I saw myself in the temple archives, uncovering an ancient version of the Song of the Destroyer. But as soon as my eyes fell on the page, the letters began to glow and shift, until I was dazzled by light. When I could see again, there was a new stanza there, nestled in among the old familiar prophecy. And my heart was filled with such certainty, suchpurpose, that when the vision faded, I found myself standing in the middle of my chamber, gasping, face wet with tears.
When I could move again, I ran to the shelf in the archives where I’d found the scroll in my vision. I crouched there on the tiled floor, unrolling the dusty text that had been hidden behind a row of ancient census notes, while the bindle cat batted at night insects attracted by my lamp.
The letters would not change or glow, no matter how hard I stared at them. There was no lost stanza, no sign of anything unusual.
But the ancient scrollwasthere, exactly where it had been in my vision. Though the words were missing, how could I have known of its existence unless my vision was real? Divinely inspired, showing me the path to my purpose?
That scroll meant everything.
When I showed it to the Master of Archives, he glanced at it briefly and shrugged. “The lettering is ancient, but the page is not,” Matias said. “See how the edges of it are milled here? It’s a copy at best. More likely, it’s a fake. Young scholars and acolytes do sometimes try to speed up their rise in the ranks by claiming to have found lost examples of prophecy.”
But I knew what I had seen. The lost stanza in my vision was burned into my mind with perfect clarity.
The empty vessel, it read,
will at the end of days
seek the land kissed by the sun.
For only on that journey
before a swift gray tide
will the last star fall.
The empty one
will keep the star
as a brand against the darkness,
and only in that glow
will the Lightbringer look upon this page
and know himself… .
The thick humidity of the forest-sea vanishes at the river’s edge, the change in the air pulling me from the memory. The bindle cat is waiting for me there, as if he knew I would seek some quiet out beyond the trees. I stoop to run a finger along the underside of his chin, then step out onto one of the smaller rafts lashed to the barge. Before I was called it would’ve been no different from walking on solid ground. Now, I notice how unstable it feels.
I’m becoming too pampered, I think sourly, glaring down at the bundled reeds below my boots.
The words of the prophecy’s lost stanza fade in my mind’s eye, replaced by the Graycloak we saw at dawn, his words still ringing in my ears.
An empty girl called Nimh …
I could not explain to Daoman’s satisfaction why the lost stanza had seized me so completely. I wasfilled upwith the idea that there could be a reason, somepurposeto this torture of a half-life.
I was empty, without aspect, because fate had chosen me for something far greater than I had guessed, surrounded by the rising, swift gray tide of dissenters… .
The time of the Lightbringer’s return had come—and I was the one who would discover him.
Just to think it is almost too much to bear, much less speak the idea aloud, as if the telling would somehow rob it of meaning.
Or you’re afraid, my mind whispers.Too scared of failure to let anyone know how hard you’re trying …
As my thoughts threaten to tangle themselves together, I draw in a deep breath of the fresh air and lift my chin. I cannot afford to indulge my worries. I can worry when I’ve returned.
Fireflies glint among the reeds and over the water, a dazzling arrhythmic display. As if in answer, their larval offspring nestled in the creases of the river lettuce glow in a gentler, softer dance.
