Enna catches the dimming light from a narrow window, watches the treeline dissolve into blurred silhouettes. It reminds her of the night the sky bled red—the night she'd rather forget. Before she can turn away, before she can fully push that memory back into its corner, a knock splits the silence. One soft rap, followed by two more. She shivers despite the warmth of the hearth and opens the door to a cloaked figure with solemn eyes.
"Elder Faelan." His name slips past her lips, surprise undercutting the cool reserve she'd meant to greet him with.
The elder stands there, enveloped in a cloak as dark as the deepening night, the lines of his face etched with a gravity that wasn't there when she saw him last. Her mind races with possibilities as she steps aside, watching him move past the threshold without waiting for an invitation.
"Close it quickly," he says, eyes flicking to the door she hasn't yet shut.
Enna obeys, shutting the world outside with a soft click that feels far louder in the silence that follows. The air between them pulses with an urgency that sets her on edge. She studies him, searching for answers in his tired eyes, in the tightness of his mouth, in the hands that grip his cloak with knuckles gone white.
"Why are you here?" she finally asks. Her voice holds steady, but the question quivers beneath it, a small beast trapped and straining.
His reply is immediate, words clipped and grave. "There is no time, Enna. They are coming. Your only chance is to leave now, before night fully takes the sky."
Her heart stumbles over its next beat. She had feared it was something like this—vampires growing bolder, drawing closer—but hearing it said aloud drops ice into her stomach. "The village—"
"Won't be safe for long," Lorin interrupts, stepping closer. His presence fills the small room, every line of him wound tight with intent. "You need to make for the mountains. It's the only way."
Enna shakes her head, defiance rising to meet his urgency. "You can't expect me to abandon—"
"Yes," Lorin cuts her off again, softer this time. "I can. I must." He reaches into the folds of his cloak, and for a wild moment, she thinks he might draw a weapon. Instead, his hand emerges with several small charms, the metal glinting even in the low light. "Take these. They will offer some protection."
The charms are warm in her palm, warmer still when she closes her fingers around them. They thrum with power she doesn't fully understand, sending a tingling heat up her arm. "You think these will be enough?"
"They're better than nothing," Lorin says, and his voice drops, weighted with something like guilt. "Better than what the rest of us will have if you stay."
His words hit her like stones, each one landing with a dull thud she can't ignore. She looks down at the charms, at the intricate lines and symbols she can't quite decipher. The metal shifts color against her skin, casting faint patterns of light that remind her of distant stars.
"You mean for me to run," she says slowly, "while you stay here and face—"
"They'll be looking for you, Enna. And they won't stop until they find you." His gaze is steady, almost unbearably so. "There is no time to argue. You must reach the ruins in the northern range. You must."
"Must," she echoes, tasting the bitterness of it on her tongue. Her mind snags on the word like cloth on a thorn. "You're talking like this is fate. Like I have no choice."
Lorin's silence is more telling than any answer he might have given. He holds her gaze, and she sees the unspoken truths simmering just below the surface. When he speaks again, the words carry the weight of a prophecy neither of them wants to believe. "It was never a choice."
She turns from him, breath catching in her throat. Her mind spins through possibilities, through years of secrets she thought she'd kept hidden, through every fear she never dared name.
"I can't," she says finally, the refusal small and frail. "I won't."
"You will." Lorin's voice is still urgent, but there's something else in it now—a thread of reluctant understanding. "There is no safety in any of the nearby towns. Only the ruin has the wards to hide you."
He reaches out, places a gentle but firm hand on her shoulder. It's a gesture meant to comfort, but it anchors her in place, a reminder of how very little room she has to maneuver.
"I won't let them take you," he insists, and his eyes are fierce, though the rest of him is crumpling like parchment. "But if you stay, none of us will survive. You are the one they seek, Enna. The prophecy is clear."
The word "prophecy" hangs between them, a ghostly specter that saps the room of warmth. She knew, in some corner of herself she refused to visit, that it would come to this. That the whispers she'd heard her whole life, the warnings and precautions, would all trace back to something older and larger than she wanted to imagine.
"Vampire prophecy?" she demands, sharper than intended. "Or healer?"
His pause is everything she feared.
"Both," he admits, the word a sigh more than a sound. "Old as blood itself."
Enna's skepticism flares hot, burning away the initial chill of her fear. "And what does this prophecy demand of me, then?" Her voice trembles on the edges. "That I be some sacrificial offering? You talk of saving me, but it sounds more like you're just preserving your precious fate."
"You know I would never—" Lorin starts, but she cuts him off with a look that would cow anyone less steadfast.
