It was amazing, how in one moment, Hex could be enjoying the view of a beautiful woman, and the next, immersed into an endless chasm of pain and death.

He should have known, as soon as he laid eyes on the message stick, that he shouldn’t touch it. He should have known that it wouldn’t bear good news, that what lay within it would threaten to shatter his mind. He should have known that he wouldn’t want to bear the pain.

But he was Szaadhex Galrithian, the only remaining heir to the throne, youngest Prince to the royal family of Rol’Guul, and what he should have known he didn’t want and what he knew he needed to bear were two very different things.

So he grasped the message stick—of course brought by a Kranok, ancient friends of the Galrithian line—and tried to prepare himself for the contents.

He was not prepared.

The void.

Darkness, the earth beneath his feet has ceased to exist, and this is a boon but he doesn’t yet know it because it is over too quickly, too quickly followed by pain and blood like a whip crack to his spine. He shrieks and curls, and he is not him but he is him but he is not, because Drakach breathes down his neck as he digs his claws into his flesh, and Hex has never been beneath Drakach, never been close enough to feel his putrid breath against his skin, but here, here he feels every inch of him, he feels the evil and the glee and the lust for power and—

The void, but only for an eyeblink, because now he is someone else, of course this is what is happening, he is experiencing the world through the eyes of others, the oppressed, the people, those crushed beneath the hoof of—

He hurtles through the void again, and this time his guts turn inside out because it’s his mother, he can see his mother, stoic and strong and brave in front of her people, refusing to break as the monster tortures her, taunts her, humiliates her in front of her subjects, the subjects she devoted her life to protecting, the subjects who are forced to watch as she endures for them, bleeds for them, but she doesn’t break—

Until she does, until he is her, and she is alone, and she weeps for her slaughtered family, the only hope a small spark in her heart that maybe her youngest survived, that he escaped, that he made it to another land and he is okay and he won’t come back for her, she prays that he will stay away, prays that he will outrun Drakach and that as long as she is an interesting plaything for the sadistic new King that he will stay put in Rol’Guul and not give chase—

Screams, screams of too many, deafening, fire, laughter booming behind, lungs aching, breath scarce, fucking run, run, get out of the city, they’re invading, they’re killing the city, we won’t survive his madness his evil—

The void. The quiet void. He floats with a shattered heart and a deflated soul, hopelessness enveloping him in this space, the blackness of nothingness he wants to swallow him whole. He can’t save them. He can’t save any of them.

Something floats nearby, it’s small and around and sparkles despite there being no light to reflect off of the iridescent surface. It’s like nothing he’s ever seen before, mirroring his face in a myriad of rainbows. He takes it delicately between his fingers, and flips it over, finding his own face on the other side, not a mirror this time but painted on, a drawing of his own eyes, eerily staring back at him, and what does this mean, what is any of this for—

“You’re supposed to protect him.”

The voice is familiar, female, dreamy as if through water.

“He makes it very difficult.”

Jian, this voice is Jian, his deep rumble that Hex can feel when he lays upon his chest. The only place he feels truly safe and home.

“Because his heart is too big.” It’s Rose, the human woman, that’s who that voice is. “He’ll never put his own welfare over ours. Ever.” What is she talking about? They’d known each other for very little time at all, was this a premonition, was this a sign she was a part of all of this?

“That’s why you can’t tell him.” Jian sounds resigned, exhausted. But logical.

“That’s why I can’t tell him.” Rose agrees.

What can’t you tell me? Hex tries to ask, tries to yell, but he has no voice in the void, he has no voice here, he can only listen, he is only here to experience, the message only goes one way, and someone has foreseen this, someone has specifically showed him this—

The void is gone, the circular painting of his face is gone, everything melts away, and his blood runs cold when he realizes he’s looking at the present, looking down on a frozen tableau of himself, arm reaching out of the aquifer.

Jian stands guard, stoic as ever, protective, his shoulders squared and his chin high, those all-seeing eyes taking in more than most despite his blindness. And Rose stands in front of him, clutching the towel around her previously-naked form, gaping in wide-eyed fear at Hemlock’s actions.

She knew, he thinks, and he knows that is significant somehow, but he can’t put his finger on it. He doesn’t know her, she’s a breakable little creature, they’d deemed her harmless, and yet she’d brought him the Kranok and this message stick, she’d known about it and hid it from him—did she know who he was? Did she know what she was carrying? Did she know even who it was for? And if so, did she know that he was the one who she’d been instructed to take it to?

Too many questions, and none he could ask while still experiencing the stick. This isn’t real life, he knows he’s not looking at the real world in the present, he’s looking through the eyes of whatever oracle put the memories and experiences in here for him, perhaps the same oracle he’s been searching for, the one he’d hoped the changeling could find for him. He needs to find them now more than ever, now that he’d been given this gift of future sight, of present sight, of the terrible pain his people endured, his own mother was enduring—

His chest collapses in on itself as flames explode in the camp, spewing in all directions from the center. Jian whips around just in time to take a beam of fire in the chest, screaming as he struggles to regenerate, struggles to push it back, to form a shield.

