Apparently self-imposed schedules are not for me – I've come to a compromise with myself and I'll be trying to update every week, without a fixed day. Hope you enjoy this monster of a chapter.

He had no idea where to go. Leaving Scribere's class, Vanyel stumbled down the hall, wanting to move – wanting to escape – but his aching, protesting mind failed to provide him with a destination, no matter how hard Vanyel prodded it. It just prodded back. Looking about himself dazedly, it was as if Vanyel's knowledge of his surroundings was slipping away, his familiarity with the place he had come to consider his home fading to a dull, uneasy sense of isolation. For a desperate moment, he was struck by the overwhelming impression that if he were to hold out a hand and touch the wall next to him, his fingers would pass right through it. And instead of passing, that moment stretched on, plunging Vanyel into a world of illusions and ghostly intimations where seconds ago there had been brick and solid walls. He shut his eyes and took a halting series of breaths, keeping his hands stiffly at his sides. Though he had absolutely no idea what was happening, he was fairly certain trying to touch something would be a terrible mistake – ominously certain.

So, poking and prodding around his own brain for somewhere – anywhere – to go, trying not to look around himself, Vanyel let his feet direct themselves through the whispering mists of his suddenly incorporeal reality.

Three steps and he was at the end of the long, winding hall, standing suddenly in the reception area; a breath and he was out the doors and in the grass at the front of the school building, which shimmered and flickered like a mirage drawn up out of desert sands by a blistering sun; a shake of his head – which failed to clear it – and another few tentative steps and he was on the well-trodden gravel path leading to the doors of the Dancing Crow… The Dancing Crow – the tavern where he had spent most of the last night, and most of his last coin, gamely drinking and drunkenly gaming; the tavern Tylendel had suggested they try out, instead of wasting their night repeating the last and stumbling out of the Rising Jester in the wee hours of the morning for the third week straight…

Vanyel froze, refraining even from breathing for fear of disturbing his deliberate paralysis. Tylendel… at the name, at the memory of his voice, Vanyel touched on the only concrete in the sea of insubstantial mutability washing around him. Gradually, he began to recognise the outlines of buildings around him and with that influx of memory, he began to regain his footing, both literally and metaphorically. Holding onto the link, to that odd little part of himself that was less Vanyel than it was Tylendel, he used it as an anchor to ground himself in himself, seeing as he did so the ghostly shadows of the world around him begin resolving themselves into substance once again.

Shaky relief flooded him as the night sky, a black ceiling studded with stars and pinned up by the large white circle that was the moon, unfolded over his head, bathing the newly solidified world in white light and black shadow. Time had passed – hours had passed, a whole day – but Vanyel didn't find that at all surprising. Nothing that had happened made any sense, but nothing about it felt confusing or wrong. Still clinging to Tylendel to keep himself centred on the path, firmly in the midst of a world he could actually feel around him, Vanyel held his right hand out in front of him, reassuring himself that he was here, that everything was here, and that he could stop trembling.

Letting out a soft chuckle, Vanyel dropped the hand to his side and his eyes refocused on the distance, locking onto Haven's city gates towering above the buildings lining the side of the street opposite the tavern. Something strong and sharp jabbed upwards into Vanyel's gut and the world swiftly commenced unravelling around him, disassembling as readily as it had reassembled. Vanyel fumbled with his link to Tylendel, trying desperately to hold on, but the link seemed to be unravelling in tandem with the rest of reality, taking on that same wispy, oneiric quality. The last thing Vanyel felt was this half-formed, tenuous link reaching out to him, trying to gain hold of him this time – and then he was standing atop the gates looking down on a battlefield.

They were walking, skimming along the ground, constantly on the verge of running yet not quite ready to give in to the urge. They hadn't found him yet. They had been all over Haven, peeking in every nook and cranny of the city, and he was nowhere to be found. Night had fallen and that fact seemed to inject an element of twitching urgency to the search. The whole situation was poised on the precipice of a spiralling, panicked abyss, and running would only push it over the edge. Stefen could feel the tension thrumming through the air; he could feel the determined moderation of Elspeth and Scribere reining in the growing panic of Tylendel and Savil. The panic was mostly Tylendel's, however – its sheer desperation gave it an edge that eclipsed Savil's more practical, steady fear for the boy. Tylendel felt like he was rushing to save his own life, not the life of a fellow boarder and his teacher's nephew.

