The sky was overcast. The rain last night didn't let up until sometime past Five Adiem, leaving small puddles of water inside the roads' pockmarks even when it's already Seven Adiem. Arya sniffed, the petrichor still thick in the air. She tucked her coat tighter around herself and walked faster. It might rain again sometime soon and she didn't have an umbrella with her.

Today was one of the many others she had lived though. The usual bustle was present, albeit a little agitated for some reason. She craned her neck to the thick, gray clouds blocking most of the scathing sunlight. It's better that way. Sweat was the last thing Arya wanted to worry about this early in the day.

When she reached her stop via the wirebus, she fixed her hat, making sure her horn stumps weren't showing. She should have done a proper fixing instead of merely throwing her locks in a hurry before she left the flat. The walk to the Postal Quarters started from the shed the wirebus dropped her off before stretching past an alley of restaurants and taverns. She passed the usual steakhouse she and Eury always ate in during lunch breaks. As usual, it was still closed so early in the morning.

People streamed past her, faster than what she was used to. She had to swerve to the side to avoid colliding with people coming from behind and jogging north like it was a matter of life and death. Arya knitted her eyebrows. What's going on there? Was there a weekday price-drop she didn't know about? Eury would have told her yesterday, though.

The bend to take her to the Postal Quarters came up. Arya was about to tackle it when her periphery brushed against a crowd gathered in a semi-circle around something. She screeched into a stop. A shiver ran down her spine as an ominous feeling settled deep in her gut. What's...going on there?

Slowly, she stepped away from the bend and trudged to the gathered crowd. No one gave her a wide berth. Whispers and low chatter filled her ears. Something about someone deserving what they got. Something about someone asking for it.

Something about someone knowing too much for her own good.

Arya's stomach twisted further. Those muttered words shouldn't mean anything to her but they did. They did. It couldn't be...

She began elbowing people, murmuring under her breath for them to steer clear, to let her pass. Her legs shook, her knees threatening to give out from under her. It couldn't be. It couldn't.

Her memories, her dreams, played in a loop at the back of her mind. When she closed her eyes, they were all she saw. She knew. Gods, she knew this would happen. Why hasn't she done anything?

Because it couldn't be.

She stumbled out of the innermost line of people and came to the actual subject of the commotion. Her whole body froze.

Blood.

It was everywhere.

Like her dream. Like the warning given off by whoever was cruel enough to let her see this scene twice, across two different lifetimes, separated by hundreds, if not, thousands of years. It couldn't be. But it was.

Splayed over the puddle of her own blood was Europa Marlow.

Eyes stared out unseeing to the sky obscured by the roofs of towering establishments. Motionless limbs lay on against the cobblestones, still clad in the same clothes Arya wore. A gaping hole was punched into her chest, blood still oozing in a soft, soundless trickle. Gray skin had never felt so real to Arya at that moment.

But it was. It was real.

Europa Marlow was dead.

And Arya Salcrest, despite having known about it, despite knowing it would happen, didn't do anything.

She staggered back, her hands flying to her mouth to stifle the oncoming sobs. "Eury..." she blurted, her friend's name heavier on her tongue than a thousand letter canisters. If she called Eury enough times, maybe her friend would flinch and smack her upside the head. Maybe Eury would snap at Arya to be quiet. Maybe she was just pretending. She would pop up from a puddle of grape juice and laugh at Arya for believing her lie.

"Eury," Arya called, creeping closer to the lifeless body in front of her. "Wake up."

She called her name again. And again.

At some point, the name was replaced by a gasp and a strangled sob. Arya gripped Eury's shoulders and shook her. "Wake up," Arya whispered. "Please."

She needed Eury to be alive. It couldn't have ended like this. What even happened? Some idiot shot her down for walking in the street she walked into every day since she got a job in Aldermere? Arya wasn't even with her. If the dreams were some sort of a prophecy, it should have been wrong. Eury wouldn't have died alone. Arya would have been with her. She would have seen her take her final breath. And the killer...he would have been apprehended. Punished. He would've...

"Wake up," Arya's outside voice sounded foreign to her own ears. It was thick, desperate. It begged and begged. Tears clouded her eyes and streamed down her face in scalding trails. Not like this. It could never be like this. She needed Eury to be alive because if she wasn't...

Then the dreams weren't lying. Everything that happened in it would happen when Arya woke up and faced the real world. If Eury wasn't with her anymore, then whoever she was going to lose in those horrid memories, she would lose in the world she walked on when she was awake.

