Narli looked too tired and weak to be out of bed, but I knew she was doing better than she looked. She had stumbled a bit on the way down here, and so I had grabbed her arm to support her, and her grip on my own arm had been far stronger than I had expected as she held onto me. Her grip strength had nearly been as firm as Renn’s.

Right now she was sitting on a chair, staring up at one of the murals in the Keep. She was already getting better. The week of rest had done her wonders, and I knew her recovery would only hasten from her on forth. Especially now that she was feeling well enough to get up and walk around a bit. The little bit of exorcise would do her well.

Though, why she wanted to come down here into the Keep and look at the murals and paintings was something I didn’t understand. If I had been in her position I would have wanted the fresh air, or maybe to go sit at the dock at the nearby lake. Not come down here into this… well… dungeon.

Some of these paintings and statues were neat, and maybe soothing to a young saint as herself, but to me it was just a bunch of reminders. Ones I didn’t want or need right now.

“I’ve had dreams of her, Vim.”

I glanced at the nearby fresco she was studying. It was a little muddled, as if the mosaics and paints had shifted or dulled, but the scene was still clear and pretty. Although it was a momentous scene, one of a great moment in history… I did not see whom she spoke of.

“The Headless Queen?” I asked, wondering who she meant. That was the only one in this mural she could be speaking of, but that made no sense. She was long dead. I had made sure of it.

Narli giggled at me. “Renn, Vim.”

Oh.

“Listen here, you’re getting a lot of leeway from me thanks to your condition, but you’re getting better now,” I said in warning.

She nodded, knowingly. “I know. I’d have told you the details had they been important, or life threatening… as you know. I just… felt like I should say it all the same,” she said.

I sighed but nodded back. “Thank you.”

I heard her glance at me, since I still had my eyes on the wall of color. “I’ve… had many, Vim. Multiple,” she said further.

My eye twitch, but I nodded anyway. “Yes. You did say dreams, as in plural. I heard you.”

“Is it normal, Vim…? I’ve had multiple dreams of my mother and father, but they’re… well… them. And they involve me mostly, in one form or another. But her? None had involved me at all. Or well, one did…”

“Narli.”

She twitched a little, and glanced at me and sighed. “Sorry…”

“Having multiple prophecies about a single individual is… not normal, no. Not usually. Especially so someone who you’re not very closely connected to,” I said, choosing to at least answer that.

“She’s my friend though? Isn’t that close?”

I shifted a little. “It is. But there’s a limit. What that limit is? I don’t know. If you must know, you’re not the only one. Light and Celine both have had prophecies about Renn… likely several, as you have,” I said.

I might as well tell her. It could mean something to her, after all.

“Hm… mother had said Celine had one about her, before, but I hadn’t realized Light had too. I wonder if that means many saints have?”

“If they have the reason is likely obvious… though I’ll never say it aloud,” I said.

“She’s your wife,” Narli said it for me.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and sighed. “I’m going to send you back to bed,” I threatened.

She giggled at me. “Careful now! If Renn heard that she might get weird ideas!”

No. She wouldn’t have. Because Renn would have cared more for your health than me possibly cheating on her with a young saint such as you.

“I know, Narli, that my aversion to prophecies seems… unbelievable to you. Being a saint and all. The idea to you is likely akin to a fish not liking water. But it’s who I am, Narli. And I have good reason for it,” I said.

“I’m sure you do. But… put yourself in my shoes, Vim. I have all this knowledge, of stuff that could or will happen, and I have the desire to share it all. To warn people. to give insight. To help. And you, in truth, are the best person to give such aid to. Because you could actually put it to use. You of all people on this world are most suited for such knowledge, yet you reject it from even being given room to breathe,” she said.

“Smarter people than you and I have tried to reason it, and convince me otherwise. Don’t even try,” I warned her.

She huffed at me. “Has Renn?”

Hesitating, I shifted a little.

Renn…?

“No… not yet…” I begrudgingly answered.

Luckily, thanks to how chaotic our lives had been lately, Renn’s been focused on other matters. She and I had spoken a few times on the prophecies, particularly the one concerning her supposed saintly daughter, but we’d not really gone into depth about them… nor has she actually asked me my own thoughts and opinions on the possible future either.

I knew part of it was her just being kind with me. She knew how I felt about prophecies. She knew my aversion to them, and thus kept herself in check… but… well…

“Not very manly, Vim,” Narli stated simply.

Groaning, I nodded as I reached up to rub my eyes. I suddenly felt as tired as she looked. “I know.”

“Would you talk about it with her? If she asked?”

Glancing at the saint in-between my fingers, I squeezed my face even harder with my hand. As if in hopes to block out her terrible questions.