But, then again, maybe that was accurate. After all, they had all heard him say he was this boy – Vanyel, the name is Vanyel – this boy's lifebonded. It was Randi who had supplied the information about Vanyel, where he lived, who he was, what he did, who was close to him; Stefen had been nearly useless in that regard. He didn't know much about Vanyel, other than the rumours that were traded amongst the students, descriptions of his beauty, his wit, all the usual nonsense that accompanied a passing fad in the court; however, he was intimately acquainted with Tylendel's feelings on the high-born court sensation. In fact, as Tylendel's friend – one of his closest, he liked to imagine – he had been out with the pair more than a few times, he had gotten drunk with Vanyel, danced with Vanyel, held whole conversations with Vanyel. He had listened to Tylendel's rhapsodic descriptions of his charms; he had listened to his friend's equally emotional fits of melancholia during the pair's quarrels – which were dismally frequent.

If a stranger were to observe his relationship with the pair, he'd likely describe Stefen as a friend of Vanyel's as much as he was a friend of Tylendel's.

But Stefen didn't know anything about Vanyel beyond what the gossipers and Tylendel had told him, despite all the time he had spent in the boy's company. He barely remembered his name. And he couldn't understand why.

It had never bothered him before; but then, he had never really thought about it before. As a Bard trainee, Stefen had been taught to fine-tune his memory, and, as a former street urchin, his training was bolstered by a mind sculpted from its very first moments to collect names and faces and information like discarded coins – it was the best way to profile a potential target when he was in dire straits. Knowledge was power. Stefen was accustomed to having the best memory in any given group, he was accustomed to knowing more about people than they knew themselves after two or three brief encounters. And yet, somehow, he had spent months trailing along after Tylendel and his lifebonded and he was just barely able to recall the boy's name.

Apparently, this was a larger oversight than he could have imagined: Vanyel was Gifted with Prophecy. If it was true… if it was true, Stefen was never going to forget anything about him again. He was never leaving his side, for that matter. Prophecy was a majestic, grandiose word straight from the ancient epic ballads, the greatest of the classic histories – Prophecy was the hinge on which every major battle, adventure, and likewise bard-worthy moment of the olden days swung. Stefen had yearned after those days, the days of fantastic happenings and explosive, world-shattering power, ever since he had first heard the classic songs during the first days of his training at Bardic. He wished he could go back, live and breathe in a time when anything and everything was possible and godlike heroes and villains clashed in volcanic duels. He would excel there, he would be able to compose like mad about contemporary events, rather than grasping after the magnificence of a past age to inspire his music. The problem was, nothing ever happened in the here and now. There was no war, no extraordinary power, no danger or wild, manic triumph: there was only the plodding, everyday rhythm of the world. Nothing to stir the blood.

Prophecy returning – that stirred the blood. And it heralded more to come.

And so, while the group around him strained to push the pace of their walking to the limit and fear swirled palpable in the air among them, Stefen was an isolated tumbleweed of excitement and anticipation rolling along – hidden – in their midst.

A tumbleweed that skidded to an abrupt stop as everyone halted to stare at Tylendel. The Herald-Mage trainee had stumbled to an uncertain stop, swaying slightly as the blood drained alarmingly from his face, causing the shocked, fearful light in his wide blue eyes to burn all the brighter. It took Stefen advancing a step for him to notice the fine tremors that were afflicting Tylendel's body, his breath shuddering audibly as it travelled in and out of his trembling lungs. His eyes, as expressive as they were, seemed disturbingly unfocused.

"Lendel? Hey, what's up?" Stefen was quiet, taking another slow, deliberate step. Tylendel was strung tight, his emotions whirling so fast that Stef could barely pick one apart from another, and he quickly decided caution was the best policy. Caution was better than inadvertently pushing Tylendel over the edge and being splattered against the nearest surface, available or otherwise. Moreover, the others seemed perfectly content with letting Stef take point in this, all of them staying well back and not making any move to approach and help Stef out in any way. He was on his own.