Rose screams, too close, the towel goes up and she dives against Jian’s back, instinctively choosing his protection as opposed to the water, and her body is encircled with ropes, winding around her torso in criss-crossing patterns, digging cruelly into her arms and legs, and the ropes don’t burn somehow—

Flesh melts from bones, Hemlock lets out an ear-splitting cry as the duo are eviscerated, all while Hex scrambles across the stone, screaming Jian’s name until he’s just wailing fear and pain and loss, his guts and heart spilling from his mouth like a waterfall of destruction—

Who did this, who is going to do this, this is seconds after the moment I touch the thing how much time do I have—

The image begins to melt away, back into the void, but the void is unkind once again, whisked away as fast as it comes.

Hex gasped as he dropped the message stick, launching himself out of the water. He tucked his shoulder to make sure that he didn’t hit Rose, simply caught her around the waist, smooshing them both into Jian and sending them all flat on the ground.

He expected fire to explode over their heads immediately, to feel heat over his back, the scorching attack that was surely coming. When it didn’t, he leapt into a crouch to peer through the brush.

Jian yelled something nonsensical, halfway between a warning and the ancient word for fire, apparently scenting the sulfur at the same time Hex did. He ducked, and there was that beam of fire, scorching them with it’s otherworldly heat. He wished that the vision had shown him where it was coming from—no lone demon had this kind of explosive magic.

It was either a collective, a coven, or some kind of machine that was creating a massive heat source in the center of the camp and shooting out. The creature that had carried Rose to the woods was proof that there were demons out there trying to create such things.

Rose tried to crawl back towards the pool, but the stone was too close to the flame, not only would her body not be able to withstand it, the stone itself would be scorching hot. Hex snatched her around the waist and pulled her back. She struggled valiantly, but her fleshy human form was no match for even one of his arms. In any other circumstance he would have been amused, joked about it, even.

She screamed for Hemlock, the noise wrenching from the bottom of her gut, and he held her back still, even as the flames ceased. Kranok had excellent intuition, and he maybe would have made it to safety, but regardless, she’d melt her skin down to the bones if she climbed over the stone.

He’d been fascinated by the depth of Hemlock’s pain in the vision when Rose had been eviscerated, as Kranok weren’t known to bond with creatures that were not demon. It hadn’t occurred to him that she would be just as attached. There was definitely more to this human than he’d anticipated.

Hex shoved Rose against Jian, moving to check on the furrball, but before Jian could even scold him for it, Hemlock burst from the water of the pool and shook himself in midair before reuniting with Rose.

With that out of the way, Hex peered through the brush again, straining his ears to try to get a lay of what was happening in the middle of camp. He wasn’t sure if the invaders were looking for him specifically or just looking to quash the rebellion, but either way they weren’t prepared.

“Get to the south cave. I have to get Klari.” He moved up, but he should have known better, known that his companion wouldn’t be distracted by the human for long.

Jian snatched his hand, jerking him back down to a crouch, and they argued in hisses and growls. Hex knew he was right, knew that it would be reckless to run headfirst into danger to save the rebel leader. Not only was she not the kind of woman that needed saving, but he was right that if she actually knew who Hex was she wouldn’t give him up.

He chewed over this as he swung at Jian, more out of frustration than anything else. Hex’s heart wrestled with his mind—he wanted to save everyone, but he couldn’t save anyone. Jian fought him, desperation in his gaze, begging him to see, to understand, not to get himself killed, emotions behind each jab.

“Oh, shit,” Rose suddenly said, staring at them with wide eyes, and Hex’s momentary glance in her direction sent him face first into the dirt with Jian on his back.

He shoved his arm just enough to hold him in place, but Hex deflated as his oldest friend snarled logic in his ear. He knew, he did know better.

Rose stared at him, frozen with one hand holding the towel around her and the other clutching Hemlock, her eyes conveying uncertainty but somehow a deep understanding. What was her role in all of this? What did the ropes in the vision mean?

What were here and Jian inevitably going to keep from him?

If he left her behind, could he destroy that future altogether? Or would some kind of twisted fate find a way to bring her back to them anyway? Yet another person dragged into this war, into Hex’s own fucked-up destiny?

“Too many people have been hurt because of me,” he whispered as his body went limp. So many were suffering, and now what was left of peace in this place was being burned to the ground.

“Not because of you.” Jian’s breath was hot against his ear, urgent, that voice he reserved for when Hex was being horrendously stupid. “Because of him. He will pay for what he’s done, but not if you die today.”

Hex knew that. He knew. Jian knew he knew.

He ground his teeth together, and through some screaming on the far side of the camp, he could pick out barking voices. Orders.

Which meant, if he could hear them, they could potentially hear him.

“We need to go,” Jian hissed, as he backed up, his superior hearing likely catching even more than Hex. “Now.”

Hex grunted, warring with himself what he was going to do about this human. She looked up at him with big eyes, fear and sadness and worry and everything in between. Guilt? He selfishly hoped there was guilt. This all could have gone very differently had she come forward sooner about the message stick.

But at some point in the future, either near or far, Jian would trust her enough to keep a secret from him with her. And Jian was the only person in the world that Hex trusted with his life, his heart and soul.

He held out his hand to her. “It’ll be faster if I carry you.”

Surprise flashed across her expression for a split second, her eyebrows rising a little. But she didn’t argue, didn’t question him. She put her small hand in his, and a part of him twinged at the contact of their skin.

It was a responsibility, sometimes terrible and sometimes euphoric, to hold someone’s trust.