Miracleborn Saga

Late afternoon. The golden hue of dusk had begun to stretch across Prada's skyline, coating the Foretelling Camp in amber tones and long, shifting shadows. The flags around the fences fluttered softly. Incense smoke drifted in spirals near the camp gates, curling into whispers as if the air itself was speaking in riddles.

Henry walked in with his fedora hat tilted low, his Vanguard cloak replaced by a dark brown coat, the fabric still clinging to the weight of last week's blood and rain. The ground was dry now. Winter hadn't arrived, but the chill in the wind was no longer a visitor—it had settled in.

The camp was lively as always—tables of runecasters, card readers, scryers, and whisper-seers, all murmuring in their sacred languages while curious townsfolk and troubled souls wandered like ghosts searching for answers.

Henry adjusted his scarf and walked toward Julius Constantine's private tent, ducking through the entrance flap. The smell of wax, dried herbs, and parchment met him like an old friend.

Inside, Julius stood in his usual loose white shirt and ink-stained trousers, his fingers absently playing with a deck of smooth color-runes. His red-tinged eyes lit up the moment he saw Henry.

"Ah, Mr. Watcher," Julius grinned. "Perfect timing. The clock within you is never off by more than a minute."

"You called," Henry said, removing his hat respectfully. "What's the trouble?"

Julius motioned toward a back corner of the tent, where a young man sat—perhaps in his early twenties, dressed in a plain gray tunic, a traveler's coat on his lap, his boots caked with dried mud. His eyes were sunken, the kind that had forgotten sleep, but still held something sharp beneath.

"This is Norell Krave," Julius said. "His sister came here four days ago. Do you remember the woman who wanted her husband dead for... let's say, understandable reasons?"

Henry paused. He did remember. The quiet hate in her voice. The unsettling calm. The way Julius had read her with colored runes and foretold a death within a week.

"She was clear about what she wanted," Henry muttered. "And she got it."

"Yes. She did," Julius said, gaze darkening. "But her brother believes something else is at play."

Norell stood up, stepping forward. His voice was hoarse but composed.

"I don't want revenge," he said. "But I need to know if that foretelling was truly fate… or something influenced it."

Henry narrowed his eyes. There was pain in the man's words—but not confusion. Not the kind that wanders. The kind that digs. Obsesses.

"You think she pushed fate?" Henry asked, calmly.

"I don't know," Norell replied. "But she changed the moment she came back from this camp. It wasn't the same person I grew up with. She became... silent. Cold. Focused. The next day, her husband died from cardiac collapse. And now she's missing."

Henry turned to Julius. The fortune-teller's fingers stopped shuffling.

"There are rules to this work," Julius murmured, "and sometimes... accidents happen when those rules are broken. I felt something odd in her soul, but didn't press. Perhaps I should have."

Henry took a deep breath.

"What do you want me to do, Julius?"

"Sit with him," Julius said softly. "Foretell, if needed. Talk. You're not just a Watcher. You're someone who still believes in answers. That's why the camp listens when you speak."

Henry looked at Norell again.

"Alright," he said. "Let's dig."

Outside, the wind rustled through the camp flags again, this time a little colder. A little quieter.

And beneath the shifting shadows of the tent canvas, the echoes of fate stirred once more.

Inside the candlelit tent, a sudden stillness formed—like the world had decided to hold its breath. Julius gave Henry a reassuring glance, then pulled the flap open and stepped outside, the sound of his boots fading on the dry grass.

Only Henry and Norell Krave remained.

The air thickened. The incense burned low. The tent creaked as if adjusting itself around the ritual that was about to unfold.

Henry sat down in the leather-bound chair across from Norell and reached beneath the table. From a hidden compartment, he pulled out a small obsidian box—cold to the touch, decorated with silver glyphs shaped like eyes.

He placed it carefully on the table between them. Norell's breath quickened.

"What… is that?"

"It's called a Lodestone Deck," Henry said, voice low and still. "Each card is a mirror. They don't show what you want to see. They show what's already there… just beyond the reach of your denial."

He opened the box.

Inside, 52 rectangular cards glinted with metallic edges. Each card was matte black on the back, but subtly pulsing—as if some unseen heart was beating inside. Henry touched the deck with his fingers and closed his eyes.

His voice dropped to a whisper.

"Rausar valen… Mirrath durnei… Ozel'ha fatek—Answer now, by mirror's gate."

The temperature dropped.

Norell stiffened. The air no longer smelled like incense—it now carried the faint scent of wet stone and burnt copper. And for a split second, Henry's eyes opened, glowing with a surreal, crystalline blue, their surface smooth like mirrors lit from behind.

He drew the first card and laid it face up.

The Griever – Inverted.

A figure with hollow eyes and bleeding hands, clutching a lantern that dimmed instead of glowed.

"This is your present," Henry said. "You are not grieving the dead. You're grieving what remains—your trust, your identity, your past. But you're doing it upside down. You're burying the wrong corpse."

Norell's hands clenched into fists.

