Desia paced across her bedroom, the late afternoon light casting golden patterns through the stained glass windows. She paused before her easel, studying the canvas with a mixture of fascination and dread.

  The painting depicted the very scene that had haunted her nights for weeks now — the ruins of a castle with dark black walls, a blood-red sky, and flames consuming everything. In the center, the massive crow swooped down toward a cloaked figure, while a white dove intervened in a brilliant flash of light.

  Her paintbrush trembled slightly as she added more crimson to the sky, making it deeper, more ominous. Paint splattered onto her lavender dress, but she paid it no mind. The act of recreating her nightmare on canvas felt therapeutic, a way to externalize the terror that had been consuming her from within.

  “If Thaddeus won’t let me use the loom,” she murmured to herself, “then I’ll have to find answers to more conventional means.”

  She knew the Grand Master was only trying to protect the temporal loom and perhaps protect her from herself. Their last attempt to force a prediction had been disastrous. To be fair to the old coot, it had nearly burnt down the entire castle basement. But Desia couldn’t shake the feeling she had felt the last time she had seen. She also couldn’t shake the feeling that had consumed her since her last encounter with Aurea either.

  What she had taken away was that she was a major target, though she didn’t know how. Realizing she couldn’t escape her fate, she just had to accept it and find a way to solve the dreams ahead of time if she even had any time left at all. She had no idea why she had chosen sketching the dream, but her brother Permeus had once told her that it was a calming exercise.

  She never took much advice from Permeus about anything; no one did, but for the time being , he was yet to be proven wrong.

  She was still sketching the sky when she heard the soft sound of footsteps in the hallway, alerting her to someone’s approach.

  Frantically, she grabbed a silk sheet from a nearby chair and threw it over the canvas, just as a gentle knock sounded at her door. She knew her attendants had many reasons to think her crazy already, and she wasn’t ready to give them another.

  “Enter,” she called, quickly wiping paint from her fingers with a cloth.

  The door opened to reveal Raynor, her assistant. He carried a sealed envelope on a silver tray. His posture was impeccable as always, but there was something in his expression that seemed unusual.

  “My lady,” he began, bowing slightly, “I bring correspondence regarding the upcoming meeting of the union.”

  Desia raised an eyebrow, trying to appear casual despite her racing heart. “I already know when and where the meeting is, Raynor. I’m a founding member, remember?”

  “Yes, but there has been a change concerning the guest list,” Raynor replied, offering the letter.

  A flicker of worry crossed Desia’s face. “Has Helus decided to uninvite me? Would be something after all my years of attendance”

  “No, my lady,” Raynor said carefully. “Someone has been added.”

  Desia took the letter, breaking the wax seal embossed with Helus’ flame insignia. Her eyes skimmed the elegant script until they paused at a name. She felt her breath catch in her throat.

  “Great mercy of fate, Dalia,” she whispered, her voice barely audible.

  “Yes. The Origin of Night has finally agreed to join the union.”

  Desia’s fingers tightened around the parchment, nearly crumpling it. Her mind raced with the implications. Dalia was like other Origins who had steadfastly refused all previous invitations but was suddenly joining their ranks.

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  This didn’t worry Desia; what worried her was that the prophecy talked of a coming darkness, and this very much felt like coming darkness. The Nightrealm was the closest thing to darkness itself outside the chasm that it bordered..

  “Are you alright my lady?” Raynor asked, concern evident in his voice. “You look pale.”

  Desia composed herself with effort, forcing her features into a mask of indifference. “I’m fine, Raynor. Just surprised, that’s all. Dalia has refused our invitations for decades.”

  “Not different from many of your other siblings,” Raynor pointed out

  “I suppose so,” Desia admitted

  “If I may, my lady, you seem more than surprised. You seem... troubled.” Raynor continued to observe.

  “I said I’m fine,” Desia snapped, then immediately regretted her tone.

  “Forgive me, Raynor. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

  “The nightmares again?” he asked softly.

  She nodded, grateful for his understanding.

  “Perhaps I should send for some tea? Or call Lady Alara? She might give you a good enough massage to ease your worries.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Desia interrupted.

  “Should I at least set you up a meeting with Lady Adelia?” he asked

  “That won’t be necessary either. My sister Adelia has already told me she has nothing to do with these dreams. And tea won’t help either. You’re dismissed, Raynor.” She commanded.

  Raynor hesitated, clearly wanting to say more, but years of service had taught him when to press an issue and when to retreat.

  “As you wish, my lady.” He bowed again and backed out of the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

  As soon as he was gone, Desia rushed to the covered painting and yanked away the silk sheet. She stared at the image of the giant crow with new intensity, her mind connecting threads that had previously seemed separate.

  “Darkness,” she whispered to herself, recalling Aurea’s warning. “The threat is darkness.”

  Was it possible that Dalia, the Origin of Night and manipulator of raw darkness, was the darkness itself? Desia knew almost nothing about her reclusive sister, who was to say she wasn’t the threat or that it had overtaken her.

  It may have been hard to believe, but until a short time ago, Desia had believed only she controlled the temporal loom, and not only had somebody hacked it, but her own attendants believed it unsafe to leave it in her hands.

  Nothing was impossible, and Desia knew that now. It also did not help Dalia’s case that the timing seemed too coincidental — strange nightmares of darkness and destruction, mysterious warnings from a being of light, and now Dalia suddenly joining the union after half a century of refusal.

  Even the landscape in her dream looked like the Nightrealm. Desia knew the two had to be connected, even if it was the same in the rest of the underworld.

  Desia took a step back from the painting, her mind racing through possibilities. A part of Desia still thought that maybe she was overthinking this.

  Perhaps Dalia wasn’t the threat itself but was running from it. Perhaps the darkness in her realm was growing beyond her control, forcing her to seek an alliance with the other Origins.

  Or perhaps Dalia was indeed the threat, and joining the union was merely the first step in some larger, more sinister plan.

  Desia picked up her paintbrush again, dipping it in deep purple and adding more detail to the giant crow in her painting. As she worked, her thoughts continued to churn. The message Aurea had given her echoed in her mind.

  “The only way to beat the darkness that shall come for them is with the sacrifice of a white flame powered by the black night.”

  What could it possibly mean? A white flame... the most powerful white flame she knew of belonged to Permeus, the Origin of Immortality. And powered by the black night.

  Could that refer to Dalia’s power?

  The implications were disturbing. If the prophecy meant what she feared, then perhaps saving the Origins would require the sacrifice of one of their own Permeus, empowered somehow by Dalia’s darkness, and that was if Dalia wasn’t the encroaching darkness herself.

  Desia shuddered at the thought, her paintbrush faltering. She had to be missing something. There had to be another interpretation.

  As the last light of day faded from her windows, Desia continued to paint, adding layer upon layer to her canvas, as if the answers to her questions might emerge from the colors and shapes if only she could capture her vision perfectly. Outside, stars appeared in the darkening sky, and a cool breeze rustled through the trees surrounding her palace.

  In the shadows of her room, the painting seemed to take on a life of its own — the crow’s eyes gleaming with malevolence; the flames appearing to flicker and dance, the white dove’s sacrifice rendered even more poignant by the darkness surrounding it.

  “I’ll find the answers,” Desia promised herself, her voice firm. “Before it’s too late, I will understand. I have to.”

  But even as she made this vow, a part of her feared the answers might come at a terrible cost not just to herself, but to all the Origins and the very world they had created.