Every single person in the chamber stared at me in horror. The Prime Seeress looked pale. Actually pale. A thin line of blood ran from beneath one of her white eyes.
“What did you see?” she demanded sharply.
I swallowed hard, my heartbeat still hammering from the vision. “I…”
An inner instinct stopped me. No. Not instinct. Protection. The overwhelming certainty that if I told them abouthim, something terrible would happen.
“A coming darkness.” I didn't exactly lie. I just left the part about the golden man out.
The Prime Seeress stared at me for a long moment. Too long. She knew. Or at least suspected. The golden light around the Circle flickered violently again. Right before alarms began screaming.
Every initiate jumped as crimson warning lights flooded the chamber. The priests erupted into instant chaos.
“What is happening?”
“Security breach!”
“The lower gates?—”
An explosion shook the temple hard enough to crack crystal pillars. Dust rained from the ceiling. Screams erupted throughout the chamber as another violent impact thundered through the structure. The Prime Seeress whirled toward the temple guards. “Seal the sanctum immediately!”
But it was too late already.
The massive iron doors at the far end of the Ascension Chamber exploded inward in a storm of smoke and shattered crystal. Armed men flooded through the opening. Not temple guards. Rebels.
Their armor was mismatched and battle-worn, their weapons scavenged from half a dozen civilizations. One man stood out; he was older. Scars marred his face and every other visible patch of skin. Danger oozed from him in rivulets. His silver-streaked hair was tied back tightly while a blaster rifle rested easily in his hands. His sharp gaze swept the chamber once. Then landed directly on me.
Temple guards surged toward him instantly and were met by an army of rebels, who opened fire. Screams erupted all around me. Accolades, initiates, and priests fled, while I stood. Not frozen. Far from it. Adrenaline surged through me, as if even then I sensed that this was the moment my life would irrevocably change. A change I had been praying for as long as I could remember.
Chaos detonated through the chamber.
The man walked straight for me, as little impressed with the chaos around me as I.
"You are a Prime Luminae.”
“You are a rebel.” I didn't question it. As sheltered as we were at the Temple, even we had heard of the rebels.
“Yes.”
“You shot a priest.”
“Yes.”
Another explosion rocked the chamber.
"You're not running."
"Should I?"
He sighed heavily. “We truly do not have time for this conversation.”
Two temple guards lunged toward me. He shot both without even looking. Their bodies hit the crystalline floor hard enough to crack the glowing glyphs beneath them.
Around us, the Ascension Chamber had descended fully into chaos. Initiates screamed while temple guards exchanged blaster fire with rebels between collapsing crystal pillars. Sacred banners burned. Smoke rolled through the golden light in dark waves. The man looked at me like he was trying to decide whether I would become another problem.
Fair. I was often a problem.
Another explosion thundered through the chamber.