Henry's fingers moved like a surgeon's—precise, careful. He pulled a second card.

The Marionette – Upright.

A puppet with silver strings rising into a ceiling of darkness. One string was frayed.

Henry's brow furrowed.

"You're being pulled. Controlled. Someone—something—is guiding you toward this search, but it isn't for your sister. It's for what's behind her. You were chosen to feel this. That pain, that doubt—it was given to you like a message written in fire."

Norell looked pale, a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead.

Henry pulled the third and final card.

This time… the card was blank.

Utterly smooth. No symbol. No name. No light. Just an abyss.

Henry's blue glowing eyes dimmed as he blinked. His breathing slowed. He stared at the blank card for a moment longer than necessary.

"This is your future," he finally said, voice quieter. "But I can't see it."

"What do you mean?" Norell asked.

"I mean it's sealed. Not hidden—sealed. Someone, or something, doesn't want you to know what's next. The future is refusing to be read."

Henry ran a thumb across the blank card. For a split second, he thought he saw a woman's silhouette behind the surface, as if looking through tinted glass. A hand reaching up. Her mouth was open—but there was no scream.

Then it was gone.

He slowly set the card back on the table.

Norell's voice was hoarse. "So... my sister—"

"She might be alive. Or she might be elsewhere. But if she touched something… cursed, divine, or both… then her trail won't be readable by normal means."

Henry stood up and walked toward the tent flap, pausing to look at the candle flicker.

"Your path is still yours, Norell. But you're walking toward a door someone else locked from the inside."

Outside, a crow called. The shadows shifted slightly with Julius's return.

Henry's glowing blue eyes had faded. But something in him had changed. The cards were cold again.

Henry sat in silence long after Norell had left the tent, the lingering smell of ash and old parchment curling around him like a quiet shroud. The cards were still laid out—The Griever, The Marionette… and that damned blank one, humming ever so faintly with something beyond knowing.

He stared at it.

His fingers hovered above its smooth black surface.

It wasn't just Norell who had seen something impossible today. That woman's silhouette—her hand pressed against the dark like glass—it wasn't just a vision. It felt familiar. Not by memory, but by gravity. Like something pulling from beneath the surface of a river.

Was he a part of this?

Was he always meant to be?

The diary… Zach… the shadows… are they circling around me, or through me?

He rubbed his temple.

This was no longer a murder case. It hadn't been for a long time. There were strings in every direction now. Some led to the past. Others to gods. And one, perhaps, straight to that diary… sealed with something only death seemed to understand.

He stood up, slow, deliberate. He adjusted his coat, dusted off the candle wax from his gloves. His reflection in the brass mirror near the tent's corner looked tired. But not lost.

Not anymore.

He looked down at the deck and let out a breath.

"You were right, Julius… You strange, theatrical bastard."

The Oracle had once told him, laughing over half-spilled ink and melting candles:

"Foretelling isn't about knowing the future. It's about confronting the weight of not knowing… and walking toward it anyway."

He had rolled his eyes then, but now—

Now it echoed.

"That bastard really meant it," Henry murmured. "He wasn't showing off. He was preparing me."

The colour cards, the karmic shudders, the symbolic language of fate and pattern—it all made sense now. He wasn't just reading signs. He was learning to feel their resistance. The universe didn't always answer, but it always reacted when questioned correctly.

Foretelling was not about prediction.

It was a dance with reality's weakest seams.

And maybe… just maybe… that diary, that girl's silhouette, that silence behind the blank card—maybe they were all telling him the same thing:

"You are not an observer anymore, Henry."

He looked outside the tent flap. The camp bustled. Julius was chatting with a blindfolded fire-reader. Somewhere, Sebastian was probably teasing someone with a dream riddle. But the wind carried something more now.

Henry stepped out, the chill brushing his face.

"I'll find your sister, Norell. I promise."

And in the back of his mind, one thought echoed like a silver nail—

To retrieve someone from fate,

You have to bargain with it.

The afternoon air hummed softly in the background. Wind chimes from nearby tents tinkled like whispering bones. Henry sat beneath the shade of an old poplar tree, boots crossed at the ankles, a small foldable table in front of him. The table was simple—stained wood worn by years of weather, runes etched faintly along the rim with a charcoal-smeared thumb.

A public bench deck, not a private tent. Cost him one Gaus in tax to book it for today. Julius insisted every Invoker in the camp must earn their name from the dirt first, under open sky, no luxuries.

Henry didn't mind.

He leaned back, the brim of his fedora low over his eyes, the cards already fanned in one hand like blades.

A shadow passed over him.

He didn't look up right away, simply gestured to the seat across. The stranger sat, a slow creak from the bench, followed by silence. Heavy silence. No greetings. No questions.

That was fine. Henry preferred silence—it let the currents speak clearer.

He shuffled once. Twice. The deck whispered.

"You looking for a name, a truth, or a corpse?" Henry asked calmly.

The customer gave no answer. Only the faint twitch of a hand resting on the table.

Henry touched the deck again. The world thinned. The air changed.

Time to begin.