"I… I don't feel him. Or I do – it's just…" Tylendel's eyes remained unfocused as he spoke, twitching back and forth jerkily in their sockets, searching sightlessly for something lost. "The link – it's getting faint. It's like Van's fading away, or something." Blue eyes snapped back to their world and fixed on Stef, seeming to appeal to him for answers. Stef closed the distance between them, fairly sure the danger of being accidently decimated had passed, and put his hands on his friend's shoulders, dredging up his skills as a Bard to comfort him.

"Lendel, I'm sure there's…" Before he had even had the chance to fully launch his attempt at reassurance, Stef's tongue – his second most prized organ – stiffened and went still in his mouth. But Stef didn't get the chance to truly feel his shock at the betrayal – he was too busy feeling the shock at the faint fluttering that had whispered into existence in his chest. He had never felt its like before – it wasn't normal in the least, he knew that much; it felt alien, like someone had removed part of him and replaced it with something else.

Something that felt like Vanyel.

Stef let his hands drop from Tylendel's shoulders; he watched as his friend's brow contorted first with confusion, then shock, and finally anger. Before things could escalate any further, Scribere broke the silence and stepped between the two. He gave Stef a hard look. "So, he's feeling his link with Ashkevron fade, and you're feeling one start up. Both at the same approximate intensity," Scribere's piercing eyes unfocused slightly as he examined the boys. "You've split the lifebond in half." And that was it, that was the verdict. Stef and Lendel just stared at the professor.

Tylendel spluttered to life first. "What? That's completely impossible! You can't 'split' a lifebond! You – " Scribere turned and marched off, effectively ending any and all discussion of the subject. The Herald trainee and the Bardic trainee looked at each other, an uncomfortable, awkward silence stretching like a gulf between them.

"Come on, you two!" Scribere's craggy, gruff command was enough to jolt them out of their unwitting standoff. "The pair of you are our best chance of tracking this fool Ashkevron down before he kills himself. Let's go."

And after a bit of reluctant shuffling, and an impatient raised eyebrow from the Queen, they did.

It was bloody, gory, nauseating chaos.

From his sudden perch on top of the city gates, Vanyel had a perfect view of the entire, sprawling scene. It was battle and it was impossible. The fighting was spreading into the city from the abused gates – massive doors splintered and broken, hanging off their hinges – the guardhouse just inside had been set alight and the fire was tearing through the rest of the town at a breakneck pace, smoke pouring blackly into the black sky, blotting out the stars. Men, women, corpses, severed limbs: the carnage littered the ground, obscuring the main road from sight, rendering all equal in a knee-high lake of destruction.

But none of it was possible. The Dancing Crow was gone, burned to the ground, flames still dancing on its ash-strewn foundations – but Vanyel had been there, standing in front of it, mere seconds ago. He had seen no fire; he had not heard the deafening cacophony of battle that was currently ringing through the air; he had seen the city gates whole and undisturbed. A battle of such magnitude could not flare up and progress to such a point in seconds; but then, neither could a person flit from one location to another in the space of breaths and reach the other side of a city in seconds without taking more than a few steps. It was impossible that Vanyel could have been standing a few streets away and not heard or glimpsed signs of the battle raging at the gate; but then, did the same rules of the senses apply in the uncertain world of shadow that he had slipped into? Did that world even exist? How had he managed to get from the tavern to the top of the gates in seconds? There were far too many unexplained factors for Vanyel to reason any of it out: if he was honest, nothing made sense and everything that had happened to him since leaving Scribere's class had been impossible.

