Centuries ago…
They would be callingherthe Oracleby this time tomorrow eve, and forever after.
Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be long before Endellion forgot she wasn’t anything of the sort.
Perched like a wraith on the highest mountaintop, she cast her gaze into the basin below. An earthen pedestal of rock and diamond held the Palace of Argoph above the heavy fog blanketing the Weeping City—the names of both twisting inside her.
That beacon of ivory and gold glittered as moonlight skimmed its surfaces between tendrils of the shifting haze, the Fountain of All Life springing forth from its uppermost level and infinitely feeding the waterfalls tumbling over the cliff edge.
Blanketed as the city was in mist and darkness, she could barely make out the five rivers they formed—cutting across theland through forest and peak before spilling into the realms they fed—but no matter.
She’d seen this sight before and what followed.
The circumstances of the next few minutes had been her constant companion of late, her true life’s purpose both ending and beginning in this infinitesimal snippet of time.
She would never truly be ready for what awaited her, but there was no real choice.
Blistering wind whistled through the gargantuan passes around her, raking its icy fingers across her cheeks and snapping at her robes. She drew in a harsh breath, then another, and turned her eyes towards the cosmos for one, last look at her beloved stars.
Even seeing it so many times through her Sight that she’d lost count, Endellion hadn’t expected the reality to be quite so spectacular.
Still staring upwards, she wished for the thousandth time that she was able to share her visions in a more helpful way, but the laws of her power and people forbade it. Instead, she was forced to speak in loathsome riddles and ludicrous rhymes.
Once—and only once—she’d tried to divulge a vision plainly. The agony afterwards was not something one easily forgets. And the captain had still drowned in the storm she’d foreseen, pinned beneath the mast of his own damned ship.
Never again,she’d sworn, preferring those hated rhymes and riddles to her own pain and the death of innocents.
“Ah, but how easily vows can be broken,” she sighed to the sky.
She would be doing a lot of that before the end.
Not today, though.
No, she had to use her convoluted gift in its intended fashion this time. It was the only way this world and its people might be saved from utter destruction.
With barely a thought, particles of energy solidified as a cyclone of sparks in the air, before clinging to her golden skin. She closed her eyes, enveloped by the comforting celestial warmth, and leapt into the ether with a blazing flash.
Endellion appeared above Argoph’s Seat with a sudden, quaking burst, held aloft on her feathered wings. She’d seen herself arrive from the view of every soul below, terror in their hearts as they beheld her—a creature from songbooks and legend, little more than a myth, her blinding starfire pouring from within her in massive waves to bathe every crack and crevice of the vaulted court.
She summoned a maelstrom of wind, the snow-white curls that framed her face and body barely teased by the tempest she was creating.
Just because she could.
The drama of her calling had always been Endellion’s favorite part, and she’d relished the shock and awe of creatures worlds over. If the situation weren’t so serious, she might have even giggled at the whole thing.
It would be nice to laugh one, last, genuine time.
Instead, her shining eyes locked onto Stennyx, Emperor of Bordoroth.
The colossal ruler towered over his subjects, black horns curling and skin blazing with the marks of his Blessing as he dug his feet into the quartz tiles and snarled at her. Even to one such as her, his strength was astonishing, and a drop of sadness trickled its way into her heart at knowing his fate.
“I come to warn you, Emperor Stennyx, that you might ready your progeny.” Her voice boomed with an eerie, crackling energy—a woven medium for countless others, unseen and funneling through her.
With a deep breath, Endellion gathered the wisdom of the ages unto herself, channeling the sorcery that would filter herphrasing. A blink and her eyes lost focus as she stared into the abyss of all time, their light multiplying, and the words she’d traveled galaxies to deliver finally left her with a wrenching force.
“A shadow, once living, abides in bleak places
A vengeance, once loving, on five towers gazes
