"!!!"
The Seer's eyes snapped open.
But the vision refused to let go.
Crimson light bathed everything. A man stood before her, dying on his feet, reaching with bloodied fingers toward something he couldn't quite grasp.
Toward "her."
No, not her.
"Through" her.
His lips moved, forming words swallowed by the roar of collapsing reality. She heard her own voice screaming his name, raw and desperate, a sound that tore from her throat like it was ripping her soul out with it.
Except it wasn't her throat.
Her hands stretched forward – different fingers, different skin, nails painted a color she'd never worn – and the anguish exploding through her chest felt more real than any emotion she'd experienced in seven centuries of omniscient observation.
'Please.'
The thought wasn't hers, but she felt it like a knife between her ribs.
'Not like this… Not you… Not now.'
Behind him, the world burned.
