The sky over the village of Oakhaven was never truly blue, but that morning, the color resembled a freshly opened wound. A thick, suffocating metallic copper.
Rainnes Juoi knelt on the damp earth, her small fingers digging for medicinal roots between the stones. Her snow-white hair fell over her face, contrasting sharply with the black soil she turned. Around her neck, an old wooden rosary with a crude engraving reading "Sainticous" swung gently.
"Rainnes! Hurry up!" an elderly woman shouted from the doorway of a shack. "The Cathedral bells at the border have already rung. If you are late for prayer, the echoes from the forest will draw their attention."
Rainnes stopped breathing for a moment. She closed her eyes.
To anyone else, Oakhaven was a quiet village. But to Rainnes, the world was a terrifying symphony. With her unique ruby-red eyes, she didn't just see colors; she saw vibrations. She could see the sound of the wind shifting the leaves as transparent ripples in the air. She could see her mother's heartbeat as a dim pulse of light behind her chest.
And right now, she saw something wrong.
From the forest on the edge of the village, black ripples emerged. The vibrations were disharmonious—the sound felt like fingernails scratching against porcelain. Sharp, shattered, and full of hunger.
Toll. Toll. Toll.
The village warning bell rang. Not the prayer bell, but the bell of death.
"Monsters!" someone screamed in the distance. "Sorrow-Eaters have breached the fields!"
In an instant, Oakhaven's peace was shattered. Fire began to lick the thatched roofs. Rainnes stood up, her heart pounding so hard that the vibration in her chest became painful. She saw red, human-sized shadows with twisted horns emerging from the mist, dragging their claws across the stones.
"Mother!" Rainnes ran toward her shack, but an incredibly loud explosion of sound hit her eardrums.
WUUUUNG—
A deafening high frequency erupted from the sky. Rainnes fell prostrate, clutching her ears until they bled. Amidst the pain, she saw an impossible sight.
A troop of knights in golden armor descended from the hill, led by a man with hair that shone like the sun beneath the blood-red sky. His cloak was pure white, as if the blood splattering around him didn't dare touch the fabric.
The man swung his sword, and each stroke released waves of light that crumbled the monsters into dust.
Rainnes was transfixed. In her eyes, the man did not vibrate like a normal human. He possessed a frequency so pure, so perfect, that the pain in Rainnes' head slowly began to recede.
The knight approached her. He dismounted his horse, removed his gauntlet, and reached out a smooth hand to Rainnes.
"Do not fear, Holy Maiden," the man's voice was soft, yet commanding. "My name is William de Croul. I have come because I heard the call of your pure soul."
Rainnes looked into William's golden eyes. For the first time in her life, the echoes in her head fell silent. She felt safe. She felt... saved.
"You are the answer to our prayers," William whispered, stroking Rainnes' white hair. "You are the Saintess who will silence this darkness."
Rainnes did not know that behind the Prince's perfect smile, the frequency within William's heart vibrated with the exact same tone as the monsters he had just slain.
Nor did she know that far to the West, in a room filled with stacks of ledgers and ticking clocks, a woman named Anne Marie Vain had just crossed "Oakhaven" off her map with black ink.
"One more village sacrificed for a performance," Anne muttered, adjusting her spectacles. "Time to send a message to the North. Harold must prepare immediately."
Outside the palace window, an invisible choir began to sing softly, welcoming the new prey into the gilded cage.