--Senya--
They say silence has weight—and tonight, mine felt like a storm chained to my chest.
I hadn't told him about the letter.
Not yet.
I kept turning it over in my hands, again and again, as if the ink might rearrange into something easier. But no matter how many times I read it, it still whispered the same damn thing.
"When the Vault opens, so will destiny. If you do not speak, you may lose everything."
I wasn't Zyre. I wasn't supposed to know about the Vault. But secrets have a way of finding me… and this one came wrapped in fear.
I remember thinking—maybe I should tell Raiven right now. Just knock on his door, shove the letter in his hands, and spill everything before it's too late.
But he and Nyra had already gone quiet. They were prepping for something. Something sacred. Something Zyre.
And I wasn't part of it.
"After the Vault," I told myself."I'll tell him after."
That's what I thought. What I hoped. But fate doesn't wait on timing.
-- Raiven--
I never liked the Vault.
Not because I feared it—but because it didn't fear me. It felt ancient. Unmoved. Like it judged us all and found us wanting.
Nyra walked beside me. Silent. Focused. Neither of us spoke. Not because there was nothing to say—but because everything was waiting to be said after.
We reached the inner sanctum.
The Vault shimmered like light trapped beneath glass. When we stepped in, I felt it press against my thoughts. Reading me. Weighing me.
Then… it happened.
The air folded in on itself—like liquid forming a curtain midair. A crystalline screen appeared. Hovering. Breathing. It flickered and grew until an image formed.
Two figures.
Cloaked. Genderless. Mirrored.
They faced each other. No names. No words.
Then one stabbed the other.
Clean. Precise. Betrayal with the clarity of a prophecy.
I stepped forward—but the image vanished like smoke before fire. In its place, a voice rang out. Not spoken—but echoed through our bones.
"Between the two, one shall strive to preserve the past,
While the other seeks to break its chains.
The first shall fail, consumed by ash,
The second, marked as traitor, saves the name."
"A wound to the soul, a bond undone,
A blade shall speak when words are gone."
I looked at Nyra.
She looked at me.
No one else was there, but we both felt it—we were the ones in that vision. One would betray. One would bleed. And we didn't know which was which.
---
That night, I couldn't sleep.
The Vault's words kept whispering back to me. I kept seeing the blade. Kept wondering if it would be in my hand… or Nyra's.
Then something stranger happened.
A static hum filled my room.
I turned—and there it was. A screen suspended in the air. Not from today's tech. Something older. A relic from before the divide.
The Old Channel.
It flickered once, then a hooded figure appeared. Their face blurred. Their voice was a distorted echo.
"You saw the prophecy. You felt it.""You are the end, Raiven."
I froze.
"I won't let you destroy the Zyres.""So I'll destroy you first—before you become whatever ends us."
Then they reached toward the screen, and it vanished.
I shut it off, my heart pounding like war drums.
Only two people could even begin to understand what that meant: Senya… and Seraphine.
But I couldn't tell them everything.
Not yet.
--Senya--
He came to me the next morning—Raiven.
Tired eyes. Stiff shoulders. The kind of silence that doesn't come from sleep, but from something worse.
"I saw something," he told me."And I think it's about me. About our kind."
He told me about the vision in the Vault.
The prophecy.
The Old Channel call.
I should've told him then. I should've reached into my coat and pulled out the letter. Should've told him that something—someone—had warned me, too.
But before I could speak, His phone blared.
His face flushed as he said to the person on the phone
"Alright I will try, stay safe Kael"
"What's happening?" I asked, but I already knew.
Raiven's voice dropped.
"It's my brother he says that the Vampires. They've attacked."
And just like that, the moment passed. The letter stayed in my coat. My words stayed buried. And war rose like thunder behind us.