The Watcher's admission of uncertainty hung in the air like smoke from a funeral pyre, and in that moment of cosmic hesitation, Selena understood what needed to be done. The entity had observed thousands of timelines, calculated endless probabilities, measured every variable it could perceive but observation was passive, reactive. A vow, by contrast, was active creation. It was the conscious reshaping of possibility through the application of absolute will, the transformation of intention into inevitability through the sacrifice of alternatives.
She had sworn oaths before, made promises in the heat of battle or the quiet moments of reflection. But those had been words spoken to others, commitments that could be broken if circumstances demanded it. What she contemplated now was something far more dangerous and binding a vow sworn not to another person or deity, but to the fundamental essence of what she was.
A vow sworn upon her flame itself.