“I should. You’re right. It’s… not good, to be like I am. I know that,” I said honestly.

“Yet…?”

I took deep breath and held it in for a few moments. “Are you trying to imply I need to?” I asked, wondering why she was focusing so deeply on this topic.

“Huh!? Oh… no? I’m actually just trying to comprehend how relationships work, to be honest. You’re so different from my mother and father, so…” Narli shook her head, a little too quickly. Which meant she likely wasn’t telling the whole truth.

“Different? How so?” I asked.

Narli sat up a little straighter. “Father’s a simple man, Vim. Mother loves him for it, but even she gets annoyed at him and has to sit him down and tell him to be… better? I guess I was just wondering if Renn does the same for you,” she said, explaining a little.

I frowned at her. “Planning for your own marriage strife are you?” I asked.

Narli blushed. “No! I uh…” she looked away, groaned a bit and then looked back up at me. “I’ve not seen my mate, Vim. Not yet. But… I mean… how could I not be interested?”

Right… “You’ve not seen them yet?” I asked. That was interesting. Narli was young, but not that young. By now she should have seen whoever she was meant to be with.

Narli shook her head and frowned at me. “Not yet. Is that a bad sign, Vim?”

“Not really. Even disregarding my own belief system, take it from me that sometimes that’s for the better. I’ve known many saints who ended up in terrible relationships because they tried to fulfill the ones they had dreamed of. Sometimes the one you see isn’t the one you’re meant for,” I said.

The young saint nodded seriously, taking my words to heart. “Just because one sees a future, doesn’t mean it’s the right one. Yes,” she agreed.

“Mhm… regretfully, thanks to how so many of you see such futures while young, you get kind of romanticized ideas of them. So you don’t see the red flags when you should. So be glad in a way that you’ve not seen them yet,” I said.

She huffed at me. “How come you’ll so easily and smoothly give me such warnings as that, but won’t take any from me?”

“I do take your warnings to heart, Narli. As I do any saint’s warning. I just know better than to think your warnings are always given with true heart,” I said.

“True heart…? Are you saying I’d try to lead you astray Vim?”

I shook my head, quickly. “No. Not at all. I just meant that sometimes the prophecies you all see are… not the full picture. So you sometimes make mistakes, even if unknowingly,” I said.

“Ah… Right. Like seeing an arrow but not the bow from whence it flung from,” she said as she nodded.

“Don’t quote your scripture. Your father might hear you,” I said.

She laughed at me. “More like you will!”

Well… yes.

“Oh!” Narli stood form her chair, a little quickly. I turned a bit, to make sure she was fine. She seemed to wobble a bit, steadying herself, but she didn’t need me to catch her as she pointed down the hallway. “Can we go to the hearts, Vim? I have a question about the one you brought the other day,” she asked.

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“Hm? What’s wrong?” I asked. Miss Beak’s heart? Was something off about it?

“Not sure… thus my question,” Narli said as she stepped around me, as to head down the hallway as to go to the center of the vault. Where the hearts laid.

I followed her, leaving the chair she’d been sitting on behind. There was such furniture scattered all throughout the Keep, so it didn’t really matter where we left them.

Staying close to the young saint, as to keep an eye on her, I wondered how Renn was doing. Narli wasn’t too far off in size and shape of Renn, her shoulders about the same width and placement. Narli also had a bundle of hastily tied unruly hair at the moment, thanks to her condition. Reminded me a little of Renn.

“Can I know her name, Vim?” Narli asked as we entered one of the smaller hallways.

“Miss Beak,” I answered.

Narli tilted her head a bit. “Miss…?”

“She had been an odd one. She had been a giant flamingo,” I said. Hadn’t I kind of explained who she had been last time I was here…? Maybe she was just confirming what she had heard already.

“I’ve never seen a flamingo.”

“They’re tasty things, actually.”

She slowed a bit and glanced at me. “Did you eat her?”

“No. She had been a friend, I told you that.”

“You seem the type to eat friends,” Narli said with a small smile as we left the hallway and entered the center of the Keep. The glowing orbs on the little stands lit up the room, and the water flowing in the crevices in the ground.

Both of the hearts here, the pink and blue one, sat unmolested. Unmoved from where I’d last seen them.

“So?” I asked as we neared the pedestal that the pink heart sat upon.

Narli stepped up to the heart, frowning at it as she studied it. The pink glow it gave off, here in this darker room, made her look a little odd. She was still gaunt in the face, and looked exhausted, so the pink hue that now covered her made her look almost as if she was sickly. It did gleam off her horn a little nicely, though.

