December 19th rolled in with the first snowfall of the year. The city blanketed in white as flurries took the last of fall with them. I sat by the fire of the packhouse common room, wrapped in blankets gifted by one of the Elders—presumably an apology of materialistic quality—made of alpaca furs hunted in the Andes by Urqu Yawar Pack of South America, who had sent it as a congratulations for Ironfang obtaining the Seer. News of my awakening had reached the whole world, it seemed.
I shivered as the snowstorm beat against the windows, caging me into this space with no escape. Suddenly, someone settled on next to me, hugging their knees to their chest. Sam sat there, quiet and unmoving as always, and I smiled. It didn't matter that he was not talkative. The company was worth it. I never felt very talkative either. We watched the flames as they danced and flickered, the crackling filling the empty space. The furs of bear and elk pressed into my legs beneath me as they pooled around the fireplace, warming us from beneath. The storm battered the windows.
Suddenly, whirring sound echoed, and the whole building went dark. A power outage. Sam stood fast, lit only by firelight as everyone scrambled from their offices and rooms to see what had happened. The snowstorm left us defenseless and without power now, engulfed in the black of night. I trembled in the shadows, hugging close to the flames as my vision swirled. Years of being locked in closets or cells without sunlight from years of torture and punishment had rendered a fear in me of shadow that was debilitating. From the overhanging balcony, Elijah and Beatrice emerged.
"Anthony," He said as the withered middle-aged man descended the stairs, "How is the generator looking?"
"Not good, Alpha. The snowstorm has damaged electrical, and the generator is low on gas. It is my fault. I should have better prepped the house for the storm," Anthony said. Elijah cursed under his breath, running a hand through his tousled hair. "Get everyone close to the fire for warmth, and get that generator going! This is going to be a long night. Find flashlights and candles, as many as you can get your hands on, and distribute them. I need a headcount." Numbers started flying as we accounted for everyone.
I did not move, watching the fire and remembering my visions. I had seen snow in a dream, a storm, taking out power to the whole town. Denial seeped into me, denying these as anything but dreams, but I could not now. They were unfolding before me. Suddenly, I was dragged back, back into my mind, where I saw the snow-dense forests as I ran, ran for my life. My leg was bleeding profusely. Elijah's brown wolf was on my heels.
"D...na!" I startled out of my trance, looking up to find Elijah standing before me. Everyone had gone quiet, staring at me. "Your eyes." I stared at Elijah in confusion. "What about my eyes?" I asked quietly, my voice hoarse. "They glowed," He growled. "Tell me what you saw."
I couldn't. If I told them of it, they would surely hold me down harder, stop me from whatever escape I had been attempting in that vision. Laluin whispered into my ear. "Tell them about the snow. Hide our wild cards, Vina," She purred. I steeled myself, gritting my teeth. "I... I saw this. The snowstorm. I did not know it was true. It's knocked out the power to the whole city."
Elijah cursed, grabbing my arm. "There you go again, knowing and hiding it! Do you bask in the knowledge only you possess? Do you enjoy toying with the strings of fate so we all follow along?" He snarled. I didn't know where it was all coming from, wincing at the pain in my arm as Delta Anthony came forward, yanking his hand off of me. "Goddess, help us, Elijah, leave her alone!" He snarled, and everyone went still. It was not in the nature of deltas to oppose an alpha's will, no matter the cost. I trembled.
Elijah bared his fangs, the air of Absolute Authority washing over us yet again.
"Yes, you seem to be using that trick quite a bit lately, Elijah," Anthony said coldly, wincing as the need to submit tore through him. "But look at her. She did not know. Leave her be!"
"What is this insolence that leaks into my pack!" Elijah shouted. "You protect she who has been given a gift she is unworthy of, and you defy me!" He let out a groan of rage before fanning out an arm. "Get moving! Now!" He screamed. Everyone started moving again, keeping their heads down. I crumbled to the fur floors, hugging my trembling body. I didn't want to be here anymore. I wanted to go, just like the vision said.
Anthony wrapped his jacket around my shoulders, still damp on the leather with melted snow but warm on the inline fleece. I wrapped it tight around me, looking up at him. "Thank you, Delta Anthony," I said quietly.