Vanyel was tempted to write everything off as a dream, one that had started at his waking up that morning after the dream with that monstrous headache or at his entering Scribere's classroom and launching into a diatribe about things he didn't understand. But, as he watched soldiers in black leather hacking through the forces trying to hold them back with wicked curved blades, as he listened to the screams and felt the desperate rallies of Heralds, he knew that while this battle might not be happening in the strictest sense of the term, it was no dream. It was true, just not in a way he was used to. And, just as he felt the truth of the scene somewhere at the very core of himself, so he felt that anything he did, any attempt at intervention, would be useless. This was unfolding according to its own rules and couldn't be changed, something Vanyel felt and respected without understanding. So he just observed, feeling that that was exactly what he was meant to be doing.

The black-clad insurgents were highly trained and seemed to eliminate four defending soldiers to every one of their own number. They slashed, hacked, danced through the defending army, shaving it down bit by bit with no sign of tiring. The Heralds hung back, arrayed in a semi-circle behind the soldiers, throwing everything they had at their attackers in an attempt to slow their ceaseless assault. The various Heraldic Gifts were playing over the marauders, interlocking in synchronized attacks, breaking apart to work alone, shifting to complement successful attacks and bolster faltering ones – it was a web of power hanging like a net over their enemies, technique and strategy well organized and well executed.

But Vanyel could see that web starting to unwind, he could see the strategy begin to fray at the edges. No matter how many leather-bound warriors were felled by the Heralds, ten more poured through the gaping gates and twenty more of the defenders of Haven perished. The Heralds were beginning to despair, and that despair was giving way to desperation, demonstrated by the bursts of power and uncoordinated, panicked attacks they unleashed and that the enemy soldiers deftly avoided. They had been trained to fight magic; they had been trained to face it and not to fear it; there was someone with magic leading them. And the Heralds were not going to be able to stop them from carving their way to the centre of the city and taking it.

A lone rider was bearing down on the fray, racing down from the keep with feral determination. Vanyel felt a sinking feeling in his gut as he recognised the rider, but it was a disembodied, distant sensation. He just watched, mind remaining quiet, impassive. Horse and rider slipped through the line of Heralds without challenge and waded through the battle to its centre, wielding a sword left and right to meet attacks directed her way as she did so. It was Elspeth, the Queen, and she had made a decision. Vanyel felt himself nod.

She reined her snorting, dancing steed in once she reached the centre of the battle and raised her right arm, sword in hand, into the air. She was calling for attention. There was a lull in the din and eyes, friendly and enemy, turned to the monarch.

"I am Elspeth. I am Queen here and this is my city." Her glare was animated with a wild fire. "If your leader wishes to take it from me, he takes both more and less than he realizes. I will not be kneeling before my own throne, ready and willing to prostrate myself before a usurper. He will not have that pleasure. And you, his faithful army, will not have the spoils of this victory. Your leader serves his own master, a madman, who has used him and others to distract from a larger, more devastating plan, keeping it from our knowledge until it is too late to stop it from being completed. And he has succeeded." Elspeth dismounted heavily, seeming to feel her defeat all the more for voicing it aloud. "Velgarth is finished. He has duped us all – every force capable of uncovering his plot and putting a stop to it has been pitted against one other and thoroughly occupied with internal strife. Thus he has succeeded in what he set out to do: he has begun our Armageddon and he will watch the world burn from his own pyre. So we will fight and the victor will burn alongside the loser." She raised her weapon, slipped easily into a fighting stance and watched the enemy soldiers surrounding her on all sides.

There was a pause. A pause as every individual on that battlefield absorbed her words: some rejected them, disbelieving, but others recognised the truth and they swallowed their shock and mourned the end of all. But everyone raised their arms and fell to the attack once more, believers and disbelievers alike, for there was no alternative. They would all be destroyed. What was there to do but fulfill the plans they had been fed for months, plans for conquest, power and glory on the one side, and plans for defense, necessity and righteousness on the other? They would fight, even as the world crumbled beneath them, because they could no longer envision anything more than this fight, anything beyond it. They were all defeated, but the momentum of the Future would have them fight, so they did even as they recognized its utter futility.

It was what the Future willed: so they fought.

It was what the Future willed: so Elspeth fell, taking her killer with her as her life fled her limbs.

It was what the Future willed: so The Darkness eclipsed Velgarth and all was at an end.

It was what the Future willed: so Vanyel felt himself falling from the gate, falling through the void, and he saw the lines writhe about to embrace him.

