'Welcome to the tower,' Ellen said brightly as they walked under a huge black arch. Lewis was fairly sure it was the first time he had seen her smile. Clearly, she was happy to be here. That made one of them, at least.

Ever since he had first seen the tower, he had been expecting to find it heavily guarded. On the contrary, it seemed to be uninhabited, at least from the outside. If it hadn't been for the wind whistling through the mountains and the soft patter of rain in the dark courtyard, it would have been completely silent. Despite the sudden improvement in Ellen's mood, the three of them remained silent as they followed her towards the huge doors. As they got closer, there was a creak, and one of the large wooden doors opened slowly to reveal a woman in a dark red cloak, the hood pulled up over her head.

'We expected you sooner. Where is Wilson? she said bluntly.

'The weather conspired against us,' Ellen replied with a dark look in Lewis' direction. 'Wilson was killed by a primitive hunter.'

'Never mind,' she said. 'This is the one?'

'It is,' Ellen said.

'My name is Veronica Morrison,' she said coldly, turning to Lewis. 'I am the assistant of Christine Pierce, the leader of The Dawn. We have been expecting you for some time.'

Unsure what to say, Lewis settled for a curt nod. If it was possible, Veronica seemed even colder than Ellen. Beside him, Cassandra shifted uncomfortably, her hand squeezing his gently. On the other side, Olivia had become very interested in her shoes.

'What are you still doing here?' Veronica said suddenly, looking at Olivia. 'Don't you have duties to attend to?'

'Yes, Miss Morrison,' Olivia muttered. With a glance back at Lewis, she moved past Veronica, entering the tower.

'Who are you?' demanded Veronica, turning her attention to Cassandra once Olivia had disappeared.

'This is Cassandra, my wife,' Lewis said before she could answer for herself. In an attempt to make it more convincing, he lifted their clasped hands a little.

'We spoke about this before you left,' Veronica said angrily, her eyes shifting to Ellen. 'You were to bring him and no one else.'

'I had no choice,' Ellen replied.

'Is that so? Your report will be considered,' Veronica said. Pausing, she looked at something behind her. With a nod, she looked back at them before stepping aside to allow them inside. 'She can stay for now. I expect that report on my desk by sunrise as well,' she called after Ellen, who was attempting to slink away unnoticed as soon as she was inside the tower. With a nod, she turned, disappearing down a dark corridor just inside the door.

The entrance hall that they had been allowed into was plain. Made entirely of black stone like the outside of the tower, the only notable features were the large doors, identical to the ones they had just passed through, set in the opposite wall in the centre of two staircases. Above the doors was a stone balcony, and a woman, whom Lewis guessed to be in her late seventies at least, was watching on in a long emerald dress. For a moment, she considered them before turning her back and disappearing up the stairs behind her.

'We will show you to your room later,' Veronica said. 'The meal started about twenty minutes ago. If you are lucky, you might be able to get something to eat.'

When they nodded their agreement, she turned, beckoning for them to follow her across the entrance hall towards the large doors. Pausing to peer inside, it was a moment before she opened the door fully to allow them in.

It seemed as though they were in luck. There were two long wooden tables still laden with food in the hall. One table was made up entirely of people dressed in red cloaks of varying shades. At the other, perhaps a dozen people sat in white cloaks. The majority of them were sat together at one end of the table, although one man was sat alone in the middle of the table. It wasn't until he looked up, staring directly at Lewis, that he realised the room had fallen silent.

'You will sit here,' she said, directing the pair of them to the mostly empty table with the people in white cloaks. 'After the meal, I will come and get you to take you to your room.'

With a nod, Lewis sat down on the bench, with Cassandra taking a seat opposite him. He was painfully aware that everyone was still watching them.

'Well, this is nice,' Cassandra muttered as she looked around at the food. Despite the lack of people at the table, there was still food laid out along the entire length.

Whether she was being sarcastic or not, he couldn't tell. It did, however, make a difference to have a meal prepared for them. Something other than stew from whatever they had managed to catch was nice as well. 'Don't plan on getting too used to it,' he muttered as he scanned the other table for Olivia. There was no sign of her anywhere.

