The Seer didn't speak.
I didn't breathe.
His voice cut through the silence like a blade drawn across velvet.
"…I didn't realize the House accepted two guests at once."
Knight.
Of course.
I didn't turn to face him immediately. That would give too much away.
Most who came here did so alone. It wasn't just etiquette—it was law. The threads of fate tangled easily enough without extra witnesses.
And yet, here he stood.
Uninvited.
Unstoppable.
"I want to see the future," he said to the Seer, his voice clipped, precise. "My path. The intersections. I've waited long enough."
The Seer didn't look surprised. She rarely did.
Instead, she smiled—a small, unsettling curl of her mouth.
"You both have contracts," she said, tapping her long fingers on the table's edge. "Old ones. Binding. It is rare… but not forbidden. You may share the cost."
"I don't share with strangers," Knight said flatly, his gaze flicking toward me, unreadable. "And she hasn't even told me her name."
I kept my eyes on the shimmer of half-born futures dancing above the table.
"I trade in truths," I murmured. "If you want mine, you can pay for it."
That made the Seer laugh, soft and pleased. The sound folded itself into the air like incense smoke.
"All information has a cost," she said, amused. "Even answers you think you're owed."
Knight bristled—not visibly, not exactly. But I saw it. A slight tilt in his stance. A muscle twitch at the jaw.
"She speaks as though we've met before."
The Seer turned her smile to him. "Oh, many times."
Knight narrowed his eyes. "That's not possible."
"It's inevitable," she said.
He didn't like that.
I still hadn't turned to him fully. Just stood at the edge of the fate-table, hand flat, body still. As still as stone. As still as I'd been when I first carved his name into the core of every plan I made.
"My lord Warden," I said softly—his oldest title, the one he'd held before he had a name, before fate grew teeth and timelines split. "You want answers. Then pay the toll."
His face didn't change.
But his aura did.
Tension. Recognition. The kind that lives in the bones before it reaches the mind.
Knight stepped forward.
"I will."
The Seer nodded. "Then the futures are yours to view. But remember—some paths are paved in memory. Others in regret."
She placed her palm beside mine.
"Let's see which one you bleed for."
The Seer pressed her hand flat to the table. Runes flared—not in color, but in sensation, vibrating like a low hum behind the bones. The threads of possibility pulled taut overhead, the room stretching with them, time thinning like glass.
And then, three paths unfolded.
Not for me.
Not for Knight.
For Diana.
The futures swirled above us, each thread clearer than it should have been. No haze. No bleed. As if—for once—time wasn't actively trying to spit her out.
The Seer inhaled slowly, head tilting in surprise.
"Three paths," she mused aloud. "And all of them leave the world intact. Imagine that."
She turned to me with a smirk.
"Better than the last four times you dragged your soul through here."
I said nothing. I didn't need to. The weight in my chest said enough.
The first future hovered closest—spun in soft silver, fragile at first glance. It showed Diana alone. Strong. Hardened by sacrifice. A queen not of title, but consequence. Her mate bond to Kael fully sealed. The others left behind.
"She survives," the Seer said. "Rules. Protects. But never loves again."
The second thread flickered with stormlight—Diana surrounded by all six mates. A full court. A family. Magic wrapped in every direction like a tether spun too tight.
"She saves the world," the Seer went on. "But not herself. Her mind frays. Her soul never settles."
And the third—
I didn't want to look.
But I did.
It was darker.
Simpler.
Diana vanished.
Not dead. Not erased. Hidden.
One bond sealed. One broken. Her magic passed on—not stolen, not lost, but given.
"To make room," the Seer said softly, her eyes on me now. "For something else to rise."
Knight's eyes narrowed. "These are her futures. Why show us?"
The Seer's lips curled. "Because they hinge on both of you. As they always have."
She waved a hand, and the threads began to slow, revealing snapshots.
A war stopped with one word.
A city raised by magic instead of fire.
A council broken and remade.
"Her bond to Kael has created a fracture point," the Seer said. "And for once, you're both here before the break."
She looked at me first. Then at Knight.
"Your goals may not be so different."
I stiffened.
Knight frowned. "We don't share goals."
The Seer chuckled, the sound like time slipping through old cracks.
"You do. You just don't agree on the road."
She reached across the table, touching the third thread—the one with no throne, no court, no coronation.
"Together," she said, "you forge something the others can't. Not salvation. Not even peace."
A pause.
"But freedom. Real, dangerous freedom."
Knight stood still as stone, eyes locked on the shifting strands of future overhead—each path a living breath away from truth.
"Show me the best path," he said to the Seer.
She gave him a long, sideways look, as if amused that he still thought such a thing existed.
"Best?" she echoed. "For whom?"
Knight didn't blink. "The world."
Predictable.
I let out a breath and stepped closer to the table, arms crossed. "We've already seen one and three. My vote's still for three. One's passable. If you want to play middle ground, we can split the difference—get a prophecy out of it."
The Seer's eyes gleamed, teeth just barely showing. "Ah, my favorite kind of gamble. Wiser than most of your past visits, Gray."
Knight gave me a hard glance. "You've done this four times?"
"More," the Seer said cheerfully.
Knight exhaled slowly. "Fine. We'll take the middle path. Eighty-twenty split." His gaze cut into mine. "You lead. You know more."
I tilted my head, fighting a grin. "You're assuming knowing more makes it easier."
Still, I stepped forward and laid my hand against the table's etched surface.
But before the Seer could begin, I added, "You really should reread your notes."
Knight's brow furrowed.
"Which ones?"
"All of them," I said. "Especially the one that starts with, Don't trust her, even when you do. You wrote that one in your own blood."
He stilled.
The Seer purred. "Delightful. Shall we begin?"
"Wait," I said, eyes locked on the shimmer overhead. "I want to ask questions first."
She waved a hand. "Proceed, Lady Gray. Ask wisely."
"Will sealing Diana's bond with Kael guarantee the world holds?"
"No," the Seer replied, too quickly.
"Will preventing her from bonding more than one increase the chance of survival?"
"Yes."
Knight looked at me, something new behind his eyes. I didn't stop.
"If I remove myself from the equation entirely—do we still burn?"
A pause.
A long one.
Then: "Yes. But not as quickly."
Knight's jaw tightened. He was trying to make sense of the answer working what little information he had.