The orb hummed in response to Nezethar's words, its aether randomly jolting out.
Rowan instantly threw his arm back as a stray streak brushed against and attached to his skin, his eyes closed.
But when he'd opened his eyes to check his hand he found no signs of burnt skin, only met with the harmonic buzz that seemed to awaken his skin, purple aether emboldening his fingers.
"Hah, well you aren't as volatile as I thought," he said under his breath, reaching his hand out again with full intention of making contact.
The electric tendrils shot out and connected his hand and the orb, but there was no pain, no discomfort. Just a warm feeling like snuggling up against something warm.
"Well, aren't you having fun?" Nezethar smiled, wagging her finger in a circular motion as she replanted her right foot over her left. "You know, if the orb thought you were a bad person, it would've reduced you to ash."
Rowan's warm expression was cooled instantly, his eyebrows furrowed with surprise.
"Wait, are you serious?" He yelled, snatching his hand away from the orb. But the orb resisted, pulling it back to retain contact.
"Hah ha ha, it looks like it really likes you!" She said, almost patronizingly laughing in his face. "And yes, the Eye of Chrona is sentient and fully capable of independent thought; Perhaps more than you and I."
The Eye let out two bright buzzes, its aether surging even brighter both times. Afterwards, it released its hold over Rowan, allowing his hand to plop free.
Rowan scanned it for injury once again while grabbing his wrist, his grit teeth's clattering slowing as he saw the purple aura enshroud his hand and slowly disappear.
Letting go of his wrist, he more seriously looked up to Nezethar, his eyelids unwilling to reveal more than half of his pupils.
"Alright, what is this resonance thing, and what does it have to do with my future reading?" Rowan asked, crossing his arms to affirm a strength he knew he didn't possess.
Nezethar was amused by his show, but complied nonetheless, waving her fingers at Rowan.
"Ah, so it seems you were paying attention. Yes, in order for my readings to be most accurate, they are performed in conjunction with my own arcana and this guy's." She said as she patted the Eye, its purple glowing even brighter than before when it'd been held by Rowan. "Although, readings are most powerful when tied to the soul's current. That's why I must first sync my arcana with your spirit--to tune into your temporal stream."
"The soul's current...?" Rowan asked, almost unintentionally.
"Well, the spirit's metaphysical in nature, a gift from the gods that allows--ah, whatever, it's mumbo jumbo. You don't have to worry about that whole dissertation. Just know that to best read your future, I have to replicate a connection to the soul, and that can best be done when the soul is most emotionally vulnerable." She rolled her eyes, her left heel tapping in a rhythm that suggested her patience was on its last thread. "Although, I didn't know Mr. Crybaby here would cry from just the sight of a familiar room."
She nudged the orb, its hums coordinating with her laughs as if they were both poking fun at Rowan.
Rowan felt a red burst out from his chest to his nose and ears, but he withheld it due to a small inclination he had that they weren't entirely wrong.
"Okay, I understand now. However, I've been trying to tell you since before you dragged me in here that I don't want my fortune done."
Nezethar paused at his reply, her eyebrow twitching as the first crack in her otherwise seamless composure that Rowan had personally identified.
She took a deep breath, eyelids closed as she slid her legs off the table.
Looking up at Rowan, her two hands came together to form a combined weave of fingers that each individually rested on the opposing hand's knuckles, her head on top.
"You know, there was only one future where you said that." She said quietly, one eyebrow raised.
"What?"
She sighed brightly, her new sound a contrast to the quieted breathiness that her previous comment had.
"Nothing, just forget about it."
Waving her finger, the playful smile that'd been squashed from her face slowly crept back, finally allowing her to return to her normal manner of speech.
"Look, just understand that a world in which you know your future is better than one where you don't. Whether or not you wish to have your own agency is of no concern to me, and you can do what you will with the information you are about to receive."
Rowan sat on her words for a second, thinking on their weight, but as he remembered the king's mention of how she was a highly esteemed seer, he felt it smart to heed her advice.
"Okay, I accept, but what do I do?" He asked, looking around again at the papers scattered across his room. "I mean, there's not really anything here that--"
Nezethar tapped the orb again, except, this time, its effects were not shown through the environment, but instead Nezethar herself.
Nezethar's previous light clothing lit up with a bright white, tiny holes forming as the material floated off into the air.
Rowan clumsily turned his gaze, his eyes fighting back against his neck as they still honed in on her womanly parts.
However, she hadn't given him long to marvel--her garments vanished into light, replaced by a hovering dark cloak that concealed everything but her face.
