"Beatrice!"

The name tore through the air. The voice that carried it sounded sharp and desperate. Physically painful.

Aire blinked, and looked around to know where the voice came from, and that was when the world shifted.

The castle was gone.

The warmth of the room, the soft press of fabric beneath her fingers, and the feeling of the pearls against her fingers all of it vanished. They disappeared like they had never existed.

What replaced her reality was chaos.

The sky was wrong again, just like the last time she had a vision.

It wasn’t night, and it wasn’t day either. The sky burned with gold and violent violet, streaked like the heavens had been clawed open.

Smoke filled the air.

Aire’s lungs seized as she inhaled. The scent choked her. It smelt of burnt wood, blood, and iron.

There were screams around. So many screams.

Her head snapped to the side.

Bodies moved around her. Wolves were shifting, with their claws tearing through flesh. The ground beneath her feet was soaked, and slick with blood.

She stumbled. The whole park was burning up. There was absolutely nothing to grasp unto.

Her hands came up instinctively, but they weren’t hers. These hands were older, stronger, and marked.

Aire froze.

Her breath came shallow as she looked down.

This wasn’t her body.

"Beatrice!"

The voice came again, closer this time. The voice broke, as if it was holding on to its last breaths to speak.

Aire turned quickly, and then, she saw King Elijah.

He looked younger, and fiercer. His crown was gone, his hair was disheveled, and his body was drenched in blood. His blood.

He was barely standing.

His chest heaved violently, each breath cost him something.

His eyes were wild and terrified.

"Beatrice..." he called again, gasping for air.

Aire wanted to correct him, but she couslnt understand what was going on, and why she was in a different body.

Her heart stuttered. Her body moved without her permission. She tried to stop, but she couldn’t. That was when she realized her body at the moment was not hers.

She... No, Beatrice ran toward him.

Her legs burned with the effort. Her chest tightening as the battlefield roared around them.

"Elijah...."

The voice wasn’t Aire, but Beatrice’s.

However, she didn’t reach him. The air shifted into a ripple. And they appeared in numbers.

The faes.

They stepped out of the air itself.

Beautiful, terrifying, and wrong.

Their eyes glowed faintly under the sky. Beside them, the witches followed smoothly. They were cloaked in shadows.

The air dropped in temperature instantly.

Aire.... Beatrice stilled.

Her instincts screamed.

"Elijah—go," Beatrice said, her voice low, and urgent.

He didn’t move.

"I said go!"

His jaw clenched. "I’m not leaving you."

"You don’t have a choice." She said through gritted teeth. "It’s me they want, you stubborn blood."

The witches moved first while she still spoke.

Their hands lifted in unison.

The ground beneath Beatrice’s feet lit up with symbols, ancient and glowing, as they circled her like a trap.

Aire felt a strong pull binding her to the circle.

Her breath hitched sharply. "Elijah!"

He lunged forward, but the fae stepped in.

One of them moved so fast its movement was barely registered. Elijah was thrown back across the street hard.

His body hit the ground with a sickening force.

"Leave Elijah!" Beatrice screamed. "If not for me, for the boys."

Aire felt the terror, the rage, and the helplessness in her voice. It clawed up her throat, raw and suffocating.

The witches began chanting.

The symbols around her burned brighter.

Aire tried to move, but she couldn’t. Her body was locked, and trapped. She felt weak. Extremely weak.

"Elijah, get up!" Beatrice’s voice broke.

Across the ground, he tried.

God, he tried. Aire watched him try, and she had never been so broken by the mere thought of someone trying.

His arms shook as he pushed himself up. Blood dripped from his mouth, his chest, and everywhere.

His eyes never left Beatrice. Never.

"I will burn this entire realm for this," he rasped.

One of the fae tilted their head, amused. "You will try."

The magic surged. It burned brighter.

Aire gasped as pain ripped through her. Her inside was being torn out.

She screamed.

This time, it was both of them. Aire and Beatrice screamed together. The light swallowed her from the witches chanting.

And then, sudden silence filled the place.

Aire gasped.

The world snapped back to her reality. Her chest rose sharply as air rushed into her lungs like she had been drowning.

Her fingers tightened instinctively and met with her fabric again. She looked around the soft familiar surrounding, and calmed down immediately.

Her vision blurred for a second before settling into the pearls she held. They were still in her hand.

Aire blinked.

Her heartbeat slammed violently against her ribs.

A soft warmth pressed against her head. The warmth was a gentle kiss. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

"We should leave now." Alaric said after the kiss on her head. "A toast would be done in your honour soon."

Aire didn’t move. In fact, she couldn’t.

Her body was here, but her mind was still there, still echoing with the screams, and the half memory she had seen.

Her fingers curled tighter around the pearls.

The pearls felt heavier now. Just as her heart feels after what she had seen.

Alaric straightened slowly. His gaze shifted, and he finally noticed Mabel.

She hadn’t spoken. Her posture was too rigid, and too controlled. Her eyes were on Aire, and he didn’t like the gleam in them.

Aire raised her eyes to Aire, then slowly moved them towards Mabel. She was trying to put together why they hadn’t noticed what she had just seen.

Also, why didn’t she faint this time?

Aire inhaled deeply, and exhaled shakingly. She was beginning to believe that she might probably have a way of controlling her reactions to every vision.

Perhaps, Mabel can help her if she tells her everything soon.

She trusts Mabel.