His brown eyes were soft in the dark. "No. Do not thank this fool who had abandoned you. What would your father think of me if he saw me now?" He muttered.
I shook my head. "You cannot defy Elijah by much, Delta. This was Fate."
"Fate has dealt you a cruel hand, Davina. But you do not understand the power you hold now. I could defy an alpha to protect you," Anthony said. "I wonder what else you could do if you just..." Escaped. The word hung between us. Anthony sighed. "I must get back to work. Stay warm, Seer Davina. Stay safe." I watched him go, my heart bleeding. My father's closest friend. Perhaps it had truly not been by choice that he had left me to this fate, that his son tortured me, that he suffered the loss of his best friends alone. How deep Elijah's hatred for me had burned us all.
An hour passed. The building was lit up with candles, and the pack led themselves by flashlights, turning the hall into a flurry of moving white light and flames. I stayed curled by the fire, watching the flames dance.
Beatrice was in the corner with Elijah, brushing his hair away and whispering sweetness into his ear to cull the rage. I wondered when they got so close that this behavior was normal to them, that romance was a given. They had never been close before. Was it my actions that drew them closer together? I shunned the thought. My heart ached. Some days, I imagined the mate bond taking hold and labeling someone just for me, but such occurrences are rare. Wolves aren't guaranteed a destined partner. Even alphas weren't a surefire bet. It was an occasional happening that had been described to us as something unearthly. I wondered if they would find the mate bond in each other, Beatrice and Elijah. My heart broke to consider it. After everything he had done, when I looked at Elijah, all I could see was the sweet boy who collected Pokémon cards to find Piplups to make me smile, who made me bad cakes to enjoy when I was sad, who bandaged my wounded knees when I fell. All I could see was the Elijah he had been before we had lost our families. Because of me. I looked away.
Someone got a strong enough cell signal on their phone to call into the southern watch tower, who reported zero power before the connection cut, and we were in the dark again, figuratively and literally. Laluin sang me a lullaby to calm my nerves. Delta Anthony's jacket warmed my shoulders. The building grew colder with each passing second, threatening us all. Sam came back over eventually, resuming his position next to me beside the fire. I thought of the scrawny boy who always seemed in the background and wondered when he had grown into someone so comforting and strong. We sat in a long silence before, finally, he spoke. "What have you seen?" He asked softly, and I shook my head. He sighed. "I know you can see more if you try. There hasn't been a Seer in over a thousand years, Davina. You have a power beyond anything we know," He said. "I know that," I responded, looking up at him, "I know you're relying on me to be more. I know everyone is. But I just got this power a few weeks ago, and no one knows how it works. There are no written records left of the old Oracles, just what Elder Simone and the others have been taught. It is next to nothing." I huffed, looking back to the flames.
Sam looked down at his hands. "Here. Close your eyes."
"Sam, I'm not in the mood—"
"Just do it."
I groaned, closing my eyes.
"Now, picture in your mind the feeling that you had when you saw the Goddess when she touched you."
I envisioned her warmth, her power as it surged in my bones. I saw her radiance and her beauty and felt tears in my eyes as I recalled the profound peace I had felt. "Now, reach out and take it." I reached out, out, towards the light, drinking it in, letting it wrap me, and then.
My vision warped, and in front of me was a rabbit. A small, white rabbit that sat in the undisturbed snow sheet of the fields before the packhouse. Turning, my eyes widened in horror. The windows were blown out. A tree laid on the house, cracking through the foundation. Construction had begun on the destroyed side, so this decay had happened after the storm. The house was in a state of abandonment and destruction, but not just from the storm. No, there were bullet holes in the wall. The sun shone darkly, and I looked up to see a bloody eclipse baring down on the world, turning the skies crimson. I looked out over the cliffs and the woodlands and saw Redfield burning.
Ripped from the vision, I gasped and lurched forward, letting out a scream. Sam took my shoulders to steady me as people rushed over. I looked up to see my eyes glowing gold in the window's reflection. My teeth were fang-sharp and bared. I sobbed, covering my face. Anything but that. Anything but my town in flames. I thought of the black wolf again and trembled.