It was what a Future willed. A Future… His Future.

Vanyel felt everything fall into place and he understood.

"Which way now?" Scribere wheeled around abruptly as the group paused outside the doors of the Dancing Crow, music and light spilling out from under them with raucous cheer into the night. Tylendel thought about how he and Van had been in there this time last night, helping stir up that cheer. It did not help lighten his mood.

"Look, I have no idea!" Tylendel closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He had to stay calm. "He should be here. I felt him standing on this very spot," he stamped the ground with his foot, ostensibly for emphasis but really more out of petulance. "And now he's gone." His voice sounded small and Savil's hand settled on his shoulder, an attempt at comfort. It took considerable effort on Tylendel's part not to shrug it off and curl up in a corner, away from everyone and everything, until Van came back to him.

He really was quite pathetic. But every time he recognised that, the thin, enfeebled link with his lifebonded wavering inside him reminded him that he had a reason to be pathetic.

"I think I've found him." Stefen was peering over the row of buildings across the street. "He's at the gates – or at least close to them. That is, I think that's where he is." Uncertainty bled into the Bard's voice near the end, and he turned to Tylendel, as if for confirmation.

Tylendel just stared back at him. Stef was his friend, the closest person to him besides his brother and his lifebonded. And Stef was the one who was leeching away half of his bond to Van; the one who was pinpointing Van's location before Tylendel and looking to him for confirmation; the one who had stepped in and stolen half of Tylendel's heart.

But Stefen hadn't done any of that deliberately. It had come as a surprise to them all, hitherto considered an impossible phenomenon, and Stef looked sheepish and embarrassed every time he pointed the group in a certain direction or hinted at where he felt Van might be. He seemed dazed and unsettled by the sudden link that had opened up inside him, obviously wishing it hadn't happened at all.

And though Tylendel had no idea how else he could have expected Stef to feel at this turn of events, somehow his discomfort and lack of appreciation made it all the worse.

Tylendel realized then just how long and strained the silence had become. He closed his eyes and tentatively followed the weak link out of himself and to its other end, trying to be as careful as possible. He had an sinking fear that if he pushed too hard or got too close, the link would snap altogether. And Stefen would get it all.

"Yes." Tylendel turned sharply to the gates like a bloodhound to the scent of his target. "I feel him." With that, he hurried off without looking back, hardly hearing the others calling, let alone heeding their demands for him to stop and wait. He could feel Van now, he knew exactly where he was, and if there was an odd detachment to what he felt accompanied by a surging alien power, that didn't matter in the least. He was going to find Van, and the rest he would deal with afterwards.

Dispensing with the careful restraint they had been observing for the last three hours, Tylendel broke into a run, loping across the street and whipping down an alley between houses in order to exit the honeycomb of interlocking streets that formed the city proper and reach the open space that separated the city from its gates. He could hear the others pounding along behind him, the wheezing puff that was so distinctively Scribere drowning out the others, and Tylendel gave thanks once again to whatever gods were interested that he had long legs. He could easily keep ahead of them.

He reached the end of the alleyway and burst onto the grass beside the main road, not bothering to check his pace until he reached the guardhouse nestled snugly in the gates' shadow. There he stumbled to a stop, breath coming in short gasps. The others staggered around him after a few moments, unevenly bringing themselves to a halt and following his gaze.

Following it to Vanyel, standing at the closed doors and staring down the main road. He was standing straight, everything about him calm and at ease. His clothes were impeccable as always, not a button out of place; his hair was slightly ruffled as if he had been running, glinting ebony as the night sky, framing his pale face perfectly; his mouth was curved, not quite smiling; his face was awash with the light of the moon and stars, highlighting the sharp lines of his cheekbones and emphasizing the paleness of his complexion. All in all, he looked beautiful, something that never failed to strike Tylendel whenever he laid eyes on Van. But his beauty wasn't what took his breath away and shook him to the very core.

