead of the usual burn of overextension, something else flooded through me. Cold satisfaction. Electric approval.

More like this, it purred. Why hold back what they made you to be?

"Again." Not fear in his eyes—recognition.

I tried. But the flame came easier now, hungrier. Each strike meant to be precise became execution. The shard fed me sensation with every burst—not pain but its opposite. Pleasure dark as midnight.

By the tenth attempt, I wasn't pretending to hold back.

"Enough." His voice cut through the haze. I blinked, realized I'd been smiling. When had that started? "You're learning to be dangerous. Now learn to be quiet about it."

He pulled something from his belt—a strip of black cloth that smelled of ash and burnt sacred herbs. "New test. Take this. Disappear for three hours. If I find you, you fail."

"And if I find you first?"

His grin was sharp. "Then you're ready for what comes next."

He tied the cloth to my wrist. The moment it touched skin, I understood. It would mark my scent, make me easier to track. A handicap.

Or an insult.

"Three hours. Starting now."

He vanished between shadows. I stood alone in the killing ground, feeling the weight of eyes that weren't there. Or were they?

We're here. Always.

I moved opposite his path. Not running—running was loud. I became what he taught me: nothing. Shadow. Suggestion.

The ravine offered many hiding spots, but hiding wasn't winning.

Let me help, it offered. I can taste his thread. Fragile thing that it is.

I ignored the invitation. And it responded not in words, but in sensation—my mark heating, heartbeat stuttering. A warning or a dare. Hard to tell.

I climbed higher, using holds that should've failed me. My body had changed—yes from training, but more from what nestled at my chest. Solid when I needed to be, something else when I didn't.

Time slipped. I'd see movement, investigate, find only my own tracks. Or were they mine? Even my steps looked wrong—lighter, stranger, like something pretending to be shaped like me.

Then the vision hit.

Silver at the edges. Threads like dew-lit silk. Some led nowhere. Others led to me.

I saw them—wolves running ghost-forests, their eyes reflecting stars that didn't exist yet. They chased someone. Me? No. Someone wearing my shape, standing at the center of a burning crown. Threads coiled her wrists like worship.

This is what waits.

Not a voice. A knowing. Like pressure against the inside of my skull.

They follow not because you force them. Because you become the only thread worth binding to.

"Stop." My voice was distant.

The vision dug deeper. Showed how easy it would be. How natural. How deserved.

Let go, it said—through pulse, through warmth, through the throb beneath both marks.

I almost did.

Then: blood. Sharp and fresh.

I ran, visions shattering behind me. Copper filled my mouth.

He lay in a hollow between leaning stones. Still breathing, but barely. Red soaked his left side. Claw marks—no. Too precise. Blades masked as beasts.

"Found me," he rasped, trying for granite, getting gravel. "Not how I planned."

"Who?"

"Sent one ahead. Not Flamebound. Seer. The kind who smells destiny. Tastes prophecy."

He pulled a talisman from his vest. Scorched black, reeking of failure.

"She left this. Said to tell you—you're being watched by more than the Council. The Twelve are the least of what's coming."

The shard flared—not alarm. Recognition.

Old enemy. Old echo. Hard to tell anymore.

"Can you walk?"

"Can you burn it out?"

He knew the answer before I did. I'd never healed with silver fire. Never done anything but destroy. But the shard—

Yes. But not for free. Not anymore.

"What do you want?"

Pulse. Heat. A shimmer of silver across my vision. Not words. A pressure behind my eyes, a whisper in my blood.

Stop resisting. Just once. Just this.

"Once," I whispered. "Only once."

Heat surged—not wild, but focused. The flame threaded through his wounds, following poison like hounds on scent. He screamed. But he lived.

When it ended, we sat in silence. Silver lines traced across his healed skin. Not scars—threads.

"The Seer. What did she look like?"

"White hair. Blind eyes that saw too much. Said her name was Theia. Said she dreamed of you before you were born."

Not fear in my gut. Something older. Something deeper. Recognition. The same presence from the black wolf. The same thread signature.

Not enemy.

Not ally.

Not separate.

The shard didn't laugh. It purred. Content.

We climbed out of the ravine together, both marked now. Both changed.

Six nights until the Trial Moon.

Six nights to decide if I still owned my soul.

And somewhere in that decision, the shard waited.

Ready to weave.