"Then what?" she presses, leaning into her anger. It's easier than the other emotions lurking in wait. "Why this sudden urgency? Why now?"
Lorin hesitates, his resolve crumbling for just a moment before he steadies himself. "There is an ancient king, Enna. He stirs in the shadows. His blood calls to yours."
"An ancient king?" She lets out a short, mirthless laugh. "Do you have any idea how that sounds?"
He meets her derision with calm, unyielding resolve. "Like the truth," he says quietly. "The truth you must accept if you're to survive."
"So you say."
"So I must." Lorin's expression is pinched, as if he's swallowed something far too bitter. "You think I want this for you? You think I haven't tried to change it?"
"Then help me change it!" Enna demands, gripping the charms like they might be a lifeline. "Don't just send me running."
His silence stretches, thin and fraught. When he finally speaks, his voice is low, pained. "I'm trying to keep you alive, child."
"Alive," she whispers, but the word echoes with hollowness.
"Yes," he insists, a fierce light behind the sadness in his eyes. "And if you leave now, there may be time."
She takes a step back, reeling under the weight of it all—the prophecy, the urgency, the feeling of being caught in a web that tightens with every breath she takes.
"There has to be another way," she pleads, but her own words sound empty.
"None that I can see," Lorin says, and there's a finality in it, a door closing.
She looks at him, really looks, and sees the strain pulling at the corners of his mouth, the way his shoulders slump under the invisible weight of secrets kept for far too long. He's more fragile than she's ever seen him, the layers of authority peeling back to reveal the cracks beneath.
It's the sight of this, more than any prophecy or threat, that makes her resolve falter. She closes her eyes for a moment, feeling the thrum of the charms, the weight of his intent, the heaviness of choices she never wanted to make.
"I'll think about it," she concedes, though it feels like surrender. "But I can't just—"
"Think quickly," Lorin interjects, and now the sorrow in his voice is a living thing, pressing against the walls of the room. "The king moves in darkness. And he isn't the only one."
She shivers, not from cold but from the shadow of a future he's drawn so clearly she can almost see its shape. A future she feels already reaching for her, its fingers cold and inexorable.
Her mind rebels against the thought of leaving, of being the one to run while the rest of them—while he—faces what comes. But there's a thread of inevitability that she can't quite sever, no matter how fiercely she clings to it.
"If you're wrong," she begins, but she can't find an end to the sentence that rings true.
"I'm not," Lorin says. His certainty is a stark contrast to the doubt he wore moments ago. "And if I am, you can yell at me for it when we meet again."
"When?"
His silence stretches, but his eyes hold hope she doesn't dare trust.
Enna's fingers loosen their grip, the charms still warm against her skin. She hears his words echoing in her mind, feels them etching their way into her resolve.
Before she can voice another protest, before she can let her own stubbornness drown out the sound of reason, Lorin turns and heads for the door. The air shifts with his departure, a gust that chills her even as it leaves her alone with the weight of his warning.
She stands there, watching as the elder slips into the night, her heart a confused cacophony of doubt, anger, and the unbearable whisper of prophecy.
The black-cloaked bundle still rests on the mantel. She'd forgotten it entirely—until now. Something pulses beneath the fabric, faint but insistent, as though it senses the danger creeping closer. Enna crosses to it, unwraps the cloth with shaking hands. Inside, the glass vial gleams, dark and thick with something more shadow than liquid. It hums at her touch, resonating deep in her bones. She doesn't know what it is, but it's not just a warning. It's a key. Or a trigger.
A scream tears through the night, sudden and raw. Her head jerks toward the sound. From the village square. A sound of terror and loss that cuts through everything else.
She gasps, and in that instant of distraction, Lorin slips toward the door.
"No!" she cries, reaching for him, but he's already at the threshold.
His final words are almost lost to the wind as he disappears into the darkness. "Go, Enna. While you still can."
The door closes behind him, and Enna stands frozen, the scream echoing in her ears and the heavy silence following it an even greater burden.
She is alone with the enormity of his warning, with the impossibility of her choices. She doesn't know how long she stands there, just that when she moves, it's as if she's breaking free from the chains that have held her too long in one place.
Her heart pounds, a frantic drumbeat that measures the time slipping away. She clutches the mystical charms—and now, the dark vial—both pulsing with unspent magic, and makes her decision.
There is only one path left, and it winds toward the ruins and the prophecy she's never asked for.
Enna stares into the night, the shapes of her future as blurred as the shadows outside. She feels the weight of destiny pressing against her, cold and relentless.
With a deep breath, she steels herself against the uncertainty and the fear. Then she steps forward, knowing each move might be the one that changes everything.