It was the eyes that did that. Fixed unseeing on the horizon, Vanyel's eyes glowed a bright silver, rivalling the light of the full moon. While they were a unique shade of grey, Van's eyes didn't usually shine like a silver coronet set out in the noonday sun. They didn't usually shine with power. But they did now.

"What in the Havens?" Stefen breathed beside him, gaping at the sight. Tylendel didn't shift his gaze from Vanyel and he saw the silver light flicker at Stef's words, fading slowly as Vanyel seemed to sag. Tylendel didn't stop to question any of it, just ran up to his lifebonded and pulled him into his arms, keeping Van upright and assuring himself that he had really found him all at the same time. Vanyel leaned on him and blinked convulsively as he tried to get his bearings. Wordlessly Tylendel stroked his hair and watched, feeling Vanyel's confusion and gradual return to awareness through the half-link, not hazarding speech until he was sure Vanyel was fully with them.

Eventually, with a sharp shake of his head, Vanyel tipped his head back to meet Tylendel's eyes – a glimpse of that familiar burnished silver that never failed to make Tylendel's heart skip a beat – and gave him a tired smile. "Well, well, there you are," Van's voice was hoarse as he smiled, tinged with a weariness that Tylendel had never heard before. "I thought I lost you for a minute." The lifebond, Tylendel caught on belatedly, he's talking about the lifebond. Van had been clinging to it too; he had felt that same fear when it wavered. Tylendel returned Vanyel's smile and bent down to kiss him, showing him that he had felt the desperate fear at the potential loss, and the same rushing relief that nothing had snapped or unravelled irrevocably.

A cough broke them apart. Stef was flushed, shuffling as he both stared intently at them and tried to look in any other direction but theirs. He has half the lifebond, Tylendel realized, so that means he must be feeling… Tylendel's arms tightened around Vanyel. He could feel Vanyel cocking his head curiously and pulling away from him, which Tylendel allowed as reluctantly as possible. He watched as his lifebonded slowly approached the Bard, studying him and smiling slightly. Tylendel forced himself to relax his fisted hands and take a few deep breaths. He didn't need to be jealous of Stefen. Stefen wasn't a threat. He wasn't jealous and he definitely hadn't just put Stefen's name in the same sentence as threat. Not at all.

Stopping in front of Stef, Vanyel lifted an eyebrow and his smile grew, his pale face practically glowing. "Stefen, right?" The Bard nodded and hesitantly returned Vanyel's smile.

"Yeah. I was having trouble remembering your name earlier as well." Tylendel took another breath and forced his blood pressure back down a few notches.

Vanyel laughed – far too musically and genuinely in Tylendel's opinion – and his smile became pensive. "That's rather odd, isn't it? We see each other all the time, but… for some reason I can barely remember your name, or anything about you, for that matter."

Stefen nodded, staring fixedly at Vanyel's face. "It's definitely odd. I'm usually quite good at remembering things about people – well, obviously, I'm a Bard trainee – but I seem to pull the same blank on you as you do on me." Tylendel was definitely done with the fixed staring and the proximity and the fact that Stefen was talking to Vanyel… looking at him… breathing the same air as him… Tylendel looked down and forcibly uncurled his fists for the second time. He had no idea what was happening to him. When had he developed this kind of possessive streak?

Mercifully, Scribere decided to insert himself into the conversation at that point, saving Tylendel from internal combustion. "In my experience, lads, anything 'odd' is more than mere happenstance. There might be more to this than you realize. Especially given the spectacular disregard the lot of you seem to display for established assumptions." Scibere smirked at their exasperated expressions and gestured to Vanyel. "Well, Ashkevron's demonstrated beyond a doubt that he is Gifted with Prophecy," he turned to Stef next, "and you, Bardic trainee, have managed to split a lifebond. Two things considered essentially impossible."

Vanyel's eyes widened and he gave the Bard a hard look. "He's right. You've half the lifebond."

Stef grimaced and shot him an apologetic look. "Yeah, sorry. I'm not really sure how it happened…" Stefen trailed off as Vanyel's expression altered suddenly and he gasped, taking a step away from him. He glanced at Scribere – prompting a wary look from the old professor – and laughed shakily, running a hand through his hair. He returned Stef's grimace and apologetic expression. "I think I might know how it happened." Vanyel dropped his eyes to the ground. "Yeah… I think it might be my fault."

