The apartment felt colder than when Seth had left it that morning. The thin curtains swayed with the night breeze, carrying in the scent of rain-soaked cobblestone and the faint metallic tang of Aetheros' ever-present smog.
His stomach growled.
It startled him—like a reminder from a body he had almost forgotten he owned. All day, his mind had been occupied with the conversation at the café, with the voice of that old man speaking of the Seven Thrones and their strange hierarchy. The more he replayed it, the less the words felt like mere rumor and more like some half-forgotten truth scratching at the back of his skull.
But the physical world made its demands, and hunger was one of the loudest voices.
He left his room without much thought, descending the creaky stairs and stepping out into the narrow street. The lamps hissed in the damp air, halos of pale light bending in the mist.
It was late—too late for most markets—but there was a small baker's stall near the corner, run by a tired-looking man who had likely been awake since before dawn.
"Evenin," the man muttered, wiping flour from his hands.
"Loaf of plain bread," Seth said, sliding a few coins onto the counter. His voice sounded distant in his own ears.
The baker glanced at him. "You look like you've seen a ghost, friend."
Seth hesitated. "Something like that."
The man snorted softly, bagging the loaf. "Well, bread won't keep ghosts away, but it'll keep your stomach from turnin' on you."
The bread was still faintly warm when Seth held it, the crust crackling under his fingers.
"Thanks," he said quietly.
The baker shrugged. "Come by earlier next time. You'll get it fresher."
Seth took it back to his apartment, broke it with his hands, and ate in silence. It wasn't much, but it filled the hollow ache in his gut.
He fell into bed without even changing clothes.
It began as all dreams do—without a clear start.
Seth was standing on a shoreline. The water was black, as if the stars above had bled into it. A single wave rolled toward him, slow, deliberate, and when it broke, it whispered.
Seven voices.
Each one was distinct, yet all of them came from the same impossible source.
"Evernight Matron" — the first voice was a velvet shadow, cool and intimate, like the moment before sleep swallows thought. It promised safety in exchange for never waking again.
"Radiant Hierophant" — the second voice burned like a sun glimpsed through shut eyelids. It carried command, and behind it, the scent of incense and scorched earth.
"Chained Arbiter" — the third voice was iron and stone, speaking with the weight of all oaths ever sworn. The air tasted like rust.
"Whispering Tide" — the fourth came like the sea itself, a hiss between teeth, a tongue slipping secrets into his ear. The words were damp and cold, dripping into his bones.
"Gilded Monarch" — the fifth was honeyed rot, a crown that glittered even as worms devoured it. It smelled of wealth and the graves it was buried in.
"Hollow Choir" — the sixth was a harmony of voices that did not belong to throats, a song shaped from absence, the silence between heartbeats.
"Ashen Warden" — the seventh voice flickered, a dying flame that refused to vanish. Its warmth was grief made into fire.
The names carved themselves into his mind like letters scorched into wood.
And then, the voices began to overlap.
They were no longer distinct—no longer separate.
"Do you hear us?" they asked, all at once, overlapping and fracturing in tone.
Seth tried to speak. "Who—?"
"You know who we are."
"No," he said, but the word came out as a gasp, swallowed by the rushing water.
"Liar."
They pressed in on him, surrounding him in a tightening circle. The black sea surged upward, swallowing the horizon. The stars bent and fell, each one screaming like glass shattering.
The sky split open.
A single eye, vast enough to drown entire worlds, opened in the tear above him. It had no iris—only a depthless black, ringed by a faint, colorless glow that hurt to look at. The longer Seth stared, the more his thoughts unraveled.
The names dissolved in his mind, replaced by sensations too raw to be words—hunger, judgment, mourning, longing, endless waiting.
And beneath all of it… recognition.
"We know you"
The wave hit.
There was no sound, no impact—only pressure, crushing from all sides, forcing itself into his lungs, his eyes, his veins. Something ancient and wrong slid into him, not with violence, but with inevitability.
Seth woke with a gasp, dragging air into his lungs like a drowning man breaching the surface. His chest ached, his heartbeat stuttered and raced, and the room tilted around him.
The blanket was damp—not with sweat, but with something thicker.
Dark stains.
His eyes flicked to his hands. His fingers were smeared red.
For a moment, he couldn't move. His brain refused to connect the dots.
Then he stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom, flicking the gas lamp with a trembling hand.
The mirror showed him what he didn't want to see.
His eyes were bloodshot, but not in the way of a man lacking sleep—thin streams of dried crimson trailed down from the corners, staining his cheeks. It wasn't just a trace. His pillow had been soaked.
The blood had come from his eyes.
He gripped the edge of the sink until the porcelain creaked.
The memory of the dream clung to him like smoke. The voices. The sea. The eye in the sky.
"They weren't… just dreams," he whispered to himself. His voice was hoarse, the words trembling.
He shut his eyes and forced the names to his tongue. "Evernight… Radiant… no, no—" They slipped away. "Damn it!"
Something had changed.
Not in his body—his limbs still felt as mortal as before—but in the space between his thoughts. His perception felt sharper, almost painfully so, as if the air itself was lined with edges.
And beneath it all, he could feel a faint echo.
Not a voice.
A presence.
Watching.
Waiting.
He didn't sleep again that night. He sat in the armchair by the window, staring at the streets below until the first gray light bled over the rooftops.
Every now and then, he found himself touching the corners of his eyes, half-expecting more blood.
There wasn't any.
But the image in the mirror stayed with him—the pale, hollow face, the red tracks down his cheeks.
He told himself it was just a dream.
And he knew he was lying.