You found your lucky pendant on the seashore after a raging storm. It jutted out of the sand, catching the light at just the right angle—faint ripples seemed to pass across its surface. When you picked it up, you admired the cloudy shard of pale green-blue glass, smoothed as though by centuries of waves.

After that?

You never noticed the way paths bent around you, the way chance itself seemed to smooth your steps—until today.

A stranger blocks your way as if pulled there by the same unseen tide, her cloak shimmering like heat-haze. Her golden gaze locks onto the pendant, and suddenly its weight feels unbearable.

“You don’t even know what you’re carrying, do you?” she says slowly, fiery auburn hair framing her sharp face.