"What?" The question was formed and out of his mouth before Tylendel could process it. He felt numb. Had Vanyel done this? Had he wanted this? How –

Vanyel turned to him, looking like a trapped deer, and Tylendel's heart plummeted though his feet and six feet under ground.

"I have no idea how I managed it. Or, at least, I don't have the proper words to explain it," this with a glance at Scribere, "but, when I was… in that place – the other place where there's just a void and endless lines and paths – I think I dipped into one of them. That is, I was falling toward our path – this line that we're in right now – but I ended up brushing too close to another one and I think that might have caused – this." Vanyel waved a hand at himself, Tylendel and Stefen.

Scribere was nodding, the only one not staring like Vanyel had become a raving lunatic. "That's Prophecy, alright. You know everything by instinct, you can manoeuvre parallels and different streams and mold things to your advantage without flicking an eyelid, but you just don't have the terminology to discuss it with all us mundane people who can't commune with Futures by instinct." Scribere's smile took on a bitter tinge. "But, then again, there are very few that would understand the terminology even if you did know it, Ashkevron, so your way of explaining it's probably as good as any."

Stefen was shaking his head, expression as confused and exasperated as Tylendel felt. "Okay, alright, none of us have any idea what you're talking about because it has something to do with an ancient, extinct Gift that no one's talked about seriously in ages. We get that. But is there anything you can do about?" Stefen looked appealingly from Vanyel to Scribere. "I'd rather not be hated by my best friend for the rest of my life, if you don't mind." Stef smiled weakly in Tylendel's direction and he felt a tightness in his chest relax minutely.

"Well, as I said, I can't explain any of this clearly, and I can't say I fully understand all of what's happening – but I feel like I know what to do." Vanyel closed the distance between himself and the Bard and put his hands on Stef's chest. Tylendel had to bite his lip to keep himself from launching himself at the unsuspecting Bard. "I can feel my way through this better than I can explain it. Do you trust me?" Stef nodded immediately, not a hint of doubt clouding his expression.

Vanyel's eyes sparked to life and Stef inhaled painfully. Nothing visible was happening that could be discerned by the naked eye, but every one of the group could feel the power swirling around the pair, seeping into the air and curling seductively through their minds like tendrils of a heady perfume. Vanyel's face creased in concentration and he muttered something to himself as he shifted his fingers on Stef's chest, watched all the while by a hawk-like Scribere. Stef was lost to the world, eyes closed and expression fluctuating too quickly for Tylendel to discern any specific emotion among the onslaught.

And then he felt it. The rush of completeness solidifying the wavering link, the return of the half of himself – of his bond – that had been siphoned away. He sighed and closed his eyes, revelling in the hole he had felt inside himself closing again. When he opened his eyes, he saw Stef and Vanyel staring into each other's eyes, the former looking shocked and downcast and the latter looking smug and teasing. "Sorry. I know you'll miss me." Vanyel leaned in and gave the Bard a quick peck on the lips, laughing as he pulled back and saw Stef's shock intensified. Tylendel laughed too, all vestige of fearful, aggressive possessiveness gone. He walked over and captured Vanyel under his arm, grinning as he felt said captive nestle closer to his side.

The moment could have been perfect if not for Scribere snorting and regarding them with cynical amusement. "Cute." His dry tone conveyed just how cute he found them. "Now, Ashkevron, you know what you have better than any of us, even me. You've proven that thoroughly. But I'm here to tell you what it's called – Prophecy – and that I will be the one to guide you through it." Scribere drew himself up to his full height and, with his sombre expression, he cut an impressive figure. "You can navigate through much of your power by instinct, and that might be the most deceptive aspect of this blasted Gift. It throws you an immense amount of power and gives you the means to wield it with barely a conscious thought, yet there is an endless amount of theory involved in wielding that power without trampling over the order of things and destroying everything you know and love in the process. Restraint and knowledge are vital." Vanyel seemed to shrink next to Tylendel with every word. "The most important thing to remember, the thing to remember in a pinch when all of the other nonsense I've shoved into your head is out the window, is that every action has consequences. Got that?"

