Lyra hadn't eaten in two days.
She sat in her hollow beneath the collapsed building, knees drawn up to her chin, and tried to remember the last time food had been something she could count on. Back home, meals appeared at regular intervals, delivered by novices who didn't talk much and didn't ask questions. She'd never appreciated that. Never realized how much of her life had been handled by other people until she had to handle it herself.
The prophecy book lay open in her lap. She'd read it so many times the words were starting to blur, but she kept reading anyway, hoping something new would jump out. Hoping for answers that never came.
Footsteps.
She froze, listening. Heavy steps, confident, coming straight toward her hiding place. Not a guard—too steady. Not a random passerby—too direct.
Lyra closed the book, shoved it in her pack, and pressed herself against the wall. The hollow was dark, hidden, impossible to find unless you knew exactly where to look.
The footsteps stopped right outside.
"Hello?" A voice. Young. Female. "I know you're in there. I can—I can feel you."
Lyra's heart hammered. She didn't move. Didn't breathe.
"I'm not going to hurt you. I just—" A pause. "My blade brought me here. It's been pulling me toward something for weeks. Toward you, I think."
Blade.
Lyra's breath caught. She'd seen that blade in her visions a hundred times. Silver light, shifting colors, held by a girl with gray eyes and desperate courage.
She crawled toward the entrance, slowly, carefully, and looked out.
The girl stood in the narrow alley, backlit by the late afternoon sun. She was younger than Lyra had expected—maybe seventeen, maybe eighteen—with short dark hair and the kind of face that looked like it had never learned how to smile easily. She wore a trainee's uniform, worn and practical, and at her hip hung a blade that seemed to glow even in the shadows.
Gray eyes met silver.
"You're real," Lyra whispered.
"You're the one from the rift." The girl's voice was rough, uncertain. "The one my blade's been looking for."
They stared at each other in the dim light, two girls from different worlds, bound by prophecy neither of them understood.
"Well," Lyra said finally. "This is awkward."
The girl laughed. It came out surprised and broken and maybe a little hysterical, but it was real.
"Yeah," she said. "It kind of is."
---
Her name was Kaela.
She was a trainee at the Iron Citadel, she explained, though she said it like the words didn't quite fit. She had no magic—said it flatly, like a fact she'd accepted long ago. She had a blade made from a fallen star, and the blade had been pulling her toward something for weeks, and now here Lyra was, and neither of them knew what came next.
Lyra told her about the visions. About the prophecy. About the shadows she'd seen reaching through the rift, and the Veiled One who waited in darkness, and the choice that would have to be made.
Kaela listened without interrupting, her face unreadable.
When Lyra finished, there was a long silence.
"So," Kaela said finally. "Let me get this straight. You crossed from another realm because you saw me in a dream. You've been hiding in this city for—what, two weeks?—eating garbage and sleeping in ruins. And now you want me to come with you on some quest to save the world from a shadow monster that's been waiting for centuries."
Lyra bristled. "When you say it like that, it sounds stupid."
"Maybe because it is stupid."
"I didn't choose this. I didn't ask for these visions. I didn't ask to see you dying every night, to watch dragons fall and worlds burn and know that somehow you're at the center of it." Lyra's voice rose, cracking. "I came here because I had to. Because if there's even a chance I can change what I've seen, I have to try. And if you're too busy feeling sorry for yourself to help—"
"Feeling sorry for myself?"
"You heard me. 'I have no magic, poor me, I'm just a trainee who works hard.' I've been here two weeks and I've already heard about you. The girl with the star-blade. The one who stood alone against the rift and closed it. Everyone in this city thinks you're some kind of hero, and you're standing here acting like it's a burden."
Kaela's face went dark. "You don't know anything about me."
"I know you're scared. I know you don't want to be special. I know you'd rather go back to training and pretending than face whatever's coming." Lyra stepped closer, ignoring the way Kaela's hand moved toward her blade. "Guess what? I don't want to be special either. I don't want to see the future. I don't want to watch people die in my dreams. But here we are. Both of us stuck with things we didn't choose. So you can either keep feeling sorry for yourself, or you can help me figure out what comes next."
Silence.
Kaela's jaw worked. Her hand dropped from her blade. For a long moment, she just stood there, staring at Lyra with an expression that was impossible to read.
Then she said, quietly, "You're kind of annoying."
Lyra blinked. "What?"
"Annoying. You talk too much. And you're really bad at hiding—I found you in about two seconds. And you smell like garbage."
"I've been living in a collapsed building for two weeks. Of course I smell like garbage."
"And you're still annoying." But something in Kaela's face had shifted. Not a smile—she didn't look like someone who smiled much—but something softer. "Come on. I know a place where you can wash up. And eat. And maybe we can figure out what to do next without killing each other."
Lyra hesitated. Trusting someone she'd just met, someone from a world she didn't understand, someone who could be anyone—
But the visions had never lied. And in every vision, this girl stood between the darkness and everything Lyra loved.
"Okay," she said. "But I'm not leaving the book."
"What book?"
Lyra held up the prophecy text, its ancient binding cracked and worn. Kaela looked at it, at her, at the blade at her hip.
"Fine. Bring the book." She turned and started walking. "Try to keep up. And try not to talk so much. You'll attract attention."
Lyra followed, biting back a dozen responses. They walked through the narrow alleys, past buildings that leaned toward each other like old women gossiping, toward whatever came next.
It wasn't friendship. Not yet. But it was something.
---
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