City of Fenira, Last Moon of Winter, Year 6014, Imperial calendar

Choices. So many choices. Buds on a never-ending tree of life branching onto eternity. Choices someone has to make for the tree to grow or, die.

Nahira wept as her gift and her curse held her in the state of seeing. For those around her, time it took her to divine a future lasted no more than a flutter of a heart falling in love. A moment so vague and short it often went unnoticed. For her, eons passed in torment as she traveled along the branches of tree of life observing the choices of others and their consequences. Rarely she was given the chance to see the result of her own hands twisting the paths of destiny.

How many will die this time?

A village? A town? A kingdom? An entire continent? Or perhaps this whole accursed empire and the world with it?

No. Her hands held the fate of a single, righteous man.

Her words would offer him a chance to live yet her choice marked him dead. And for what? To push the veil of blood away few hundred years more? No.

She heard her own voice whispering in her own ears, one shall die for the other to follow a heart twice broken into the ice and blood.

Was there no other way? Such choice? To put all faith on a branch no thicker than a twig? To let everything to a fancy of a man?

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She weighted the other paths her eyes have seen.

When she reached her resolve, her seeing ended just as abruptly as it took her. Fafnee still sat beside her, brushing her golden mane with utmost celebration, for she could touch her goddess.

Nahira dried her eyes, making sure none of her tears would reach the girl then coiled herself behind her.

“Fafnee, we have work to do.”

The child froze in anticipation as the seer’s hand worked undoing the straps of the leather mask secured on the girl’s face. It was there for a reason, the girl knew, but the allure of the seer’s face tempted her so much she waited eager to catch a glimpse of that unearthly beauty.

And then it came, the moment the mask loosened. Fafnee blinked her eyes adjusting to the sudden brightness then, let her eyes roam above her. There its was, the face she loved some much. Deep red lips. The milky skin without a single blemish. The thick, black, curling eyelashes, even more alluring then the elves had. And the mysterious light dancing underneath the closed eyelids.

Nahira clicked her tongue in disapproval.

“What have I told you little one?”

That there was only death in those eyes for the ones that looked into them. Fafnee reprimanded herself but could not take her eyes away from that face. The seer, pressed the blindfold against her closed eyes and readjusting the harness around her own head, she sealed it with her magic.

“Come.”

She let the child ride her tail while she slithered through the temple corridors.

“Were are we going?” The girl asked clinging onto the seer’s belly.

“You, my dear? To the kitchen for a proper meal.” Fafnee’s stomach rumbled in agreement.

“I must go and visit the Count. He has sentenced an innocent man for a crime he did not commit. I must…” Her words wavered.

“… not let that man die.”

Not in this place. Here his death would have no value.

No, that man shall not die by the axe.