The moonstone refused to respond when asked about the night terrors. It was as though a tall wall was built around any revelation that might protect the realm from what my nightmares warned of.
Seven…six…five…
As my breathing slowed and I prepared to try again, the moonstone began to ripple with light.Was I doing that?
“It would be best if you did not tell the others.”The voice startled me stiff and filled every corner of the room. Yet when I looked around, I was still alone. The voice was feminine, but not. Kind, but not. It sounded...old, otherly. A warning.
I rolled those words over in my mind—they were familiar. That was what Firose had said in her sitting room. I was not to tell the others about Mattock’s fears.
My chest constricted as though a weight was being pressed to it.Did the voice mean my Sisters too?The other High Enchantresses of Henosis were the only people Icouldtell anything to. But I’d never dreamed of disobeying the Sisterhood. I’d never dreamed a danger might lurk ahead that we could not solve together.
Crackle. Flash.Smoke swirled around the stone as it sputtered to life with images more vivid than I’d ever conjured before. Typically, a prophecy only showed me fragments—a picture, a conversation, a feeling, a direction, something small that I could form a path to or away from. I’d never been able to conjure all parts of the whole at once. This was something new, and it pulled me in with force.
The city of Luz was below; I stood atop a high wall of what seemed to be a palace. It looked to be the highest point aside from a bell tower at the far end of the city. I’d never seen Luz before but knew it from intuition alone. Buildings of white limestone and blue slate rooftops and cobbled streets stretched for miles. It put all other cities to shame. Not that I hadseenany other cities, even in my visions.
The scene below soon turned to gruesome, gut-wrenching chaos. Blood, smoke, screams and fire permeated every one of my senses—it was unbearable. The bell tower fell. Women and children ran from the city gates only to be met with the swords of armed soldiers cutting them down. The palace walls crumbled below as cannons rocked the ground. There it was, as it had been in all my night terrors—the fall of Luz. Seeing it then, awake, left goosebumps on every inch of me.
Four…three…two…
Bile rose in my throat. I could no longer calm myself by counting.
“You will not survive this war. Do what you must, starling.” The voice echoed through the chamber of my mind that I was now trapped in.
The vision was overwhelmingly clear, all-consuming and severe, like oil had been poured into my ear and settled into my mind. It was unsettling, violating. It sucked the breath from my lips and the energy from my limbs.
This was no night terror. The moonstone did not lie. This was a prophecy.
The rest unfolded in a rush of whispers and words—all of the realm would fall. Towns and cities would burn to ash. Each would meet a demise more grisly, more heartbreaking than the last.Peace Prevail,make it stop.
I cried out, “Stop it! Stop…please!”
But the vision still gripped me. I couldn’t get out.
My eyes slammed shut, but the screams and heat of fire still accosted me. Then the smell of something distinctly evil invaded my senses; it raised the hair on the back of my neck and smelled of whale oil from a lamp but deeper, sootier, and rancid. I’d read that dark magic came with a stench—was it the smell of burning flesh?I’d never smelled either before, so I couldn’t be sure.
I held my hands over my ears but could still hear those gut-wrenching shrieks.
“Stop!”
Then everything quieted.
When I opened my eyes, the streets were empty below, save for debris, blood and ash. I sunk to my knees before the orb.
“It is time to act, Sister of the Stars. Go to the young Queen.”
My vision cleared of the horrendous scene, and I was back in my tower. Every candle in the tower blew out as though the air was sucked from the room. The light of the orb sputtered out and left me in the pitch-black room. Being alone in the dark was a reprieve from the visions I’d experienced.
Crumpling to the ground, I let my tears fall to the cold stone.
Ten…nine…eight…seven…six…
Exhaustion took hold, and I hoped for peaceful sleep to take me.
* * *
I awokeon the stone floor and began pacing the space like a caged animal.
Despite the immensity of the space, the tower had never seemed so confining as it did now. Walls lined with shelves of ancient Phynnic and Brennac texts stretched twenty feet to the ceiling, and arched iron windows laden with overgrown ivy towered above.