The cloak fell over her, cluttering along its own cloth and swishing the air in front of Rowan. He almost pouted in disappointment, but understood that it would've been rude to continue ogling.
"I am the seer..." She said, her eyelids fully devoid of animation and her pupils a vibrant amethyst.
"I know--" Rowan cut in, but she didn't recognize his words, seemingly entranced by something.
"The one who sees it all." She sung, marching forward out of her seat as the scenery changed. "Temporality mere droplets, drips of its throughfall."
"Why did she suddenly burst into song?" Rowan asked almost rhetorically, but his shoulders jumped in fright as his question was answered.
"Shhhh, don't interrupt Lady Nezethar during her reading." A small ghastly figure poked out, passing Rowan through his chest and leaving the sensation of cold ice melting along both sides.
Rowan touched both sides of his sternum with his hands, his face stretched as vertical as it could.
"Your branching futures are tumultuous," She continued as her hand reached out, a dark tree materializing in front of her. "Challenged by the jealous whims of the presumptuous."
The floor below Rowan suddenly collapsed--no, disappeared into the void, his sense of balance instantly thrown off as he reached for the floating table.
Nonetheless, it was to no avail, his body hurtling into the endless null space.
Biting back the urge to close his eyes, he observed something to his right--a black apple, its stem a radiating light blue. Rowan fluttered his arms to spin across the air, eventually reaching out to grab it.
But as soon as his hand touched upon its stem, the thin blue began to splash out into a gargantuan ocean of free-flowing azure, its translucence resemblant of water.
The enveloping black also transitioned, some parts turning into a lush green and others a dirty brown.
Soon, Rowan was caught in a rapid river, one singular stroke of blue washing him away to a place unknown.
"There are few futures in which you survive." A cutting voice struck, the source directly above Rowan. "And even fewer where you thrive."
Rowan desperately stuck out his hand to grab Nezethar's black cloak, but his direction instantly shifted, several fractures in the blue stream causing him to randomly move apart from where she floated.
"There's a world where you heroes are played," she said, Rowan's body slowly plunging deeper into the water. "One where you are pawns in a devil's serenade."
Rowan flailed his arms to try to build some leverage to stay afloat, but he soon found his efforts to bear no fruit.
For a brief second, the loud thundering of the water crashing against the riverbank banged against his eardrums, but the sound disappeared all too quick, his world spinning on itself by almost 360 degrees as he was again touching ground.
"What..." He murmured, rubbing his eyes free of the saline, the soft stinging still trailing his lashes. But the moment he looked up, the ground he'd thought stable let out a groan.
The river was gone, the black apple nowhere in sight. In its place stood Nezethar once more, her cloak twisting in a slow spiral despite the stillness of the air. The sky had turned white above them, vast and homogenous, as though the world itself had been forgotten in favor of something half-imagined.
She stepped forward.
Her mouth moved before her breath caught up to it, and the song resumed--not with melody, but cadence.
"Beneath a demonic crown of bone and blame, a woman waits for you without a name. White of hair and pillar of grace, her touch will twist the mortal place."
Rowan felt a chill pass through his collar. His knees locked and his
"She weeps for you in shattered halls, she screams for your fate through broken walls. And when her light begins to wane--"
Her voice cracked, body stuttering mid-step.
"--The stars will curse your voiceless name..."
The orb behind her pulsed sharply. Once, then twice.
Then it shrieked.
Aether spiraled upward, clawing at the very air. Nezethar's hands rose to her head, clutching both sides of her skull as though trying to compress the weight of a million voices.
Rowan reached out. "Nezethar?"
She did not respond.
Her eyelids flung open, revealing not amethyst--but white. A blinding, pure white, devoid of sense or sanity.
"Too loud…" she whispered, but not to him. "Too many…"
She fell to her knees, her jaw trembling.
The orb flared. Rowan's ears rang.
"I can't… I can't see it. I can't see--" Her voice shattered like crystal beneath a boot. "Something's… looking back…"
Aether ripped through her cloak, purple lightning branching across her body like roots fraying through paper.
Rowan backed away. "Stop! Just stop it already!"
The Eye of Chrona had listened. Its glow fractured into thousands of thin shards, each burning brighter than the last.
Nezethar gasped one last time, her eyes locking with his.
"You weren't… supposed to… exist..." She paused. Her voice's volume dropped to a breath. "Echo... you're an echo."
Then her head dropped.
The glow faded. The orb quieted. And the world turned black.