VISION ✔️ || The Keepers of Astraela #1

SIX MONTHS EARLIER...

THE CITY FELL ASLEEP at 12:37 a.m.

Locals blamed the power failure on the raging storm outside, with driving rain and winds launching debris down every street. Thunder roared overhead, following bolts of lightning that rattled the earth in a dazzling display.

Many things had been blamed on the storm: flooding, property damage, blown-over lawn ornaments. All valid and perfectly reasonable.

Except the tree.

It stood tall over the center of its park, keeping watch over the surrounding arc of lush flowers. Residents had long considered it their Guardian due to the aged features on its northernmost face, where knots and rotted crevasses gave the appearance of an old, wise man.

Before long, fire crews would swarm the locals' beloved Guardian, desperately dousing flames that licked its moss-encrusted limbs. They would be blamed on a bolt of lightning that struck the wrong place at the wrong time.

But she knew it wasn't lightning.

The storm had plunged the world into darkness long before the blackout hit, but still the woman waited, watching from the stone path that wove winding curves around the park. An umbrella propped against her shoulder remained the only barrier between her and the opening skies, though gusts of wind allowed stray drizzles to slip beneath her covering.

No matter how harshly she shivered from her cloak's dampness, she did not budge. She had spent years waiting, biding her time until the exact moment she was mere seconds from experiencing. To humans, it would have felt like eons.

For her, it was only a drop in the bucket of time.

Lightning shattered the night; electric daggers illuminated the Guardian's wispy branches. Its limbs bent and cracked in the tumult, casting shadows that marred its friendly face. The darkness' tricks twisted its joyful expression into one wrought with anguish, as if the tree itself mourned a loss yet to come.

As the young woman lifted her wrist, soft light radiated from a watch that poked beyond her sleeve.

12:37 a.m.

She felt the heat before she saw it.

The Guardian's face split in a flash of brilliant light. Flames burst from the trunk, constricting the tree in an inescapable blaze. An orange glow bathed the world as fire spread to every limb, branch, and leaf, reducing the monument to mere kindling.

Lampposts flickered along the winding path, unable to handle the explosion of energy. When the woman glanced at the city beyond, lights sputtered for miles at breakneck speed. Jagged bolts erupted around the tree, followed by a thunderous crescendo that plunged the world into deathly silence.

In a heartbeat, the storm ceased. Eerie calm blanketed the park until the only noise came from raindrops dripping lazily from the leaves.

The world was engulfed in near perfect darkness, save for the final flames licking the tree and grass. Their embers flickered softly to illuminate a shadowed figure knelt before the scorched Guardian's face.

Rain pelted her cloak as she ran for the tree, her umbrella slipping from her grasp and coming to rest in the muck. The woman dropped to her knees beside the man, who fell to the ground in a crumpled heap. Hardly a moan escaped his chapped lips, parted just enough for shallow breaths to sustain his lungs.

She placed a hand on his tattered jacket. A wet, sticky substance oozed between her fingers. Gashes sliced clean through his shirt, with fabric ripped in every direction from whatever had shredded his chest to ribbons.

He had been roughed up before, but never to this extent.

Behind them, the hushed rustle of leaves turned to chaos. Tremors rattled the tips of the Guardian's branches and worked toward the massive trunk, rocking the tree with ravenous force. The woman knelt to shield the man with her body.

A raspy voice, hardly audible over the tumult, pulled her gaze back to him. His hollow eyes followed her expression lazily.

"The Barrier," he croaked, the words sticking in his throat like gravel. "I need to seal it."

She shook her head. "You're too weak."

But he was right. The crack in the Guardian's face had split, and thin rays of white light assaulted the beaten and bloodied man beneath her. Anguished cries raged from within the tree. A brutal force hammered inside its trunk, emanating from somewhere beyond the Barrier.

If they couldn't seal it soon...

Another orange glow, one much softer, bathed her horrified expression in firelight. The man's breathing was labored, his life drained, but it didn't stop him. Every muscle in his body—the ones that hadn't been torn to shreds—tensed as his glow strengthened, radiating from within to bathe his complexion in warm light. Where each cut marred his arm, and every gash sliced his chest, small flames flickered inside the wounds and licked the tattered edges of his skin.

Anywhere they touched, the surrounding skin turned a sickly gray. It cracked apart and fell into the crevasses of his wounds. He gritted his teeth; his face contorted in pain, yet he continued to tense his body until the woman was sure he would spontaneously combust.

With one final cry, the man loosened his intensity. The flames tripled in size to consume his body in blazing hellfire.

The woman scrambled back. The smell of molten flesh churned her stomach, growing stronger as his roaring bonfire stretched high toward the ominous clouds.

Slowly, the inferno retreated, seeming to absorb back into itself. As the fire dimmed, embers scattered across the man's body and found their way through his every pore. Their glow dimmed, softening until the only light emanated from the tree's widening split.

A sigh escaped his lips. His breathing was no longer ragged; he had, somehow, returned from the brink of death. By the time he stretched his arms to push himself up, the wounds that had mutilated his body had vanished without a single scar. If it hadn't been for the tattered fabric clinging to his torso, the woman wouldn't have believed he was the same man.

He turned to her with a knowing tilt of his head. Mischief and ruin sparkled behind luminescent, golden eyes as he got to his feet and held out a hand.

"Are you going to sit there, or will you help me seal this son of a bitch?"

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