292. A.D. Age of the Drunken Monk, Middle Kingdom

Gwel let out a sigh of relief when she saw a column of thick, black smoke rise from the woods behind the hill. Her eyes were barely working, but her sense of smell was sharper than ever. The wind carried the smell of burnt bodies and wood, as well as the song of well-fed steel, drunk on warm blood.

A normal person would feel his blood run cold and run back from whence they came, but not Gwel. With confidence in her step, she followed the comet’s trail, wondering what fate had in store for her. Her Queen had made it clear that she had chosen her, her priestess, for a very special task. As it usually was with these kinds of stories, she didn’t know the details. Fate, unlike the Gods, was silent in her omniscience.

Bare feet covered with scabs kept sinking into mud, but Gwel pushed on. As long as she had her trusty staff, carved from the Enchanted Tree, she could go on. The staff was nothing special in its appearance and price, but any Ternite would turn green with envy if they knew how powerful it was.

The grass rustled under her feet, speaking to Gwel in a language she had learned so long ago that she’d sometimes confuse it with that of the humans. The clouds moved across the sky with such grace that they’d put any aristocrat to shame. They spoke to her about Fate, and she listened.

At night, when the messenger visited their lands under the inky cover of the heavens, a heated battle took place. A caravan of dozen of travelers stumbled upon the Order of the Clawed Wing, the members of which were mostly necromancers and evil spellcasters.

They were beardless youths, enjoying their own strength and a sense of omnipotence, and those who wanted to sell their tender, young bodies to the demons. It’s because of such scum that the people of the Thirteen Kingdoms hated all those who had anything to do with magic, the so-called Ternites.

Gwel followed the path that divided the forest into two and stopped at the edge of the clearing.

Clouds always liked to embellish their stories ― they were too high up so couldn’t see the details. What they described as a battle, was a massacre. Torn bodies of the caravan guards lay scattered across the forest floor, now the color of wet vitriol. All of the young men who had picked up the sword, hoping, no, longing for fame and adventure, never thinking of their mothers who cried by the windows, wondering when their sons would come home.

Gwel spat.

More than nobles and kings, she hated those who thought they were strong enough to struggle outside the city’s walls.

Stepping over the body of a guard whose swollen tongue could be seen through his ripped throat, the old priestess approached the scorched stagecoach. It was there, in the bowels of a once beautiful wagon that the pulse of terna was felt.

“Move over, corpse,” Gwel said and pushed away a tall, handsome man that was blocking the entrance.

A rain of dozen arrows tore through his leather armor and sent him flying few feet to the side. The first rule of the inhabitants of an unnamed planet was that one should never stand on the way of an old woman dressed in rags as you never knew just what kind of magic they wielded or who they talked to in their enchanted groves.

Gwel sighed when she realized that trying to climb into the wagon would make her old bones crack and ache.

Peeking in she saw that the attackers didn’t shy away from vandalizing everything that was on their way. And while the stagecoach still resembled a stagecoach from the outside, its interior was that of an oven ― char, and nothing but. Judging by the number of arrows that had lodged themselves into the coach, the attackers must’ve attacked from all sides. It was a tasteless and dishonorable tactic but an efficient one.

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“I’m too old for this, my Queen,” Gwel whispered, observing the looted and destroyed chests and boxes.

Straightening her back, she hit the ground with her staff and moved her lips in silent prayer. She spoke in a language that only a few could understand and only if they had tamed the wildest of magics.

A moment later, the fallen beams inside the coach began to shake, the sooth from them crumbled and the broken wheels repaired themselves. Tatters rose from the ground and reunited in the air, forming beautiful tapestries and cloths. Shreds of glass rattled as they merged back into vials and a couple of vases.

“And who do we have here...?”

Gwel climbed up the creaky stairs and pushed aside the curtain that hid the now restored interior of the coach. It was well-equipped and quite cozy, suggesting that the owners of the caravan were planning on being away from home for quite a while. During their travels from one continent to another, they had managed to acquire enough goods to attract the attention of the heretics.

On the floor, in a pool of dried blood, lay a once beautiful woman, the one that the Fiery Fae had been guarding. At least now it was clear from where all that fire had come from.

Locks of raven hair were still smoldering. Pale, thin limbs were bent in unnatural angles, and her cheap, but beautiful dress was eaten away by the flames and reduced to ugly tatters.

“My dear, dear girl,” Gwel said, sitting down on a stool that rushed over to her from the other corner of the room. “Didn’t your mother tell you that you’d never come back home if you go with the Fae?”

Using the end of her staff, she removed the rags from the woman’s abdomen and groin. Closing her eyes and shaking her head, Gwel sighed.

“Couldn’t have left the woman to die with dignity, you vile beasts... To violate a pregnant woman... Oh my dear, dear child... What have they done to you?”

With her third eye, she saw a faint glow emanating from the woman’s womb. And although she had been dead for several hours now, the child... The child had miraculously survived. No, not by

miracle, God’s didn’t like bestowing anyone with those. It had survived to spite them, and to avenge those who had murdered its mother.

Gwel pulled a curved dagger from the folds of her robe and kneeled by the woman. “You just might live a better life than your predecessor, little one... They were born dead.”

The blade slid across the swollen stomach, easily slicing through the bruised skin. Blood trickled onto the floor, filling the cracks between the planks and dripping onto the already red soil. Without even flinching, Gwel reached into the slit and pulled the baby out and into the light. The boy looked disgusting covered in slime and blood, but it was a life worth saving nonetheless.

After cutting the cord, Gwel removed the scarf from her head and wrapped it around the child. Her thick, silver hair fell over her shoulder, revealing a burn on her forehead ― the mark of a slave.

The child didn’t cry.

“Hm, seems to be dead...”

Gwel was about to abandon him and leave when she noticed a thin, clean trail on his cheeks. The boy wept and breathed, but he did not scream.

“Isn’t it funny, if not frightening, that the first emotion the newborn feels is pain?” Gwel asked no one in particular and got out of the wagon. Her staff, as if it had come to life, leaped after her as she cradled the child in her arms. “The world immediately warns it that it’s a cruel and dangerous place, but children never listen...”

Once again, she stopped by the young warrior in torn chainmail. The steel rings were biting into his chest and the crows that had

gathered on the branches were looking greedily at his exposed ribs. They’d soon fly down and feast, but for the time being, they’d observe the priestess and listen to the sound of the approaching hooves.

Someone seemed to have noticed the smoke rising above the treetops and called the guards to go and investigate.

“What do you need, you blob of flesh?” Gwel asked, noticing that the child was trying to reach its hands toward her.

As it turned out, she had stopped right next to the body of a Fae. Its inhuman, black eyes were glassy and body drenched in scarlet. Most people still didn’t believe that they existed. Then again, people didn’t believe in a lot of things, but that didn’t prevent them from bowing to idols and touching the marble floors of the temples with their foreheads.

“A sign?”

She looked down at the child and saw in its eyes not only its fate but that of the whole world. Its barely opened eyes were of different colors ― one brown, almost black, and the other bright blue.

“Half-breed,” she hissed and nearly dropped the child in disgust. “Thank you, little princess... You’ve awarded me in my old age...”

The child continued reaching upward, making the priestess grimace and wave her cloak. The staff, frozen behind her, flew over to its mistress and the trio disappeared into a black haze, dispersed by the wind.

When a party of horsemen led by a knight arrived at the scene of the massacre, all they found was a caravan destroyed by an angered Fae.