CLEARSIGHT

Clearsight lived in the library as much as she lived anywhere else. The towering shelves of ancient scrolls and fragile tomes were her constant companions, their presence steady and unchanging in the whirlwind of her mind. Her parents often joked—though she didn't always appreciate their humor—that they should have let her egg hatch here among the books instead of on the sacred lunar hatching peak.

"Then you'd be happier!" they'd say, laughter bubbling in their voices. "You could have been surrounded by scrolls from the moment you cracked your shell."

She would always remind them, patiently, that without the full moon that night, she wouldn't have been born with the gift of prophecy in the first place. And without her visions, the library would hold little more than history and dust. Her parents would sigh dramatically, shaking their heads as if lamenting her inability to grasp their "spectacular" wit. Clearsight often thought their humor was wasted on dragons who could see every punchline coming.

The librarian, on the other talon, seemed to find her less amusing. He had gone as far as to grant her a private study room—likely out of desperation. While she appreciated the space, she had the sneaking suspicion he'd done it to isolate her from the rest of the library. The heavy lock on the door felt less like a privilege and more like an insurance policy. He probably thought she was insane, and maybe, Clearsight thought dryly, he wasn't entirely wrong.

Her study room was a chaos of parchment and ink. Scrolls lay sprawled across every table, their edges curling as though recoiling from the tangle of futures they contained. Partially blank pages waited to be filled, while others were so saturated with annotations that the original text was nearly lost beneath her fevered claw-writing. Clearsight flitted from one to the next, her talons leaving a trail of ink splatters as she worked, her mind darting between threads of destiny too fast for her body to keep pace.

At one point, she paused, a quill trembling in her grasp. A strange idea flickered to life in her mind. What if she did pretend to be insane? Would it change anything? She closed her eyes, letting the thought settle, and reached out with her gift, her mind folding into the many-layered tapestry of potential futures.

Threads of possibility shifted and shimmered, opening paths she hadn't considered. In one, she saw herself confined to the NightWing asylum, the walls closing around her, silent but safe. In another, she saw dragons backing away, their pity mingled with fear as they dismissed her words. And yet another thread spiraled into darkness—the tribe, vulnerable without her guidance, crumbled beneath a danger she couldn't quite see clearly.

Her wings twitched, the ghost of tension running through them as the threads began to collapse inward. None of the futures that spun out from this idea felt right, and none ended with the safety of her tribe intact.

No, she thought firmly, opening her eyes. That path wouldn't save anyone.

Clearsight exhaled slowly, her gaze drifting across the cluttered tables. The weight of her gift pressed down on her chest, a relentless reminder that her duty went beyond herself. Every decision, every note scratched onto these scrolls, could mean the difference between survival and disaster—not just for her, but for every dragon in the Night Kingdom.

"Would it really be better?" she murmured to the empty room, her voice barely audible above the faint rustle of the parchment beneath her claws. Her answer came not from prophecy, but from the steady resolve in her own heart.

The library, maddening and suffocating as it sometimes felt, was where she belonged. Futures wouldn't solve themselves, and she would keep searching for the one golden thread that could lead her tribe to safety, no matter how tangled the web became.

Clearsight's quill fell from her claws, blotting the parchment with a splatter of ink as the vision surged to life, vivid and undeniable. Her breath hitched as the image took form—scales like liquid rubies shimmering in the sunlight, eyes burning with the intensity of a forge, and atop the dragon's proud head, a crown of silver and gold, gleaming like captured starlight. A SkyWing, radiant and confident, with wings that stretched wide as if to claim the skies themselves.

And there, beside her—him.

Darkstalker.

Her Darkstalker.

Clearsight's chest tightened painfully, her heart a storm of disbelief and betrayal as she saw them together. His obsidian scales gleamed as he lay next to the SkyWing queen, their talons entwined as if they had always fit together. Their tails brushed with the gentle familiarity of affection, and his enchanting smile—a smile she thought belonged only to her—was now turned toward her.

"No," she whispered, her voice cracking under the weight of the vision. Her claws trembled, curling into the parchment before her, smearing the ink in chaotic lines. "That can't be his future."

But the vision lingered, as unyielding as stone, unfurling deeper details. The SkyWing laughed, her voice like chiming bells, and Darkstalker's gaze softened in a way Clearsight knew all too well. It was the look he gave when he saw something—or someone—he loved.

Her stomach churned, bile rising in her throat as her mind rebelled against the future she had glimpsed. He's supposed to be mine, she thought desperately. We're supposed to be soulmates. Every thread I've ever followed has led back to him. Hasn't it?

She closed her eyes, forcing herself to look again, to search the tangled web of futures for any alternative. But the threads seemed to knot and twist, refusing to yield a clearer answer. The SkyWing remained—a dazzling, fiery figure in so many of his futures. Her presence was constant, unshakable, no matter how Clearsight strained to shift the pattern.

The thought hit her like a thunderclap: What if she's meant to be his soulmate, not me?

The air in the study room seemed to thicken, pressing down on her. She dug her claws into the edge of the table, trying to steady herself. No, she couldn't accept that—not yet. There were too many variables, too many futures left unexplored. She couldn't let this one vision destroy everything she believed in, everything she and Darkstalker had fought to build together.

Still, the image lingered in her mind, searing and vivid: the SkyWing queen, resplendent in her crown, and Darkstalker at her side, looking as though he belonged there.

Clearsight drew a shaky breath, forcing herself to calm. Her gift was a blessing, but it was also a curse. It showed her what might be, not what must be. Futures could shift, choices could reshape destiny—she had to believe that.

For now, though, she couldn't ignore the ache in her chest or the whisper of doubt that had taken root in her heart.