Page 4

“Lark…” Sterling’s voice holds a warning, but curiosity has already gotten the better of me.

I pull at the twine, and the brown paper falls away, revealing a wooden box with intricate carvings along the edges. The lid slides open with a gentle push of my fingers.

Inside, nestled in black velvet, rests a bizarre artifact made of crystal and silver. It resembles a star caught in mid-explosion, the brilliant central sphere surrounded by delicate silver filaments that extend outward, each tipped with smaller crystals of varying sizes.

The way the light sparkles through the luminous object enthralls me. “What is it?”

Sterling leans closer, his shoulder brushing mine. “Some kind of art piece, maybe? At least it doesn’t look like a bird.”

I reach in and carefully lift the artifact from the velvet nest. The box must be heavy because the object itself is almost weightless in my palm. The crystals capture and fracture the sunlight streaming through the window into multicolored prisms that waltz across our faces.

My breath catches. “It’s beautiful.”

As I turn it to examine the craftsmanship, my finger accidentally brushes against a tiny silver lever hidden among the filaments. There’s a soft click, followed by a musical tone so pure it vibrates through my bones.

Sterling and I exchange a glance, his wary, mine intrigued.

He starts to caution me. “Lark⁠—”

The air overhead shimmers like heat rising from summer stones.

A crack appears in the empty space, and hundreds of narrow, diamond-bright waterfalls tumble out. They cast glittering rainbows across the room as they cascade down, yet nothing gets wet. Like ghosts, the streams pass through solid objects—tables, gifts, our outstretched hands—and vanish just before they touch the floor.

“Sterling,” I whisper, unable to summon more words. My pulse gallops in my neck.

Is this like the visions I had in the Lost City? The ones containing a memory of the past that replayed in the present?

We stand transfixed, watching prisms flow from nowhere, surrounded by the gentle tinkling of distant wind chimes.

Sterling’s hand finds mine and squeezes tight. His face, illuminated by the radiance of the falling streams, is a mask of shock that must mirror my own, his lips set in a grim line. “I think we need to figure out who sent that to us.”

I kneel to pick up one of the crystals. “What the…? It doesn’t make any sense, but I’m pretty sure these are real diamonds.”

Sterling crouches and holds a stone as large as his thumbnail up to the light. “I think you’re right.”

Our eyes meet across the glittering floor, and his expression reflects my own growing bewilderment and nagging discomfort.

Something’s wrong. Something’s terribly wrong.

Three figures huddle in a circle in a stone chamber while the air around them thickens with palpable energy and ancient power. Shadows play along the walls, shifting and flowing like ghosts haunting the halls and attempting to cling to the threads of existence.

The figures gaze down at the silvery pool of water. Images slither through the depths, visions of things that are, were, and could possibly be. A myriad of potential outcomes, of rippling destinies that could intertwine with the lives of mortals.

The first figure, draped in a robe of deep indigo, hovers close to the pool’s edge. He presses his palm flat against the surface, and a cascade of silver light bursts forth. “It is part of the pattern.”

The second figure, garbed in shimmering white and tendrils of soft golden light, trails slender fingers through the liquid, disrupting the waters of what was. Scenes from the past emerge. Flashes of wars, love, betrayal.

“It has happened before.” The second one’s voice, though gentle, is heavy with a sense of history and experience.

The third entity studies the pool’s contents. Her features twist with determination.

Her eyes smolder like coals, piercing through the surface into the depths of potential futures. “It will change nothing.”

A thick, ancient silence stretches, broken only by the faint rippling of the water beneath their spectral forms.

Each god, a fragment of the cosmos, contemplates the events unfolding below. The mortal negotiations caught in the balance of unseen whims and twisted fates.

The pool stirs anew. Visions dance and flicker before them, reflecting the point in time where possibilities loom near.