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My thoughts don’t feel like my own. But I have a knowing, as if every fiber of my being is telling me one thing. I need to see this.

Magic begins surging through my body and everything around me begins to move in time… I’m moving—no. Everything else is moving. As if I’m watching time.

The grass is moving so fast it blurs, the sky becoming dark and light in quick succession before everything halts. I’m standing in front of the woman again, she’s alive, she embraces me again, she smiles. But the vision ends the same: her dead, in my arms. The pain overwhelms me, heartbreak, rage—helplessness. I can’t change it.

I blink and I am standing in front of a little girl. I’m handing her the grimoire as I speak, my voice unfamiliar to my own ears.

“A piece of me, so I will always be with you. Never forsake it, my child.” I take a knee, lowering myself and kissing the child on the forehead, holding her in my arms tight. I shut my eyes hard, savoring the moment as if to cement it in my mind, but when I open my eyes and look down at her… she isn’t a little girl anymore.

The girl I hold in my arms is now a woman. She looks up at me, fear in her eyes as she desperately attempts to escape my embrace. I look down at her and feel only love as I sink a dagger deep into her chest.

No.

I can only watch helplessly as the scene plays out, I can’t stop it. I don’t want to… it has to be this way.

“Trust me, baby girl… Daddy loves you.” She collapses into my arms, gagging and choking on her own blood. “Shhh… This is how it must be.” I hold her tight. “I cannot lose you, too.”

The dagger glows and I lay her on the ground gently as I turn to walk away, only to find myself back on those very cliffs. The ones where I lost her. Hope blooms in my chest when I see her, my arms reaching out for her. The spell is broken when she turns. It’s the girl, my daughter.

“You can’t bring her back. The risk is not worth it, I won’t let you…”

I feel as if I want to protest, but I am stunned into silence when she lifts the open grimoire and speaks a language I don’t understand. The air begins to pull me, the world fading into darkness as I feel my body come apart and I am sucked into the book.

I’m trapped… but I can still see her, feel her. She wants to be rid of me forever. I can only watch as she throws me into a small hole and begins shoveling dirt onto me. Everything goes black.

I don’t feel time as I just sit replaying the same scenes over and over in my head, until I finally see a light. A kind-looking older man lifts me from the dirt, and I try to call out to him but he seems afraid, placing me out of his sight until I see a boy, his son. He hears me calling out and comes to me. Young and curious, his name: Jonathan.

I watch as he fights his father’s wishes and comes to speak with me, wishing for power. He is my kin, my blood. I can feel it. I continue to call to him over the years until his power begins to show. He will do. He can release me.

Jonathan. My ancestor. The grimoire.

Why am I seeing this…

“My father fears you—but I don’t.”

“Jonathan! What did I tell you about that cursed book!”

Their words echo and become distant. Images of Jonathan, his nose… It’s bleeding.

This is why the Covenant was born. I try to fight the visions before me, but the more I fight it, the further I fall into the memory.

“Alabaster.” I hear Jonathan’s voice, the name so familiar in my mind. Watching the scene unfold in front of me.

A dark cloud appears, enveloping the room, and I see him. Alabaster, golden eyes glowing, his arms crossed, says in a low tone: “Your own blood must be spilled, or you will cease to exist.”

Jonathan is bowing, worshipping him—like a God.

No! This can’t happen! So many people will die! Listen to me!

The vision begins to fragment, shards cracking and falling around me as I fall into a void. Tears stream down my face as I weep into my hands. The answers, the knowing already in my mind. They don’t feel like my own.

The boy was a fool; the guide that was sent his way was vague, unclear. He needed to sacrifice himself.

Jonathan failed, so did his brother, and their descendants. That hope for their awakening, his release, waning. He wants out of the grimoire.

I sit there in the darkness, trying to fight the memories. My chest heaves as I cry into the emptiness. I want to go home. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to fix this! I can’t change what happened. I try to find my own memories among the broken pieces of my mind.

I feel a warmth, Kai holding me from behind, our words echoing in the corner of my mind.