No more. She couldn't lose anymore. First her parents. Then Eury—

"Wake up!" The begging had been replaced by the screams. The whispers burned louder, the chatter, more oppressive. Her nails dug against Eury's cold and flaky skin. The blood got into her nail beds, her skirts, her shoes. It was everywhere. Stained in such a way it wouldn't ever fade even if she tried to peel off her skin.

The dreams couldn't be the master of her fate nor the captain of the ship she didn't even know was already sailing in turbulent waters. It couldn't be. It shouldn't be.

The tears weren't stopping. Arya doubted they ever would. Her knees gave way truly and she fell forward, right into the gaping hole in Eury's chest. And there she would stay, hunkered over a dead body, surrounded by thousands of judging eyes. She didn't ever want to leave.

A strong yank forced her body to straighten. A hand gripped her wrist and hauled her up, sending her stumbling away from Eury. No. She needed to go back. She has to stay there.

She squirmed against the grip around her wrist. Let go. Let her go. She has to go back. Her nails clawed against the hand which had now morphed into a steel cuff. Let go. She didn't want to go wherever it was leading her. She wasn't a prisoner. Not a slave. Free. She was free in this country.

But was she?

How long before she was the one lying on the ground, blood soaking her dress and her life draining away from her veins, bit by bit? How long before she made a mistake and spelled her doom? How long could she keep lying to the world before they delved into the secrets of her being, until they saw her for what she truly was and punished her for it?

The cuff hadn't let go. It dragged her past the crowd, past the stares and the whispers. It led her deep, deep down into the abyss she wished she had run away from since the beginning. She didn't want to go there. She has to stay. Stay with Eury until forever. Her friend needed her and she wasn't there. If they had been together, maybe...

Maybe what? The dream showed her what would happen if she was with her dearest friend. Arya couldn't have done anything that would change the outcome. Everyone around her was doomed. Everyone, including—

"Arya, please. I'm trying to help you," a familiar voice speared through her veiled mind. "We'll go to my office. You'll be safe there. No one can harm you there."

Office. Office. Where was it? A face formed from the blobs dancing in her vision. It belonged to Norren Sterling. Office. It meant...

Civil Hall.

"No," Arya wrenched her hand from his grip. He didn't bother trying to soften it. "Let me go."

"I won't let you run back there," Norren said. When she didn't stop fighting, he blew a sharp breath. "Fine. We won't go to the Civil Hall. We'll go somewhere quiet. Somewhere...I don't know, somewhere you won't be seen."

Home. It was the only place where she would truly feel safe. But that's the problem—she didn't know where it was. Was it in the obscure place in her memory, the house she had spent her early days in this word? Was it in the arms of her loving parents who vanished from her life as soon as they could? Was it with Cornelia, who took her in despite being a penniless widow? Was it here, in Aldermere?

Exhaustion settled on her shoulders. "I don't know," she found herself muttering. "I don't know."

Like a sheep heading to slaughter, Arya was dragged forward, her wrist still caged in the hold of someone she swore she knew but still couldn't be with. They shouldn't be here, at the same place and at the same time. She had her reasons but her mind stayed clean of them at this moment.

The next thing she knew, a cup of lukewarm coffee sat between her hands and her body leaned against a pillar of warmth she promised herself she would never feel again. And Norren was there, sipping from another cup, his blue eyes staring unseeing at the passers-by.

"How are you?" came the careful question from Norren.

Arya had enough energy to peel away from him. "What are you doing here, Norren?" she asked, her tone coming away rather pointedly. After saving her from extreme public humiliation, screaming at him in anger was the last thing she wanted to do. Still, she couldn't help it. It felt like the most natural thing to do at this moment. "You know you shouldn't be seen with me. I thought I told you that."

Hurt flickered across Norren's features. "I heard about what happened," he said. "Europa Marlow was your friend and she had fallen victim to what could only be described as a hate crime. She picked the wrong place at a wrong time—"

Arya whirled to him so fast the coffee in her hands splattered over her already soiled skirt. "Don't you dare say the same thing they all said!" she yelled. Why was she yelling anyway? This was only Norren. He was here to help her. But why was she so angry she felt like she could burst anytime?

Her chest heaved as she stared at Norren in the eye. "She walked that street every day for the last twenty years that I'd known her," she said. Her eyes welled up once more but the tears burned hotter, enough to leave painful stings in her skin and at her temples. "She wasn't at the wrong place. It wasn't the wrong time. It was fucking destiny."