Vanyel straightened at the question and nodded, coming out from his shelter under Tylendel's arm. He met Scribere's stern gaze squarely. "Actions have consequences." The words were spoken softly, but seemed to resonate through the night and deep in Tylendel's head regardless.

Scribere nodded. "So, Ashkevron. I've given you the essential word of wisdom, so that's done. Now, what did you see?" Vanyel didn't respond, any trace of insecurity or fear of Scribere vanished without a trace. "When we found you, standing here at the gates, you were in the grips of a vision. What was it that you saw? Or is it too early to share?"

Vanyel kept his eyes on Scribere for a few seconds longer, seeming to consider his options – consider something even deeper – then he turned to the Queen. He inclined his head and smiled, expression faintly sad. "You are very brave, Your Majesty. This city is yours." All of the blood drained from Elspeth's face at the soft, ominous words: they were words spoken with imperturbable certainty, they were words carrying the incontrovertible weight of Prophecy. Fear prompted by such a statement was inevitable and entirely understandable, but Elspeth kept her eyes on Vanyel, even as her hands shook at her sides.

The Queen inclined her head in turn. "I thank you, Vanyel Ashkevron." She said nothing more, did not inquire after further explanation. Their monarch was an intelligent woman.

Vanyel seemed to belatedly realize her fear and he smiled and shook his head. "I only tell you this because a certain display of your great courage will only ever be seen by me, not lauded by the Bards and commended by all. It will never happen." Something hard and strange had entered Vanyel's eyes, a dim glow emitted from the irises. His voice was slow and hypnotic, an impression of obscene knowledge lurking between his words.

Scribere seemed to be the only one who dared address Vanyel. "What do you mean, Ashkevron? What have you seen? Whatever you've seen must come to pass, you know this." Scribere was looking a little green as Vanyel's smooth, assured gaze returned to him, cool amusement twisting his lips into a smile.

"I have seen the will of the Future, professor. Or a Future, to be more accurate. However, its will is not my will." Scribere looked nauseous and Vanyel's smile only grew wider. "Oh, don't worry, sir. I have the will of another Future on my side. Will you help me?" The question hung in the air, heavy as an anvil, and the world held its breath for Scribere's answer. For his answer would be binding, that knowledge was thick in the air around them.

"You want to oppose one Future, the one we're currently headed for, in favour of another? You're mad, Ashkevron – that runs contrary to every fundamental tenet of the use of Prophecy! You can't just fumble around and reshape what is set to happen, you could destroy countless Futures that way, end countless worlds! We – " Vanyel cut the man off with a glance and a raised eyebrow.

"Remember what I said earlier, master. How can we justify our motives in telling the Futures how to act if we don't understand their motives? I understand the motives, at least within a narrow context. I oppose the will of one Future, this Future, and support the will of another because someone has already reshaped our Future; we must restore the course of what was willed before, what is still willed despite, this intervention because it is the true will serving broader, vital motives." Vanyel was calmer than Tylendel had ever seen him. It was like he was watching a stranger, a person who was hardly a person at all. No person could hold a conversation and so obviously know the outcome in advance.

Scribere eyed Vanyel carefully. "You're certain?"

Vanyel nodded, eyes flat, smile distant and sharp. "It's the reason we're here."

That remark seemed to strike the professor. "So, if nothing had been tampered with, Prophecy wouldn't have returned?" Scribere's tone and expression were inscrutable.

Vanyel nodded again. "Not now. Not here."

"You already know what I'm going to say," Scribere snorted. "You already know I believe you. I'll help." The air shivered as something locked into place, for good or for ill. Scribere ignored it. "Just out of curiosity, what is this reshaped Future we're trying to knock back on course?"

"The end of the world." Vanyel blinked and his lips twitched. "Is that motivation enough for you to make an effort, professor?"

In the deathly silence that followed Vanyel's words, no one noticed the ecstatic grin spreading across the face of the Bardic trainee in their midst.