Elara had always known she was different. From the moment she could walk, whispers followed her through the cobblestone streets of Eldridge Hollow, a mist-shrouded village nestled at the foot of the Ironspine Mountains. Her eyes, pale as moonlit frost, saw things others could not. Visions flickered at the edges of her sight—flashes of futures yet to unfold, shadows of fates entwined with her own. Her mother had called it the Sight, a gift passed down through their bloodline for generations, a legacy from some ancient seer who bargained with the stars. But Elara knew better. It was no gift. It was a curse.

Her father had been the first to warn her. ‘The Sight demands its toll,’ he rasped on his deathbed, his hands clutching hers as if to anchor himself against the inevitable. ‘Every glimpse you steal from tomorrow costs a piece of today.’ He spoke of her grandmother, who foresaw a flood and diverted the river, only to wither away in days, her body desiccated like autumn leaves. Her great-aunt had predicted a blight on the crops and led the villagers to burn the infected fields, saving the harvest but losing her voice forever, reduced to silent gestures until starvation claimed her. The bloodline’s women bore the Sight, and it bore them down, inexorably, into the earth.

Elara fought it. She bound her eyes with cloth during her childhood, ignoring the insistent tug of visions that clawed at her mind like thorns. She toiled in the fields, her hands blistered from scythe and hoe, pretending to be ordinary. But the village needed her. Eldridge Hollow was dying. The dragon, Vyrathax, had awakened in the mountain’s heart three moons past. Its roars shook the ground, and plumes of smoke choked the sky. Livestock vanished, charred bones scattered across the slopes. Children whispered of glowing eyes in the night, and the elders spoke of the old prophecies—that the Seer of the Hollow would face the beast and claim its hoard, bringing prosperity to all.

‘The blood of the seer runs true,’ Elder Thorne proclaimed at the harvest moot, his voice gravelly with age. ‘Elara, you are the last. The Sight will guide you.’ The villagers nodded, their faces gaunt with hunger, eyes pleading. How could she refuse? Her friend Lirra, heavy with child, pressed a hand to her belly and begged, ‘Save us, Elara. For the babe.’

That night, Elara unbound her eyes. The visions crashed over her like a tidal wave. She saw flames engulfing the village, Vyrathax’s claws rending homes to splinters. But amid the inferno, a path—a narrow trail up the Ironspine, lined with runes that pulsed like veins. She saw herself standing before the dragon’s lair, a crystal dagger in hand, forged from the mountain’s heart. The beast would fall, its blood quenching the earth, and gold would rain upon the Hollow.

Dawn broke cold and gray. Elara set out alone, the village’s farewell a murmur of hope. She carried only a satchel with bread, a waterskin, and the elder’s gift: a map etched with prophecy symbols. The climb was brutal. Winds howled like mourning spirits, whipping her cloak. Rocks crumbled underfoot, and twice she slipped, bruising ribs against jagged stone. But the visions urged her on—glimpses of safe handholds, warnings of rockfalls that she dodged by heartbeats.

Deeper into the mountains, the air grew thick with sulfur. Bones littered the path—adventurers from distant lands, their armor melted, swords bent. Elara’s Sight sharpened. She foresaw ambushes by goblins, twisted creatures with eyes like embers. She evaded them, leading them over cliffs where they plummeted with shrieks. One vision showed a bridge collapsing; she crossed it hours before, hearing the thunderous crash behind her.

Nights were torment. Curled in caves, she dreamed the dragon’s dreams. Scales like blackened iron, wings blotting stars, a maw of endless fire. But beneath the rage, loneliness—an ancient being bound to its hoard by a sorcerer’s spell. Pity stirred in Elara, unwelcome. The visions showed no mercy; the beast must die.

On the fifth day, she reached the lair. A cavern mouth yawned, framed by fangs of rock. Heat blasted out, singeing her hair. Inside, rivers of molten gold flowed, gems glittering in torchlight that needed no flame. And there, coiled amid the treasure, Vyrathax. Its eyes opened, twin furnaces, fixing on her.

‘Mortal,’ it rumbled, voice like grinding boulders. ‘You bear the Sight. I smell it on you, kin to the stars that birthed me.’

Elara drew the crystal dagger, its edge humming. ‘I come to end you.’

The dragon laughed, a sound that shook stalactites loose. ‘End me? Child of prophecy, look closer.’

She lunged, dagger aimed at its throat. But the beast’s tail whipped, sending her sprawling. Visions exploded: futures where she struck true, the village saved—but others, darker, where her victory birthed greater horrors. She rose, circling, feinting.

‘Tell me your name, seer,’ Vyrathax demanded.

‘Elara of Eldridge Hollow.’

‘Say it full. Blood calls to blood.’

She hesitated. Visions swirled—her mother’s tales of the first seer, who stole fire from dragons to gift humanity. No, not fire. Sight.

‘Elara… Vyrathaxdaughter.’ The words slipped out, unbidden.

The dragon reared, triumphant. ‘Yes! The cursed gift, passed through bloodlines—my blood, mingled with mortal in eons past. You are my heir, my reincarnation. Every vision you wielded was my will guiding you here.’

Horror rooted her. The climbs, the evasions—not her triumphs, but the dragon manipulating from afar. The bones on the path? Bait to hone her. The loneliness in dreams? Her own suppressed.

‘No,’ she whispered. But truth crashed: her eyes, frosted like dragon scales in youth. The tolls on ancestors—sacrifices awakening her true form.

Vyrathax lunged, not to kill, but to embrace. Scales split on her arms, wings unfurling from her back in agony. The dagger fell, useless—it was meant to complete the transformation, not slay.

She fought, clawing at the emerging horns, but the visions turned inward: the village burning not by dragon fire, but her own, once fully awakened. Lirra’s babe, first victim.

With a scream that echoed both human and draconic, Elara seized the dagger. Not for the beast, but herself. She plunged it into her chest, where the heart twisted between forms. Light erupted, the cavern trembling.

Vyrathax howled as half-formed wings retracted, the link severed. But the dragon weakened, hoard dimming. Elara’s last vision: the Hollow safe, gold flowing from the mountain in harmless streams, prophecy fulfilled in sacrifice.

She collapsed amid gems, eyes glazing, the curse broken forever. The bloodline ended, but so did the threat.

Below, villagers cheered as riches tumbled down. They mourned their seer later, carving her statue with eyes forever closed. Peace reigned, bittersweet, under the Ironspine’s watchful peaks.