“I’ve only held sixteen hearts. This being the sixteenth. So I admit I’m probably not… the most versed or knowledgeable of them. But are they supposed to feel like they’re leaking?” Narli asked as she reached out to grab Miss Beak’s heart.

I blinked and stepped forward, taking her side as she turned Miss Beak’s heart as to study it closer. I noted her hands were bigger than Renn’s as she cupped it. By a noticeable amount. An odd thing considering she was roughly the same size in most other ways.

“Leaking?” I asked. What’d she mean? It looked, and felt, normal to me.

“Mhm… it’s definitely leaking, Vim. I might not be explaining it properly, but I can feel it. It’s as if it has a crack,” Narli said as she turned to look at me, and held the heart out. As she did she pointed at the heart, though not at anywhere particular. “I feel its power leaking out, Vim. I can’t explain it any other way, but that’s how it feels to me.”

Grabbing the heart, I focused on it as I lifted it to look closer.

Leaking…? Power?

I felt no such thing. The heart felt warm. It thumped occasionally. There was a swirling vortex within it, like a tiny pink storm forming a tornado. Yet…

Shaking my head, I frowned at her. “Explain what you’re feeling, Narli. I don’t feel anything odd.”

Narli reached out, as if to take the heart from me. Instead of doing so though, she cupped the heart and my hand which held it… then she slightly twitched her hands away from it, as if it suddenly scalded her. “Like that. Every so often I feel like… a wave of heat coming from it.”

Tilting my head at her, I went ahead and cupped the heart with my other hand. I covered it in its entirely, and waited.

A few thumps from within the heart came and went… and although I could feel the heat, and the divine power, within it… I felt nothing like what she was explaining.

In fact I didn’t even feel the heat itself she spoke of. It did have heat, but it didn’t expunge it. The orb itself was hot, but it didn’t radiate heat. It broke the laws of physics that way.

“You don’t feel it, do you? It just did it again, Vim,” Narli said.

“I don’t… how interesting. How long have you been noticing this?” I asked.

“Since you left it. I found it odd, because the other hearts don’t? That one doesn’t. And I don’t remember any of the others I’ve held doing it either,” she said.

How very interesting.

“She had been the child of First Borns. A very powerful monarch who had eaten hundreds and hundreds of hearts. Many of them powerful themselves. She had even devoured First Born hearts, at least a dozen of them. She was more powerful even than that one,” I said with a nod to the heart in the center, the one leaking water.

“Oh my… you think that’s the reason? That this is just the first powerful heart I’ve ever seen?” Narli asked.

“I’m not sure… does the power feel odd to you? Is it doing anything? You say you feel it leaking, but how so? Where’s it going? What’s it doing?” I asked.

“Nothing…? It just feels like it’s leaking out, and then mixing with the air and fading away.”

Strange. Very strange.

Made stranger by her most recent issue. Was this thing she was feeling related to her getting stuck in that prophecy…?

Maybe it wasn’t the heart that was being odd, but her.

Instead of studying the heart, I decided to study Narli. I studied the way her eyes focused on the heart, and the way she was frowning cutely in thought as she likely tried to find a way to better explain what she was seeing and feeling.

She sure did look tired. And she looked way too much like her mother. Now that I thought about it, she was a splitting image of Berri back when she had been younger. Though maybe a tad shorter.

Would Renn’s daughter look this much like her…? By my parents I hope so.

“Maybe I’m imagining it,” Narli then whispered lightly.

“I doubt that, Narli. You’re obviously feeling something. But… I’m not sure what it is you’re feeling. Hearts corrupt the creatures, flesh and blood, that they touch. They don’t do anything to inanimate objects. Their power, the stuff they are conduits to, only affect creatures like us. Those with souls. I could comprehend it… possibly leaking, as if overflowing, maybe… but…” I started to try and explain, if anything for myself, but then went quiet as I realized something.

“But what…?” Narli asked as she reached out to tap the heart in my hand. Her dull fingernail barely made a noise as she did so.

Shifting a little, I glanced behind us to the blue heart nearby.

“That one isn’t doing it?” I asked.

“Nope?”

“You can tell from here?” I asked.

“Yeah…? If not for these stones all around us, I could probably feel it from upstairs and outside, Vim. It’s that noticeable,” she said.

Just wonderful.

Tapping the heart, I thought of a few possible ideas… and didn’t like any of them. Each one was worse than the last.

Although I didn’t want to ask it, I did anyway.

“The leak. Is it in the same spot?” I asked.

Narli tilted her head and then glanced back at the heart. “Hm… no? I don’t think so. It’s as if the whole thing just… poofs out,” she said as she cupped her hands and then opened them quickly. As if to mimic a tiny bubble popping.

