Before he could blink, the fire raging in the temple flickered out.
He was left in silence and darkness, with the scent of burning wood and thick smoke choking him.
“You want to be greater than the Veridian Empire?”
“To rival them in power and strength?”
The pressure reached his skull. It wrapped around him, pushing from all sides until he clutched his head with a groan. “What are you doing to me?” he cried out.
A deep laugh echoed in the temple. “Giving you what you asked for.”
“The power to rule your people,”
“To keep your kingdom safe,”
“To protect against your foes.”
“Greater than what your enemies possess.”
Images flared through Nyses’s mind. Slow and blurry at first, and then in rapid succession, the visions became clearer and clearer with each passing second.
His nightmares came to life.
Fields and homes razed to the ground. Unimaginable beasts prowled the earth, soldiers battled in pools of blood, spirits walked among the living. Crops and animals and land rotted before him. Screaming, mourning, pleading, crying.
Nyses gripped his hair and cried out in anguish. It burned the backs of his eyes, but no matter what he did, he couldn’t get the visions to cease.
“What is this?” he roared as his knees buckled and hit the hard floor.
“The future,” all three Fates said at once.
“We have given you everything you have ever wanted,” one said.
“The greatest gift you could dream of.”
That same ominous laugh filled the room.
“And the greatest burden you couldbear.”
Behind his closed eyelids, he saw himself, but many decades in the future. The same dark golden skin, wavy brown hair streaked with silver, a face sagging with wrinkles, and pain in his eyes. He watched his older self fall to the ground in an empty bedchamber, his body seizing and shaking until suddenly, he went still.
“Get up, King,” one of the voices spat.
“Did you think you could trick us?”
“Bargain with us?”
“Coerce us?”
“We are the Fates of this world,” they responded together, the sound grating against his ears as they grew louder and louder.
“You wished to be as powerful as us?”
“Then here you are.”
“You shall see as we see.”
“Know as we know.”
