The Shimmering Thread

Death was supposed to be a certainty. A fixed point. A promise. For Elara Vance, it was the single, shimmering thread she could always follow in the tangled tapestry of fate. Her gift—her curse—was to see the exact moment, cause, and location of a person’s death the first time she made eye contact. A kaleidoscope of possibilities for most, but for each individual, only one immutable scene. She saw the elderly librarian’s peaceful sigh in her sleep seventy years hence. She saw the barista’s fata