𝗕𝗟𝗢𝗢𝗗𝗕𝗢𝗨𝗡𝗗 || Cregan Stark

28 | Prophecy

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
P R O P H E C Y

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Viserra lies slumped on her bed, the air around her tingling with the smell of damp stone and earth. Her eyes flicker toward the window. The pale light of the moon has barely shifted, and the mist outside has thickened, pressing against the glass like a wall of water. The world is unreachable, buried beneath her.

Her breath catches as a memory, like a shard of glass, slashing through the fog.

She shifts, a slow, deliberate movement as she stands. The room feels smaller, its walls closing in on her. She steps across the cool, stone-laden floor, her gaze wandering over the intricate walls in wary fascination.

The door to her chamber is open, and at the sight, there suddenly runs a chill down her spine. She feels a coolness flicker against her skin, smooth like a dragon's tail.

Still, she continues to walk, away from her room, into the narrow corridor.

The pathway linger before her, vast and silent. The flickering torchlight casts long, trembling shadows on the walls, twisting them into shifting figures that seem to watch her every step. The weight of her own breath is the only sound in the thick air, each inhale and exhale slow, deliberate, certain.

The cold stone beneath her toes is grounding, and yet she feels untethered, unmoored, led astray by a growing presence.

Then, she feels a sensation stirring beneath her.

Viserra glances down and sees water beginning to pool at her feet.

At first, the puddle is barely more than a sheen that reflects the dim torchlight above. But as she steps forward, it deepens, seething into the fabric of her shoes. Cold, slick, pulling at her ankles like unseen hands. The water sways as she walks, small currents curling about her.

She does not mind it. She only continues to walk, her steps slow and measured.

The hall before her stretches on endlessly, swallowed by something vast and unseen. The torches flicker and sputter, their feeble flames barely holding against the pressing weight of the dark.

As she reaches the great hall, she tilts her head up.

The air is different here—thicker, charged with something unspoken, like the hush before a storm. The ceiling above yawns into nothingness, the shadows weaving through the high beams like living things. The grand hearth at the end of the room is but a bed of smouldering embers, casting a low, red glow against the damp stone.

The water follows her. It coats the entirety of the stone floor surrounding her, rippling outward as though something beneath is stirring. The ends of her dress are soaked, heavy with the weight of it, clinging to her legs.

The room is vast and empty, the only sound being the distant drip of water, as though the very stone itself were bleeding. Each step she takes echoes loudly in the eerie silence, a quiet disturbance in the otherwise oppressive stillness.

She stands still in the centre of the hall, her eyes flickering about gently. In her chest, her breathing is strangely calm. Tempered, even.

The water around her ankles ripples once more. A deep, steady pulse, like the slow beat of some slumbering thing. Her breath stills in her chest as the sound grows. A distant murmur, rising from the dark corners of the hall, echoing off the high, vaulted ceiling.

"Little fish."

Her breathing stills, reduced to a stunned flimmer inside her throat.

The sound of feet dragging through the shallow water reaches her ears, adamant and eager.