I turned to the first entry, my fingers tracing the worn indentations in the paper. There were no years, only seasons and nightfalls, recorded in a way that felt both poetic and deliberately timeless. Why would she leave them out? The question was a whisper in the back of my mind as I began to read.

A spring day that tasted of autumn, on the twelfth nightfall.

The sun was a brilliant midday jewel, yet a crispness in the air promised an evening chill. It was on the town bridge that we found her. The light caught in Tia’s hair, turning the fiery red to a crown of flame and warming her leaf-green eyes. A smile, so genuine it seemed to light her from within, spread across her face as Sylvan and I approached.

“There you are,” she chirped, her voice like wind chimes. “I was beginning to think you’d gotten lost.”

“Never, Tia,” Sylvan and I answered in the easy unison.

She grabbed both our hands, and a current of pure, unadulterated joy flowed from her into us. She practically danced through the bustling town square, pulling us in her wake. “I can still hardly believe it,” she said, her voice bubbling with a breathless excitement that made her bounce on the balls of her feet. “My own home. Finally!”

“It’s incredible,” I replied, laughing. “How are your parents coping with the impending silence?”

She shot me a knowing look, her gaze drifting toward the familiar lane. “You know them. One part bursting with pride, the other part wondering how the house will stand without its loudest beam.”

When we reached her family’s home, her parents were already wrestling with boxes on the front steps. “Syanna! Sylvan!” her father boomed, his smile as warm as Tia’s. “Thank the stars for young backs.”

“It’s our pleasure,” we said, relieving them of their heavy burdens.

The day passed in a blur of laughter, shared memories, and the satisfying ache of hard work. In what felt like no time, Tia’s charming new home was filled with the story of her life. To celebrate, we gathered at our place for a feast. Looking at her across the table, her face glowing in the candlelight, I felt a surge of love so fierce it was almost painful. I am so incredibly blessed to call her my friend. I cannot wait to see what her future holds.

A rainy spring day, on the twentieth nightfall.

The gentle drumming of rain on the roof was the only sound when a soft knock came at the door. It was Tia, holding a basket of fresh-picked peaches, their sweet, summery scent filling the room and chasing away the damp chill. For the entire hour she was here, I watched Sylvan watch her. He tracked her every movement, his gaze so intense and unwavering that the rest of the world seemed to fall away for him. When she finally departed, leaving the scent of peaches and rain behind, I asked him about it. He just shrugged, a faint flush on his cheeks, but I saw the truth in his eyes. After all these centuries, my brother is truly, irrevocably, falling for our Tia.

The first day of summer, on the seventeenth nightfall.

A restless energy seized me today. I journeyed to the nearest human town, the air thick with the scent of unfamiliar spices and the din of a hundred conversations. The market was a kaleidoscope of wonders, but it was the journey home that changed everything.

In the deepening twilight of the woods, I found her. An elven woman, cornered by skittering, foul-limbed things that stank of rot and malice. Fear was a cold knot in my stomach, but it was instantly vaporized by a white-hot surge of instinct. I didn’t think. I acted, my hand closing around the enchanted locket I always wore, its power flaring to life.

When the last creature had dissolved into dust, I saw her properly. She was breathtaking, with eyes that held the deep, starless blue of the midnight sea and hair like spun moonlight. My shock, however, turned to awe when she revealed her identity: the queen. My queen. We stood in the shadowed quiet of the forest and forged a promise—a secret vow I dare not commit to this page. It is a knot in the thread of time, a pact meant for a future I cannot see, one that may not come to pass for a thousand years.

An unusual summer day, on the twenty-first nightfall.

A hesitant, almost ghostly knock echoed from my door late this evening. I opened it to find Tia on the threshold. It was her, and yet… it wasn’t. The light behind her eyes had been drawn behind a veil, a distance that felt as vast and cold as the void between stars. I know this is a part of her, a heavy consequence of being a seer. The visions must be a terrible, crushing weight. I can only hope they are not too heavy for her to carry. A cold tendril of worry has wrapped itself around my heart.

A cold winter day, on the twenty-ninth nightfall.