So at least the energy wasn’t heading in one singular direction. That was something, at least.

“And I don’t think it’s getting worse, or better, either. It feels the same as it did when you first left it. It happens once ever so often, though I don’t think there’s any real rhythm or pattern to it. It happens randomly, as far as I can tell,” Narli added.

I nodded. She had likely spent time already pondering this, so I didn’t need to doubt that.

“An oddity, to be sure. For all I know it’s something many hearts do, maybe the stronger ones, and I just… don’t notice. Or can’t,” I said.

“Thus why I asked. Just wanted to make sure nothing weird was happening.”

Right…

Maybe I shouldn’t leave it here then. Just in case…

“Going to take it, aren’t you?” Narli asked, likely noticing my thoughts on my face.

“Mhm… I don’t see how the heart could really threaten you or your family, but who’s to say…? I mean, maybe what happened to you is because of this thing, Narli? How do we know? It’s not impossible,” I said.

She nodded. “Thus why I’d not told mother or father. They’d have taken that thing miles away and flung it into the deepest cave they found if I had,” she said.

“Would have worked, maybe,” I said. Even though they were conduits for divine power it wasn’t as if the things were that potent. A few dozen miles, and a few thousand feet of solid earth likely would have worked very well, if it had been the actual reason.

“That’s sad Vim… She’s your friend,” Narli said though.

“My friend is dead, Narli. This is not her. This is what poisoned her,” I said.

Narli shifted a bit, her glowing eyes softening as she stared up at me. She looked hurt all of a sudden.

I though didn’t hesitate to nod, to confirm I had spoken the truth. “It was through these hearts the gods had been able to manipulate and control them, Narli. These hearts are shackles. Orbs of enslavement, nothing more,” I said.

Her whole body shivered a bit, telling me that it was time I took her back upstairs. She was doing a lot better, but pushing herself too far would just make her bedridden again. And her mother would tear me in half if I allowed that to happen.

“Then what am I, Vim?” Narli whispered before I could say anything else.

“You’re Narli. Berri’s daughter. Renn’s friend. And you’re still sick… so it’s time we went back upstairs,” I said as I went to put the heart back into its little pedestal.

She laughed a little as I put Miss Beak’s heart down. “You’re very good at going from very serious topics to light-hearted ones! I wonder if you’d be a good actor, Vim!”

Actor…? Oh. Right. Her fascination with plays. “When’d you start liking plays anyway?” I asked as I turned and gestured for her to join me. I reached out, to gently pat her on the back and guide her.

“Forever? I never told you?”

I shook my head and frowned. “No… but that’s just further clarification that I’m an indifferent bastard. When I visit here we talk, often, but it’s always about other things isn’t it?” I said.

She sighed at me as we stepped away from the hearts, heading for the hallway which would lead us back upstairs to her home. “Unlike you Vim I enjoy our talks. So I don’t see it that way.”

“It’s not that I don’t enjoy them… I just… don’t like the topics,” I said. She usually wanted to talk about prophecies, or her abilities and powers… as she had been doing this whole time, nearly.

“Right… Though you are definitely doing better! Even if you’re only being gentler with me thanks to my condition!” Narli said.

“And because of your mother. She threatened me the other day, in a way that scared me,” I said with a smirk.

“Huh? How so?”

As we headed back upstairs… I kept our conversations light-hearted and simple… but it only worked to a degree.

Deep down, I felt unease. Worry. Stress. And these feelings wanted to claw out of me.

Narli feeling something strange about Miss Beak’s heart was worrying. I’d never heard of such leakage before. Not like that, at least.

Another oddity.

Like her getting stuck in a prophecy.

Or a monarch being born for the first time in hundreds of years.

The worst part was there were likely more oddities I wasn’t seeing, or hearing of yet. Even something basic, such as that little monarch’s death back at Telmik, could have been another oddity. It had been, in all honesty. We had never figured out whom or what had killed it.

There were always strange things in the world. Things not even I could explain… but rarely did they happen one after another. And rarely did I not comprehend them at all.

They were starting to really pile up. To the point it was now hard to deny the truth.

Something was happening. Even if they were all related, one causing the other, such as in Narli’s case… Either the heart had caused her oddness, or vice versa. In fact, if they weren’t related, it’d be even more worrying.

Still… No matter how connected they are, there had to be a source. Something had started the process. Something was causing ripples amongst the world’s basin of fate, and it was those like Narli that noticed first. Saints always did.

But those ripples eventually turned into waves. And then from waves into terrible storms.

And then, after that, came the chaos. The kind that ruined worlds.

Last time I had been the cause of those ripples.

This time though…

This time I might be the one who has to deal with it, instead.

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