My words were final and rang with power. With a smile, Faylinnand Rohak turned and left the library, their shuffling steps echoing through the empty, dark space.
I stayed, hidden by shadows, long after the doors shut behind their retreating forms. Soon, there would be nothing left for me here in Elyria, not until the time came again. The silence was deafening, and I suddenly itched to return home.
I released my shadows, letting them wind around my limbs and caress my skin. As my body turned incorporeal, my sight fading as I left this plane, I fixed my gaze on the edge of Faylinn’s golden book, shining in the blue Mage light.
The last thing I saw before the shadows consumed me completely and the runes guarding the book activated—hiding it until the right place, the right time, the right person—was Faylinn’s handwriting down the spine, proudly declaring the title of her life’s work:
The Children of Fate.
Chapter One Hundred Thirty-Four
Somewhere in the Ether…
YEARS LATER
“Your purpose is fulfilled.”A whisper that shook the foundations of reality.“I will bless and keep you. Together forevermore in the ether.”
The fabric of reality ripped—a small fissure, really—just wide enough to usher in the two Life Lights that twined about each other so tightly they often coalesced into one. Round and round they spun, completely in each other’s orbit, never straying apart. The other souls twinkled and sparkled in response to their obvious joy, creating a flickering of light that not even the immortals themselves could deny.
On and on they danced and writhed, their soft pulsations brightening the ether until the other souls danced to their tune; even Fate stopped to bask in their jubilance.
The rip in the ether was minuscule, but Fate should have been concerned about what could escape. Distracted by the souls he’d placed here, he forgot to close the opening.
Quietly, dancing in time with the new souls’ tune, two Life Lights moved ever closer to the only fissure in eons. Just before the fabric of reality sewed itself shut once more, they descended from the ether to rejoin the souls of the living.
Somewhere, deeper in the ether, a cluster of Life Lights brightened together as one, outshining all others.
Complete,they seemed to sing.The prophecy is complete.
After all, two must rise in order for two to fall.
