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"He's fallen, hasn't he?"

Seth was surprised by how quiet his voice sounded in spite of the dislike he had for the individual in question. Whether she noticed this change in his usually indifferent tone of voice, she chose not to say. She only answered his question.

"Yes."

He took up a place beside the priestess he spoke to, the unusually violent wind threatening to cast his headdress to the floor. Seth thought nothing of it.

"You're afraid."

Though he had phrased the last line like a question, he had meant it as a statement. Seth felt she had caught on, for he took her silence as a positive answer.

"The future…" She trailed off, her hand going to the Tauk at her neck, "Many believe that the power of prophesying into the future is a blessing. I call it my blessing as well as my curse."

Seth's brows furrowed. "You've always told us that you cannot foresee the futures of those holding the Sennen Items. How can you be so sure that he's been killed then?"

She now turned to look at him fully for the first time since they had begun speaking.

Locking her eyes with his, she held his gaze.

"You can sense it too, can you not? The reason you came to see me this evening…it's because you suddenly, inexplicably, felt empty. Despite how much you despised him, his death took a part of you with it. It took a part of us all."

He nodded slowly. She was right. Why else would he have come to talk to her? They had never exactly been close, but had only acknowledged one another when needed with a degree of regard. To him, she had never been more than a high priestess of the court, bearer of the Sennen Tauk.

But…there was more.

"It will be best if you go now, Lord Priest." She averted her eyes back to the darkening sky quickly. "There is nothing I can do to ease this unrest within you. It is something you must do alone."

Seth studied her face from the corner of his eye. While her face was expressionless, her hands gripped the railing of the terrace painfully; they were trembling slightly.

"Is that what you've been doing all this time, high priestess? Bearing the burden of your visions alone?"

She glanced at him sharply, and Seth was shocked to see that her eyes were glistening. Lowering her gaze to the floor, her expression softened.

"It's horrible knowing that those dear to you will soon be slain…and yet having no way of finding out who will be the first to go, and how to prevent their deaths…" She cut herself off, closing her eyes with a forlorn smile. "What am I saying? There is no way that we can save them. Fate is just as inevitable as death."

She laughed bitterly, a single tear balancing itself onto her cheek. A lock of hair escaped from her headdress and fell down in front of her.

Seth reached out a hand and brushed her hair back over her shoulder. He wiped away the stray tear with his thumb, and tilted her face up so that her sapphire eyes stared back at him.

"Remember, Isis, that while destiny is inevitable, it can easily be changed."

Her eyes widened at this, and only then did he pull back—when he saw recognition. Without another word, Seth turned his back to her and proceeded back into the palace. It was all that he could say; it was all that needed to be said.

When he was at the door, he heard Isis whisper, faintly:

"I thank you, Seth."

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