BOUND BY SHADOW AND STONE

Chapter 4: The Oracle's Burden

The vision struck like an axe to the skull.

One moment, I was crouched behind the skeletal remains of an oak tree, Leah’s small frame pressed against my back, her warmth steadying me. The next, the world dissolved.

I stood in a cavern lit by living crystals that pulsed with red light, their glow flickering like heartbeat and flame. The air was metallic, heavy with ancient magic so thick it dragged at my lungs.

And there, at the center, was Leah.

Not the mud-streaked, trembling girl hiding behind me now. This Leah burned brighter than the crystals, her violet eyes twin stars. Waves of death magic rolled off her in a rhythm that warped the ground beneath her feet. Her raised hands twisted the fabric of reality itself.

She was beautiful. Magnificent. Terrifying.

“You see it too,” she said, though her lips didn’t move. Her voice thundered in my bones. “The future where I become what they want me to be.” The scene darkened.

The crystals cracked, bleeding shadow. Leah knelt in the center, but her face was wrong—something ancient and hungry had stolen her skin. Her eyes were pits of endless night. When she smiled, I saw the death of everything I’d ever loved.

“Or the future where I become something worse,” it whispered.

I tried to speak, to scream, but I had no voice.

The visions dragged me deeper.

Flashes—chains of silver binding Leah’s limbs as a massive figure with battle scars tightened his grip. A stone warrior stirring awake, reaching for her. Blood on my hands. Fire everywhere.

And through it all, one unshakable truth: every road ended the same way.

My death. Her transformation. The world burning. “Mael.”

Leah’s real voice broke through the haze like a blade through fog.

I blinked hard. The light faded, replaced by the sodden gray of the bog. I was shaking, my fingers locked in the dirt. A trickle of blood slid from my nose and splattered my shirt.

“How long?” My voice rasped.

“Almost an hour,” she said, steady but tight. “The search parties came through twice. I thought you were dying.”

Maybe I was. The visions were eating me alive, stronger and more frequent than ever. The healers in the Canopy told me I’d last a year before my mind burned itself out. That was three years ago.

“What did you see?” she asked.

I turned, really looking at her for the first time since it hit. Her silver hair was plastered to her face, her dress torn to ribbons, her small frame shaking with exhaustion. But her eyes—gods, those eyes—were steady and unflinching. She looked nothing like the destroyer from my visions. She looked like someone worth saving.

“You,” I said simply. “I saw you in the caves below us. Power like I’ve never seen.”

She raised an eyebrow. “That’s not a bad thing.”

“It was what you did with it that scared me.”

The words landed between us like a stone dropped in still water, ripples spreading outward.

For a moment, neither of us spoke. The mist around us shifted, slow and deliberate, as if responding to her mood. I could feel her death magic humming beneath her skin, calling to something deep within my sight.

Then she said, “Your family. The vision I saw when we touched… They died because of your gift, didn’t they?”

The breath left my lungs. I hadn’t told that story aloud in eight years.

“The Stormwright line has served as oracles for a thousand years,” I began quietly. “We were supposed to protect our people from unseen threats. It was supposed to be an honor.”

For a moment, I could almost smell home—the estate nestled deep in the Canopy, the sharp scent of pine and rain. My parents, my two sisters, my little brother laughing as he chased fireflies.

“I was sixteen when I had the vision,” I continued. “I saw our enemies planning an attack. Every detail was clear—time, route, numbers. I convinced my father to move us to the hunting lodge. Told him we’d be safe there. That I’d seen everything.” My throat locked. “I didn’t see the second vision until it was too late.”

Leah’s hand brushed mine. Pain surged between us, but so did something else—understanding. She knew what it was like to carry the weight of other people’s deaths.

“They were waiting for us at the lodge,” I said, voice breaking. “My parents. My siblings. They all died because I thought I could outsmart fate.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Leah said fiercely. “You were trying to save them.”

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

Her frown deepened. “What do you mean?”

“The visions don’t come so we can change the future,” I said bitterly. “They come so we can fulfill it.”

She blinked. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“My great-grandfather saw a famine coming and hoarded grain. The grain drew rats. The rats brought plague. My grandfather saw a war coming and negotiated peace. His negotiations gave the enemy exactly the information they needed to win. Every oracle who’s tried to change the future has made it worse.”

I gave a humorless laugh. “We’re not prophets, Leah. We’re fate’s instruments.”

“Then why are you helping me?” she asked. “If you know how this ends, why stay?”

I hesitated, because I’d been asking myself the same thing since she stumbled into my life. Every vision told me to run. To get as far from her as possible.

But those were the visions where the world burned completely. Where no one survived.

In the visions where I stayed—where I helped—there were survivors. Not many, but some.

I was going to die either way. But maybe this time, my death could mean something.

“Because,” I said softly, brushing mud from her cheek, “you’re the only hope any of us have.”

Before she could respond, another vision slammed into me.

This one was immediate. Urgent.

Leah in my arms, blood soaking into the bog soil. Her eyes going dim. My hands clutching a blade slick with her blood.

My blade.

“We need to move. Now.” I grabbed her wrist, hauling her upright.

“What—?”

“Shadow hunters. Thirty seconds.”

As if to prove me right, an inhuman shriek ripped through the mist.

And this time, I didn’t know if my vision was warning me… or commanding me.