Opening Scene (Prologue), Soulsong, First Verse:

Scene summary: First half of prologue, introduces the main character's mentor, as well as the MacGuffin that will drive the plot forward for the rest of the series.

     Chaos often clouded my thoughts when I was left to my own devices. Even when looking through the past and future of my own mind, I couldn’t find peace, nor the clarity, to satisfy my encroaching morbid curiosity. 
     “I’m ready for you. You may come in now,” I called to the door, already knowing who was behind it. Aldrich Daniels, vice president of the current senior Jäger cadet class, used his ability to pass through the door without opening it, his violet energy leaking from his body, almost as if staining the air as his shoes touched the ground softly.
     “Yes, Ms. Grace? Did you need me for something?” the boy asked, fixing his collar and standing up straight.
     I see it. Destruction. Death.
     “Tell me something, Aldrich. Do you get along well with Edward these days? He seems fairly absorbed in his training.”
     “Eddie? Yeah, I guess so, why do you ask?”
     I peered out of the window on the right side of my office, spotting the boy I just mentioned conversing with fellow cadet Bryce Hughes in sign language in the courtyard below.
     “Fetch him for me, will you? Be quick.”
     Aldrich grunted and gave a crisp salute, falling through the floor beneath us before phasing through the window situated at the ground level to interrupt the duo’s conversation. Seeing as the process of him coming upstairs would be at least a few minutes by normal conventions, I quickly and discreetly fetched a book from the shelf behind my desk, a curiously small novel by the name of “Brave Flower”, a historical fiction work detailing an exaggerated account of a conquest by a lowly knight during the First Great War, though in actuality, the contents of the work weren’t of importance, at least, it paled in comparison to the secret I held within its pages.
     Looking behind my back to ease my worry of being caught, I opened Brave Flower’s cover with care, revealing a hollow interior where the story should have been, shaped perfectly to fit a curious little curio I had been entrusted to by the High Hunter, the strongest Jäger in the world, to keep safe. Well, okay, that was a lie. He had lost it to me in a bet during a sufficiently intense game of poker, but likewise, the duty to safeguard it from nefarious forces remained the same. Taking the object out of its published case, I used the thick string tied to it to secure it around my neck like a pendant.
     Visually, the thing was quite unsightly. It looked almost like a human spine, sized down to fit in the palm, with rough extrusions coming out of the sides, almost like spikes. The entire object was stained a thick, blotchy black, almost like it had been hastily dipped in some kind of thinned tar. According to what the High Hunter told me, this was a Nemesis Key, a peculiar key that could, in theory, open a casket containing the corpse of a certain god. As much as I loved winning bets against idiots too stupid to see through a half-decent poker face, the responsibility was harrowing, to say the least. Namely, I’d only been in possession of this particular key for around half a decade, and judging by my growing paranoia around strangers, I had yet to find a reason to keep it around other than obligation.
     “I really should get out more,” I sighed, tucking the key under my shirt and fixing the string around my neck to better conceal it. Even with the possibility of someone wanting to steal it being low, taking chances wasn’t something I was known for. There were twelve other keys just like this one, and to my knowledge, at least three holders were murdered while in possession of them. My chances were. . . Suboptimal, and that was only assuming that they were murdered for the keys, and not some other reason, and in that vein, I had many an enemy.