"Move, move out of the way!" Someone pushed through the crowd and yanked Sam off of me, and I fell forwards, curling into a ball on the furred floor. I cradled my head to my knees, shaking my head as someone came over me. They seemed to hesitate, and then I felt a cool hand on my arm. My eyes flung open to see Elijah, his eyes full of worry. "What did you see, DD?" He asked softly, using that nickname like a cruel curse. I gnashed my teeth with fury, smacking his hand away. "Don't you call me that. You don't have the right anymore!" I scrambled to my feet, looking out over the crowd of people around me, waiting for the verdict. Elijah was still kneeling, clenching his fists so hard that the tang of blood hit the air. I ignored him, calling out over the building.
"We need to get underground now! This storm is going to cave in on us soon!" I shouted. The tree that had fallen through the building had fallen right where Elijah and Beatrice had been resting. My heart was torn between letting it happen and stopping it, and I hated myself for the indecision. I could not live with myself if they died because of me. No one else would die because of me.
Everyone moved without hesitation like my word was absolute. We boarded windows with tables and grabbed food supplies and all the blankets we could find, descending into the lower levels. The basement was reserved for storage, and for the secure meeting room for private meetings the alpha and his team held periodically. I had been here as a child, playing hide and seek among the boxes with Elijah. The memory seemed a lifetime away now.
We hunkered down, sitting on the floors as scouts continued to work on the generator in the corner. Delta Anthony used the tools he had to tighten bolts as Sam held a flashlight to assist. It was more than a gas problem.
Sam spoke lowly to Anthony about the status of communication with the watch towers. I looked at him anxiously, wondering how he knew about the visions. I pushed the thought to the back of my mind. There were more important things to fret about.
The air below ground was bitingly cold and brutal, and the snow blocked all the small windows near the ceilings so that it was pitch black besides the light we could muster up. I held a candle in my hands, savoring the fleeting warmth. I hugged the alpaca blanket around my shoulders and zipped up the leather jacket Delta Anthony had provided to stave off the cold. In the corner, I could hear Beatrice's teeth chattering. Her family must be out there in the storm, wondering after her safety. Even a beta could not weather a storm of this magnitude, so Markus was helpless. The thought made me happy.
I thought back on my visions, of the bullet holes biting into the wood of the packhouse, and wondered who the enemy was here. Was it another pack? Was it internal conflict? To tell Elijah was to prove myself a bad omen. I couldn't tell a soul. And yet, didn't I have to? If that future came to pass without lifting a finger, then I had learned nothing in the last six years. My mind swirled with uncertainty. Laluin spoke to me about her anxieties, and we suffered together in the cold.
I was snapped from my worrisome thoughts as Elijah made his rounds to check on everyone, finally landing on me. He looked down at me in an imposing stance that made me shiver from much more than cold before he leaned down. I looked up at him, gold eyes meeting taupe brown. "Thank you," He said quietly. My jaw shifted open with shock. "For the things you have endured, you could have let us die up there when the storm breached. We would be down here nursing wounds and staving off hypothermia. But you spoke up."
"Not by choice," I reminded him, gritting my teeth. "None of my life is by choice anymore."
"That's not true, Davina," He said, but even I knew he doubted those words. He sighed. "For the Solstice," He started, and I was astonished he could think of something so insignificant right now, "You will be the center of everything. I don't know why Ilya chose you, but she did. It doesn't make me hate you any less, but I can't just... deny what's happened..." Elijah looked down. "I think I've done enough of that."
I regarded him. "What... do you mean by that?" I dared. He looked back to me, his eyes full of a pain that sliced through the darkness. But he said nothing. Standing, he made his way to the next person, leaving me to ruminate. I curled up, rubbing my aching, freezing fingers together in between my thighs to generate warmth, and I listened to the sounds of the storm. A bang came from upstairs that sent everyone to silence, and I spoke. "It's a tree. It broke through the building," I announced, like an omnipresence, and everyone stared at me for a moment before hesitantly resuming their activities.
The snowstorm roared on.