Norren knitted his eyebrows. He didn't have an inkling about what Arya was talking about. "She picked a fight with a passer-by about the news," he said, his tone and choice of words like the ones she read on the prints. "Things got bad. Guns were pulled. The Maltarci apprehended the gunner. He was an extremist and had a deep prejudice against the fae. He's looking to face a lifetime in prison."

Arya heard none of it. Rather, she heard it all but none registered in her mind. She kept going back to the blood. To the cold skin which once had been filled with warmth. She glanced at Norren, at his gentle face and his concerned frown. They wouldn't be in this mess had it not been for the world they lived and breathed in.

"You should retract the bill," she looked down at the coffee in her hands, having no recollection of how Norren had shoved it into her grip and how she even got into this unfamiliar park in the first place. "You shouldn't fight for us. Not this time."

"I won't," Norren answered. His mouth was set in a thin line—one that was final. Determined. Stubborn. "Not when I'm so close. Not when I could have done something to prevent any of this from happening to more people."

He looked at her then. Really looked at her. "I won't ever stop fighting for those who can't fight for themselves."

Arya shook her head. "I can fight. Many of us could."

"But you won't," Norren said. "I understand the will to survive without risking your life is your utmost priority but I want to give you a world where you won't ever have to. It's a paradise that only existed in your dreams but I'm here to tell you that it's possible. That we could build it with our own hands."

Norren sighed and set his cup down a few inches from his leg. "And I'm close. So close, Arya," he said. "I can't stop now."

"You can't change the world even if you're stubborn about it," Arya scoffed and sniffed. Her breath came up thick and gurgly. "Many have tried over the years and failed miserably. You can't fight a thing that doesn't have eyes yet still manages to watch over us, a nose yet still could smell us out like dogs, or hands that could grip our necks and squeeze until we run out of breath. You can't fight a thing like that. You can't. If you try, you'll lose."

"But we keep fighting, still," Norren said. Arya couldn't bring herself to look at him, to see the shine in his blue eyes. Because if she has so much gotten a glimpse of it, she would have hope. She would believe there was something they could do to bring them out of this living hell. But there wasn't. Eury was enough proof of that.

"We keep fighting until someone beats it," Norren stared out into the green landscape of the park. It was slowly becoming peppered with orange and brown leaves characteristic of the arrival of fall. "We'll keep fighting until we succeed, even if it's the last thing we'll do."

"I don't want you to die, Norren!" Arya wanted to grasp his shoulders and shake him until he got it. There was too much at stake in this uphill climb and they weren't even sure if there's a peak to look forward to at all. In fact, maybe it would be a pike waiting for their heads at the end of it all. Instead, she stared at the blades of grass brushing against her bloodied boots. "I don't want you to die."

"No one else is going to die, Arya," he answered. He turned to her, his hands sliding off his thighs, slowly inching towards her. She could read it in his eyes—how badly he wanted to touch her, to cradle her in his arms until she shattered so he could piece her back together again. But he couldn't.

"No one's going to die," Norren repeated as if the first time he said it didn't do its wonders. "I promise you that."

Arya clenched her fists around the cup, spilling more of the coffee into her dress, into the grass, and into the dark earth underneath her soles. "Promises are dangerous things," she said. "It would do you better to not throw them around so casually.

Norren straightened, shocking Arya into craning her neck to see his face. "Well, if you're already sniping at me, it means you can go home on your own," he said. "I'm sorry for your loss, Arya. I hope you rest well today."

He ducked his head at her and pushed his ash brown hair off his forehead. "I must be off."

With that, he turned and trudged off, his shoes crunching against the blades of grass tumbling underneath their mercy. Just like that, he left Arya wanting to call out to him, to yell at him to stop walking and stop whatever it was he was doing. But he wouldn't listen. He wouldn't ever listen.

If there was one thing the dreams told her enough was that there was nothing she could do to deter this particular course of events. Norren told her he wouldn't stop fighting for her kind, then maybe, just maybe, the dreams were telling her to never stop fighting for him too.

Because he cared about her enough to run from the Civil Hall, find her in front of her friend's corpse, haul her away from public eyes, seat her in the most random park in Aldermere, buy her a coffee, and stay with her until she had collected a semblance of herself. He was Norren Sterling, a man who made her monotonous life a little bit interesting and who made her feel important. Seen. He was a bright ray of sunshine in Arya's overcast sky.

She couldn't lose anyone else. Not anymore.

So, she had to figure out a way to save Norren from his own fate, one he had no idea he was ultimately building towards. One couldn't avoid destiny but if there was one thing Arya learned from him was that they could, sure as hell, fight it.

And to do that, she had to go back to when it all came together.

To save Norren, Arya has to find out how it all ends.