The reason for Tia’s distance became chillingly clear today. She appeared at my door as a portrait of ruin. Her face was a mask of despair, her eyes fixed on some horror only she could see, her entire body slumped under an invisible, crushing weight. Her hands trembled violently. I took her arm, her skin as cold as ice, and guided her to my room. As I helped her onto the edge of the bed, a violent shiver wracked her frame. Something was terribly, fundamentally wrong.

We sat in a silence so thick it felt like a shroud. Finally, her voice, as fragile as spun glass, broke the stillness. “I love you, Syanna. You are my truest friend.” She wrapped her arms around me, and the dam broke. She cried into my shoulder, a long, sorrowful deluge of tears that seemed to carry the grief of the world.

When she finally pulled back, she stood on shaky legs. “We need to speak outside.”

The sun had long set. The world was hushed and still as we walked to the back of the yard, the cold, damp grass a silent witness.

“I am prepared for the consequences,” she whispered, her voice barely stirring the air. “Syanna, what I am about to tell you must die with you.”

I swore it would.

A shudder went through her. “There is a darkness coming. A true end. A being named K’tthar will unmake everything… everyone.” She was seized by a sudden, dry cough. When she pulled her hand from her mouth, it came away dark with blood. “Including… your daughter.”

My heart stopped beating. The world tilted on its axis.

“She is the key,” Tia gasped, her voice now ragged and torn. “She can change fate. You must…” A more violent cough wracked her body, spraying crimson against the pale moonlight. I rushed to help, to make her stop this nightmare, but she pushed me away with a desperate, surprising strength.

“Listen! Find a way… let her live again. If she regresses… goes back… she can change the end.” A weak, pained smile touched her lips. “She will walk a difficult road. She will even be sacrificed… but her best friend will be a seer… like me…”

Her voice was fading. I wished with all my soul that she would stop, that I could unhear these words. She reached for my hand, her body beginning to convulse. “You must…”

Her words dissolved into silence. Her eyes, which had held so much light and life, closed for the last time.

The world ended tonight. The rest is just waiting.

I do not know the day. I do not know the nightfall.

The fighting between Sylvan and me has become a poison. He looks at me and sees a murderer by inaction. He blames me for letting her speak, for letting her prophetic words be the blade that killed her. Maybe he is right. I have buried myself in ancient texts, sifting through dust and decay, hunting for a whisper of hope in a world that has gone silent.

Sixty moons have passed. Perhaps more.

I have found it. A single, frayed thread in a tapestry of despair. A forgotten scroll speaks of an ancient elf who mastered a perilous magic—an enchantment woven not into an object, but into the very fabric of a person’s soul. The ritual is costly. It demands a price I cannot yet comprehend. It does not matter. I will not let Tia’s sacrifice be in vain.

This will be my last entry.

My search is over. I have found the ancient one. From him, I will learn the soul-fire enchantment. I will do this for my daughter. I will do this for the world. I will see K’tthar defeated, no matter the cost. Even if the price is my own life.

I closed the journal, the worn leather cool against my trembling fingers. Tears streamed down my face, hot and blinding, blurring the final, resolute words my mother had penned.

A wave of understanding—so violent and absolute it stole the air from my lungs—crashed over me.

She knew.

The entire time, she knew. The horrific death I would face, the apocalyptic end the world would meet—she carried that unbearable knowledge every single day. And she never, not once, let the mask of a loving mother slip. Every smile, every bedtime story, every gentle touch was a shield, a loving lie to protect me from a truth she bore all alone.

I pulled the journal to my chest, hugging it tight as if it were her, the scent of old paper and dried ink a poor substitute for the mother I now understood I never truly knew. Grief was an ocean threatening to drown me, but beneath it, her sacrifice was the bedrock. On that rock, a new resolve began to form, forged in the fire of her love and loss.

I will not let K’tthar win.

I will not let her love be for nothing.

I will unite the others—the coin holders. I will break Cassius’s curse. We will do whatever it takes. Her sacrifice was not the end of our story. It will be the beginning of our victory.