CHAPTER 112: THE SEER’S BURDEN

CHAPTER 112: THE SEER’S BURDEN

POV: Kristine

I knew something was wrong before anyone spoke to me.

The guards gave it away.

That morning, they moved through the palace with unusual energy—faster steps, sharper voices, and smug expressions they were trying not to show. Men only walked like that when they believed something good had happened to them.

Which usually meant something terrible had happened to someone else.

I stood on the harem balcony, pretending to admire the river while quietly studying the courtyard below. Women drifted around me in silence, wrapped in pale fabrics, breathing fresh air that never truly felt free.

Then I saw two guards laughing near the prison entrance.

My stomach tightened.

Sira found me before midday.

“Your man was taken this morning,” she said quietly.

No softness. No hesitation.

I appreciated that more than comfort.

“Tyron,” I whispered.

She nodded once.

“They brought him before the king. If Zedrak thinks he’s useful, he’ll send him to the deep cells.”

I turned toward the black river below the palace walls and forced myself to breathe slowly.

Fear had lived beside me for years. I understood danger. Understood survival.

But this was different.

This was the helpless fear that came from loving someone.

The kind with no strategy attached to it.

“The deep cells,” I said carefully. “Tell me.”

“Stone walls. One entrance. Guard rotation every two hours.” Sira’s expression darkened slightly. “It’s the worst prison in the palace. No one leaves it.”

“Kamal did,” I said.

That caught her attention.

“He has a map.”

Sira studied me for a second, absorbing the implication.

“Then there’s a weakness somewhere,” she said softly. “Even if I don’t know it.”

“Yes.”

I looked directly at her.

“I need you to find Pell. Tell him the healer must send another message. Urgent.”

Sira nodded immediately.

No questions.

No wasted words.

She turned to leave.

“Sira.”

She paused.

“Thank you.”

A faint sound escaped her throat—not quite acknowledgment, not quite dismissal. Then she disappeared into the corridor.

I stayed on the balcony alone.

The east tower rose above the palace roofline like a black spear against the sky.

Kairu was there.

Alive.

Eli had confirmed it.

Below, guards moved in and out of the prison entrance.

Beyond the bridge, merchants still crossed through the festival gates, unaware of the violence hidden inside these walls.

Three threads.

Tyron.

Kairu.

The gate.

And time is running out between all of them.

Two days had become less than that now.

I could feel it.

That afternoon, the women were taken to the bathing chambers.

The routine happened three times a week with mechanical regularity. By now, most of the women moved through it automatically, stripped of modesty long ago by repetition and exhaustion.

I hated the baths.

Not because of the women.

Because of the touching.

Since arriving at the palace, my visions had become stronger and stranger. Contact no longer brought only death. Sometimes it brought fragments of people—pieces of truth buried deeper than fear.

And I could not always control when it happened.

So I kept my distance whenever I could.

That afternoon, I failed.

A young woman slipped on the wet stone beside the bath.

I caught her instinctively before she hit the floor.

The moment my hands closed around her forearms, the vision struck.

But this time, death did not come first.

Life did.

Warm sunlight flooded my mind.

A small house with yellow curtains moving in the breeze.

A child laughing.

No—her child.

Not yet born.

A man’s voice somewhere nearby was teasing her gently while afternoon light spilled across wooden floors.

Safety.

Ordinary happiness.

A life interrupted by this palace but not destroyed by it.

The images hit me so hard I forgot to breathe.

I saw who she had been before Zedrak stole her life.

More importantly—

I saw who she still could become.

Then the final image arrived.

Death.

Quiet.

Years from now.

An old woman lying peacefully near the same yellow window from the earlier vision.

Not murdered.

Not broken.

Simply finished.

She was going to survive this place.

The certainty of it shook me more than any violent vision ever had.

I released her arms slowly.

“You’re alright,” I said softly.

The young woman stared at me with frightened eyes, as though she had felt something strange pass through her body too.

But after a moment, she nodded and stepped away.

The vision lingered long after she disappeared into the steam.

That night, alone inside my locked room, I sat beside the narrow bed trying to understand what the gift truly was.

For years, I had secretly called it the death sense.

Touch someone.

See how they die.

Simple.

Cruel.

Terrifying.

But Kamal had been right all along.

It wasn’t death I was seeing.

It was the truth.

The deepest truth inside a person.

For most people, death was part of that truth because mortality shaped every life. So that was what I saw first.

But not always.

Not anymore.

Some people carried something stronger than endings.

Hope.

Continuation.

An unfinished future refusing to disappear.

I thought about the young woman from the bath.

The most truthful thing about her wasn’t death.

It was survival.

Slowly, I reached beneath my pillow and wrapped my fingers around my son’s stone.

The smooth surface felt warm against my skin.

I closed my eyes.

And immediately saw Tyron.

Not a vision.

A memory.

Him standing in the great hall while soldiers dragged him away.

His face was controlled.

Steady.

Stay alive.

The memory hit my chest so hard it hurt.

I pressed the stone harder against my palm.

What was most true about Tyron?

Not his strength.

Not his loyalty.

Not even his suffering.

It was love.

A man who had buried his feelings beneath duty for so long that he had forgotten the difference between protecting someone and needing them.

But I knew now.

And somewhere deep inside me, I believed he knew too.

He was alive.

I felt it with terrifying certainty.

Tomorrow night was the appointment.

The beginning.

The point where every plan either survived or collapsed.

I reached beneath my robe and touched all three things hidden against my body at once—

The stone.

The folded map.

The blade was strapped against my thigh.

Then I thought about the woman from the bath again.

The gift had shown me her future because somewhere ahead of her, life still waited.

I intended to make sure the same was true for everyone I loved.

Outside my window, the black river moved beneath the moon like a living shadow.

Somewhere below the palace, Tyron sat in darkness planning his escape.

And somewhere above us all, fate waited silently to see who would survive the coming night.

I did not sleep.

I planned.