At first, it was faint, so faint she almost dismissed it. It was a slight shift in the rhythm of the noise around her, as the laughter seed sharper and slowly drew closer. The crackling of a nearby lantern sounded louder than it should, and Lucrezia frowned slightly.
In an attempt to mask her confusion, she took another sip of cider. The warmth slid down her throat, but it did little to settle the strange awareness building in the back of her mind.
A voice, sowhere behind her, cut through the air with unnatural clarity, and Lucrezia turned slightly, but the speaker was too far and too anonymous to make sense of the words spoken earlier.
Her brows knit together. What was that?
"Are you alright?"
Lucrezia blinked as her thoughts dissolved into thin air, looking back at Vespera. "No-yes, yes I’m fine," She said, wearing the most natural expression she could think of.
Vespera studied her for a mont, though she said nothing. Lucrezia swallowed and lowered the cup slowly. No matter how she tried to disguise that uncertainty in the air, Lucrezia knew that deep down, sothing seed off.
Sounds around her continued to shift beneath the liveliness of the fair, more than impossible to ignore, and she felt cold sweat trickle down her spine. Her fingers tightened around the cup and her ears burned. The warmth from the cider no longer comforted her. It felt distant now, replaced by a growing pressure building inside her head.
As if that wasn’t enough, the next thing Lucrezia heard was a pair of rchants arguing sowhere across the square, sounding as if they stood only a few steps away. The clink of coins hitting a wooden counter rang sharply in her ears and footsteps scraped against frozen ground with a painful clarity that she was hearing things. Again.
No, no, no... her eyes widened in alarm. Not here. Not now!
Her ears burned, and her head throbbed under the pressure of the noise. It continued for a painful number of tis, and she forced a neutral expression despite the clutter of her mind.
Think of sothing else, she thought, trying to shift focus away from the things she had no control over?, to sothing she had control over. But as expected, the result was in vain.
Lucrezia’s hands trembled so badly that the cup slipped from her grip and shattered against the ground.
The sharp crack seed louder than everything else, the fragnts scattering across the frozen surface as the last of the cider soaked into the snow.
"Anastasia—"
"Sothing’s wrong," She quickly whispered without thinking, her heart hamring against her chest. She could feel it. She could hear it. She could sense it.
At that, Vespera’s expression shifted, her earlier ease fading into sothing more alert. Instead of laughing off at her unimportant tantrums, "What is it?"
"I-I..." Lucrezia lost her voice to the wind, hurled by the tight grip of her chaotic mind. The weight and pressure of both voices and noises slamd her hard to the point she could barely breathe.
Lucrezia faltered, and wobbled back, only to be grounded by Vespera’s hands. "Anastasia, are you well? Is everything alright?"
But no, Lucrezia felt too numb to even utter a word. She closed her eyes briefly and unconsciously focused beneath the music and voices. There it was again, that faint, distant sound that wasn’t part of the fair or anything around them.
It was sharper now, like sothing cutting through the air, as the eyes of the man holding a staff, and a group of creatures accompanied him greeted her, and Lucrezia’s eyes snapped open.
No... she gasped. No, no, no, no, no.
"W-We should leave," She tried to sound neutral but her voice ca as a desperate plea.
"What do you—"
The sound grew louder, and faster. Too fast Lucrezia’s breath hitched, and her body tensed before her mind could catch up. Before she even realized what she was doing, "Vespera!"
She grabbed and pulled her hard. Both of them were thrown off balance as Lucrezia dragged her away from where they stood, stumbling across the frozen ground.
Just at that mont, a violent force tore through the space they had just occupied, taking them by surprise. It did not move like wind because it was too sharp and precise, but sothing invisible was slicing through the air with terrifying speed.
The ground cracked beneath its path, ice splintering as it surged forward. A loud, jarring sound followed, like sothing heavy breaking apart, silencing the entire atmosphere.
Purity that had been left tethered not far from them, reared violently, overwheld by the sudden strike. Snow and shards of ice burst upward as the force collided with her side, sending her stumbling with a distressed cry.
"PURITY!" Vespera’s voice broke through the chaos, but everything was already unraveling. It happened too quickly, too suddenly that the music stopped and voices fell into silence. And for a single, suspended mont—The entire fair froze, before being hurled into another shattering chaos.
In a matter of breathless seconds, everything erupted. The impact was so sudden that it took a mont before the actualization dawned on Lucrezia that they were being attacked.
T-This cannot be happening...
At the explosion, people scattered in all directions. Their panic spread like wildfire, an emotion being passed in stages. First ca surprise, shock, fear, and the ultimate panic. Many stalls were abandoned, and goods were left behind as rchants fled. Children cried out as they were pulled away by frantic hands, ushering themselves away from the sudden commotion.
What began as a quiet day at the fair had turned into sothing far more dangerous in the blink of an eye.
"Stay behind ," Vespera said sharply, already moving, placing herself slightly in front of Lucrezia when they got on their feet.
"W-What was that?" Lucrezia whispered with a trembling voice, eyes narrowing to the explosion, and the ground that tore open. But even as she asked, she already knew. The answer lingered in her mind.
Her heart hamred within her chest, pulsing with fear and urgency that made her dizzy. Before Lucrezia could recover, another sharp sound tore through the air, closer this ti, and the ground split again with a violent crack, sending people stumbling as they tried to escape.
"It’s not over," Vespera muttered in irritation. Though her expression was neutral, Lucrezia could tell she was fighting hard not to panic also.
Her grip tightened around Lucrezia’s arm "Move." And this ti, Lucrezia didn’t hesitate.
They pushed through the crowd as panic spread in every direction. People collided into one another, voices rising in fear, confusion, and desperate attempts to escape whatever unseen force had struck the fair.
Lucrezia could barely catch her breath, but her fear and urgency were far greater than the disarray of her mind, and the pain spreading inside her chest.
Another sharp tear split through the air, the impact was closer than she imagined and the ground cracked again behind them with a violent snap.
A scream burst through the commotion, high-pitched it rang fiercely in Lucrezia’s ears. Her heart slamd against her ribs as she stumbled forward, barely keeping pace with Vespera.
For quite so ti, they kept running, dodging fast strikes that seed to co from nowhere and everywhere at the sa ti, screaming folks and panicked children.
"What is happening?" She managed between breaths, evading a spilled basket of squashed fruits and a half-bitten festival sweet.
"No ti," Vespera replied, her voice firm against the chaos that didn’t stop. "Just keep moving."
They turned sharply past a row of abandoned stalls. Goods lay scattered across the snow with broken baskets, spilled fruit, overturned tables, all left behind in the chaos.
Her heart sank.
A man ran past them, nearly knocking Lucrezia off her feet. It seed like the world suddenly froze in ti when she turned, catching his side profile.
There was sothing off about him, but sothing oddly familiar at the sa ti. It was only when he turned, casting a small glance, that her heart almost stopped beating.
With a shoulder-length silver hair, a pair of crimson eyes greeted her sight. He had a scar beneath his right eye, and a roughly masculine face, giving him the aura of soone powerful. Despite the chaos and scattered emotions, he seed unnaturally calm.
If it wasn’t that Vespera caught her arm instantly, her body would’ve t the ground with a painful thud.
"Stay with ."
Lucrezia was broken off from the spell, swallowing, and then nodded reverently. They broke into another run, but during those monts, her eyes went behind, looking among the crowd for the silver-haired man who was nowhere to be found.
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