The hall of Audience, Castle in the capital of Vel’Thalas:

  The marble columns of the hall of audience soared like white trees toward the arched ceiling, where banners of every noble house swayed on unseen winds, it was provoked with magic. Braziers burned with steady, enchanted flame, and moonlight filtered in from the high latticed windows. This was not just a room, it was where history waited to be spoken aloud.

  At the center of a table stood King Vaerond Althandor, his figure robed in twilight blue and adorned with a crown made of mythril, enhanced with ancient runes and with dungeon cores.

  His vassals were seated around the table, generals, arcanists, ambassadors. Behind the king there were two figures, the twin seers of Vel’Thalas, ancient elves bound by pact and blood, born blind but blessed with inner sight. When a new king take the throne, he obtain his own seers, legend says that if a king lose one of them, he was destined to die or be replaced. They were able to see through the strings of destiny.

  All of them were talking about an important event, the trial that the crown oblige to take to his high nobles was close and they were planning how everything would work.

  Just when they were about to wrap up the meeting, the torches flickered, then burned upward, against gravity, casting erratic shadows, the structure of the building shake.

  The seers start screaming.

  It was not the sound of pain alone, but of the soul resisting the flood of divine vision. Their mouths opened until their jaws cracked, black smoke start pouring out of their mouths, it wasn’t smoke coming from a fire, but of memory, ancient, forbidden and dangerous. The court reeled back, guards drawing their blades and mages start channeling their mana.

  The king give a hit to the table, putting the attention to him again.

  “They are receiving a vision, don’t act like that, pay attention to everything and calm down, we cannot succumb to panic.”

  Just when the king manage to have everything under control, the seers start talking at the same time.

  “Born beneath the withering veil

  The cursed child awakens

  Neither oppressor nor savior

  But breaker of the lock and bearer of the key

  They start trembling with the next words, blood starts coming out of their eyes, no one dares to interrupt, every eye are on them, the king doesn’t seem to care but if one look closely into his eyes one can notice his worry.

  She is the edge of the blade

  A question not yet asked

  If she walks in shadow, kingdoms will burn

  If she walks in light, the stars may weep

  The gods have forbidden to intervene

  The choice is for the cursed child to make”

  Then, silence.

  The seers collapsed but the king approaches them.

  “What else can you see?”

  “My king, we shouldn’t try to see more than what has been shown to us, doing so would be defying the gods.”

  “Do it.”

  “My king, please reconsider.” The other seer try to put some sense into him.

  “It is an order!”

  Both of the seers looked afraid of the king, never have they been in the presence of this type of king, not even in time of war.

  The seers incorporate from the ground, take their hands, and face each other, their mana network illuminates the space near them when they start channeling mana.

  “Videre volumus quid non videremus, sortis vestigial nostra manipulare, fila rerum videre decernimus.”

  (We want to see what we shouldn’t see, the traces of destiny are ours to manipulate, we decide to see the threads of reality.)

  The seers give an ancient chant, not a simple spell, doing so it defies the barriers that the spells in their different tiers represent. They touch directly the source of magic and reality directly.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  They start screaming again and everyone expects another prophecy, only that what they obtain is different.

  The seers bend their backs until it breaks, without releasing their hands, they start contorting, until they are bound together like another entity, a grotesque one at that. Ancient runes start appearing in the skin and a voice comes from it.

  “The arrogant always make the same error

  Never learn of past mistakes

  Thinking that you are above the gods

  But we have to teach you a lesson again.”

  It’s the last thing that the entity says before exploding, body parts are everywhere in the once beautiful place.

  The king now cover in blood stay still watching what is left from his two seers.

  “The child…” everyone says how he murmured, turning slowly towards the open windows that overlooked the spires of the capital. “…it has begun.”

  At his side, one man approach him and whispered only for the king to hear.

  “Should we summon the Oracles of the church? Or maybe the archivists?”

  “Yes, we are against time, this could be the worst thing that can happen to us or maybe it can be an opportunity, it depends entirely to us.”

  “As you wish my king.”

  “And someone clean this mess!”

  Eldrenwyn Grove, Kingdom Caer Thalorien.

  The light in Eldrenwyn Grove was not bound to sun or moon, it shimmered through leaves of argent green and deep gold. The trees themselves bent like cathedral spires, bark carved with living glyphs that pulsed in rhythm with the breath of the world.

  In an ancient place, revered by the people of the kingdom, stood the Circle of time sentries, ancient spirits, their forms now bending with nature, it is difficult to see flesh in them, seeing more wood than anything. They don’t move, with their eyes closed, yet at the same time in their heads, they are connected to the past and to the future, they analyze different timelines, only intervening when it’s extremely necessary.

  On this night, they stirred. For the first time in centuries they open their mouths.

  “A child and a curse, intertwined by fate.”

  “A branch we did not grow has borne a fruit we did not dream.”

  “Bad luck leading to death and bad luck leading to life.”

  “The world will shape for the child.”

  “Should we inform the Queen?”

  “Who is ruling right now?”

  “Itharielle.”

  “That child… maybe we should guard silence.”

  “Maybe she changed.”

  “You just need to check the roots to see her, and she’s still the same.”

  “Those in favor to inform Itharielle raise a root close to you.”

  Some roots are raised in the air, apparently even if the ruler is someone who they may consider not proper to her role, she still continues to be their queen, so many of them decide to support her.

  “Then it’s decided, we send the message.”

  “We should send something cryptic so she doesn’t understand anything.”

  “Enough, the last time we follow your advice a kingdom fall.

  “Yes, that was funny, haha!”

  “You need more training, maybe another century before you can give an advice and we take it.”

  The one who their reprimanding move his branches upset about the treatment.

  At the end they send the message to their queen, she would take the decisions, she was elected as the ruler two centuries ago after all.

  High above, in the spire of seasons, the ruling queen Itharielle sat in her throne, her hair changing color every second, hypnotizing whoever look for too long.

  A druid approach her, kneeling before the queen without looking at her, afraid of making a mistake, with great care he retrieve a letter and give to her queen.

  The moment the queen touch the letter itself in green fire, and a message appear in her mind.

  ‘The threadless one wakes.

  Neither bound to grove nor stone.

  The weft frays. The wheel stutters.

  It walks where there are no threads.

  It can be an enemy.

  It can be a savior.

  Don’t make it neither.

  It is the gate to heaven

  Or it is the gate to hell.

  If it learns mercy, we may endure.

  If it learns wrath, even the fire will freeze.’

  The queen takes her own throne at throws it at the wall, anyone can see fury in her eyes.

  “They do it again! I told them that they should stop playing their little games and give a clear message when there was one!”

  “Your highness!” One retainer tries to stop the queen when he sees her leaving the hall.

  “Move away!”

  “Please wait your highness, where are you going?”

  “To cut some branches out of a bunch of old druids!”

  “Your highness wait!”

  The queen exits the hall with all of her retainers following behind her.