Seraphiel closed her eyes and reached for the gift that had defined her entire life. It used to feel like slipping into warm water—gentle, welcoming, the futures unfurling like flowers in fast-forward. She'd see branching paths, probabilities dancing like light through prisms, all the gentle maybes of tomorrow.
The seizure hit her like a lightning strike. Her body convulsed, slamming against the stone wall hard enough to crack her head against the blocks. The chains went taut, blessed iron searing her wrists as her muscles spasmed beyond control.
"Shit—Seraphiel!" Nyx's voice, sharp with something that might've been concern.
She couldn't answer and neither could she breathe. The visions weren't coming... they were rather attacking her, flooding her skull with images so vivid they felt more real than the cell around her.
"Dawn light. Cold and pale. The execution platform gleaming with morning dew...
Nyx kneeling, hands bound behind his back, that massive frame somehow diminished...
But wrong, it was all wrong...
Caelum standing behind him in ceremonial robes she'd never seen before. White silk embroidered with gold thread, symbols that predated the kingdom. His face serene, beatific, that perfect saint's expression he wore like a mask...
A ritual blade in his hand. It wasn't a steel... something older, bone and obsidian and hungry...
"For the glory of the realm," Caelum's voice echoing across the square, "we cleanse this corruption"...
The blade descending, not to kill but to *take*. Black tendrils erupting from Nyx's chest, his war-magic being ripped out in streams of midnight and screaming...
Caelum drinking it in, his body glowing, becoming something more than human, invincible, unkillable...
Nyx collapsing, empy, a husk..."
The vision was so messy for her to pinpoint the exact prophecy. But it dragged memories with it, pulling them up from where she'd buried them deep.
She was twenty-two again. Younger. Stupid and in love.
"The palace gardens at sunset, Caelum teaching her to dance between the rose bushes. His hands gentle on her waist, his laugh genuine or had it been? How much had been real?" She wondered.
"You're extraordinary, Seraphiel. The gods blessed you with sight. You could save so many people."
She'd believed every word he uttered.
Fast forward. Her private study, scrolls scattered across the desk. She'd spent weeks tracking the financial records, cross-referencing tax collections with orphanage budgets. They couldn't lie, could they?
The king was embezzling millions of gold meant for the realm's most vulnerable, vanishing into private coffers and leaving children starve while nobility feasted.
She'd run to Caelum's chambers, breathless, clutching the evidence. "We have to expose this. The people need to know—"
He'd looked at her prophecies and documentation. Then he'd smiled that sad, gentle smile.
"Oh, Seraphiel. You don't understand politics. Sometimes the greater good requires... flexibility."
"Flexibility? Children are dying—"
"And revealing this would destabilize the kingdom. Riots. Chaos. More deaths than the orphans you're trying to save." He'd cupped her face in his hands. "Trust me. I'll handle this quietly."
She'd trusted him enough to share it with him but three days later, the guards came.
"Treason," they'd said. "Conspiracy against the crown."
Her own prophecies, twisted. Caelum had taken her visions and reframed them and made it look like she was the one plotting. That her warnings about instability were threats she intended to cause.
The trial was a farce. She'd screamed the truth until her voice gave out. Yet nobody listened.
The night before her execution, Caelum had visited her cell. This very cell, maybe. The same damp stones, the same despair soaked into the walls.
He'd knelt beside her, wiped the tears from her cheeks with gentle fingers.
"I do love you, Seraphiel." His voice soft, almost regretful. "In another life, maybe we could've been happy. But the kingdom needs a villain, and you..." He'd kissed her forehead, tender as a blessing. "You're perfect for the role. The tragic Oracle, corrupted by her own power. People love that story."
"You're a monster," she'd whispered.
"No." He'd stood, brushing dust from his pristine armor. "I'm a saint. History will remember me that way. And you? You'll be forgotten."
The memory released her, and Seraphiel crashed back into the present.
She was on her side, cheek pressed against freezing stone. Something warm dripped from her eyes that looked nothing like tears. Blood. Crimson tracks staining her face, the metallic taste flooding her mouth.
"Easy." Nyx's voice, closer now. He'd moved as far as his chains allowed, pressed against the bars separating their cells. "Don't try to move yet. Whatever that was, it looked like it tried to kill you."
"Revenant magic," she managed, her voice wrecked. "Side effect. Visions cost more now."
"Was it worth it?"
She dragged herself upright, every muscle screaming protest. Crawled on her knees to the bars, gripping them with shaking hands. The blessed iron burned but she didn't let go.
"Tomorrow morning," she said. "The execution. It's not just a hanging."
Nyx's expression didn't change, but something dangerous flickered in those winter-storm eyes. "Go on."
"Caelum's going to sacrifice you. There's a ritual—old magic, the kind that predates the church. He's going to drain your war-magic, absorb it. Make himself invincible." The words tumbled out faster. "You won't just die. He'll hollow you out. Take everything you are and add it to himself."
There was total silence then—
Then Nyx laughed. Quiet, dark, utterly humorless.
"Of course he is. Can't just kill his enemies—has to *consume* them. Very on brand." He met her eyes through the bars. "Then we're both already dead. Good."
"Good?"
"Yeah." That predatory grin flashed. "Dead people don't have to follow the living's rules. We can do whatever the hell we want."
Despite everything—the pain, the blood still dripping from her eyes, the blessed iron carving trenches in her wrists, Seraphiel felt something almost like hope kindle in her chest.
"I can corrode the iron," she said. "Death magic eats through blessed metal if I push hard enough. But it'll cost me. Might kill me if I'm not careful."
"How long?"
"An hour. Maybe two."
Nyx nodded slowly, calculating. "Get me free, and I'll handle the rest. The guards, the locks, getting us out of this cesspit." He leaned closer, and she could see the scars that covered him, each one a story of survival. "You can see every move our enemies make. I know how to turn those visions into weapons. Together? We'd be unstoppable."
"Unstoppable enough to destroy Caelum?"
"Unstoppable enough to burn his entire world down and salt the earth where it stood."
Seraphiel studied him. The Eclipse Tyrant. The monster in the cell. The man who'd lost everything to the same saint who'd destroyed her.
"Why should I trust you?" The question came out softer than she intended. "You're called the Tyrant for a reason. The stories—"
"Are all true." Nyx didn't flinch from it. "I've killed. Burned villages. Done things that would give you nightmares even worse than the ones you've already got." He tilted his head. "But I never pretended to be anything else. Never wore a saint's face while slitting throats. I'm honest about what I am."
"A monster."
"Your monster, if you want me." He reached through the bars—as far as his chains allowed... offering his hand. Palm up. Scarred and bloodstained and utterly steady. "Caelum pretends to be good while he destroys lives. I don't pretend. What you see is what you get—a killer who keeps his word and hates the same man you do."
The hammering outside grew louder. Closer. The gallows taking final shape.
"So decide, Oracle." Nyx's eyes held hers, unwavering. "Do you want revenge? Or do you want to die twice—once three years ago, and again at dawn when Caelum carves the magic from your ally's chest and becomes unstoppable?"
Seraphiel's hand hovered in the space between them. Every instinct screamed that this was dangerous. That Nyx was dangerous that trusting him could destroy whatever remained of her soul.
But Caelum had already destroyed her soul. Burned it to ash three years ago when he kissed her forehead and called her perfect for the villain's role.
She gripped Nyx's hand. His fingers closed around hers careful not to hurt her, despite the strength she could feel coiled in that grip.
"Let's burn it all down," she said.
His grin was all teeth and darkness and promise.
"Now you're speaking my language."