'This is really good; you should eat something,' Cassandra said as she stabbed a piece of meat with her fork. He hadn't noticed that she had already loaded her own plate and half cleared it while he had been looking for Olivia. With a shake of his head, he put aside his thoughts about Olivia and began to load his own plate. Only now did he realise just how hungry he was.

Eventually everyone went back to their meals and conversations slowly, although he managed to catch the words they were saying about his arrival. Does this happen often? he wondered. Olivia had said that people arrived at the tower from time to time; what was so different about them?

'Ignore them,' a familiar voice said behind him. Looking up, he found Olivia standing there, no longer dressed in the clothes she had brought from Springcaster but in a light red cloak. 'Life in the tower has always been sheltered. Anyone new arriving is always the topic of the day.'

'Thanks,' he said appreciatively. 'I was beginning to think we were different.'

'That you are. Welcome to the tower, Lewis Vandemark,' a woman said from his other side. Almost jumping out of his skin, he spun around. Standing on his other side was the woman in the emerald dress that he had seen on the balcony above the entrance hall. 'My name is Christine Pierce; I am the leader of The Dawn and the headmistress of the tower.'

'How do you know my name?' Lewis asked, dumbfounded. They hadn't even been here for half an hour. Had Ellen finished her report already?

'I have been anticipating this day for many, many years,' she said. 'I have waited a long time to meet another Vandemark.'

'Another Vandemark?' said Lewis. If he wasn't the first Vandemark at the tower, then who else had been here before him?

'Yes. You would never have known him, but I must say, you are the spitting image of him,' Christine said as she adjusted her shoulder-length grey hair, pushing it away from her brown eyes. 'I would be honoured if you would join me for a drink.'

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'Of course,' he said, taken aback. Was this normal for a new arrival at the tower? Judging by the surprised look on Olivia's face, he guessed not.

'Olivia, when you have finished your meal, would you take Cassandra to the room we've prepared?' Christine asked. 'Floor eleven, room nine.'

Nodding, Olivia turned away, heading over to the other table, where she took one of the vacant seats. She had barely sat down when Veronica stood up, heading in their direction. 'Headmistress, I was just about to take them to their room,' she said.

'That won't be necessary tonight,' Christine said, waving her away. 'Olivia will handle it; you have lessons to prepare for.'

'Yes, Headmistress,' she said with a glance at Lewis and Cassandra. Without another word, she turned, marching out of the double doors and into the entrance hall.

'If you would consent to join me, we will move to my office,' Christine said, looking down at Lewis. 'Don't worry, Olivia will see that Cassandra is taken care of until we have finished.

Pushing his leftovers to one side, he set down the knife and fork. 'I'll see you later,' he said, offering Cassandra a smile as he stood up.

For the second time, he felt the eyes of everyone in the room fall on him as he followed Christine towards the entrance hall. 'The looks will pass,' she said quietly, as if she had sensed them as well.

'You said I wasn't the only Vandemark to visit the tower,' Lewis said. 'Who was the other?'

'His name was Arden; I grew up with him,' she said, leading him up the staircase that led to the balcony. From there, she took him up the second staircase, the one she had climbed just after he had arrived.

'Arden, you don't mean—

'The one who destroyed Arcadia?' She cut across him. 'The very same.'

'But how?' he asked. Arcadia fell more than a century ago. The woman beside him barely looked half the age she would need to be to have grown up with him.

'I assure you, I did,' she said with a smile. 'How much do you know about the tower?'

'Not much; Ellen wasn't really much of a talker,' he replied. 'Apparently they used to train precursors here.'

'Used to? We still do. Since Arcadia fell, the numbers have dwindled remarkably, though,' Christine said. 'The first thing you need to understand is that the lifespan of a precursor is between two and three times that of a human. Does that answer your question?'

'So, you knew Arcadia before it fell, then?'

'Yes, I did, briefly,' she said. 'When I was thirteen, I was taken from Arcadia by The Dawn. They brought me to this tower, where I began my education to control the precursor power I had been born with. That was when I lost contact with Arden. We had promised to visit each other, but we didn't know that visitors were not permitted at that time.

'Fifteen years passed, during which time I completed my education and began to rise through the ranks of The Dawn with the help of the previous headmistress. At twenty-eight, I became the youngest leader of The Dawn ever recorded. That was also the same year that Arden arrived at the tower. Unlike other precursors, he had been tutored by his father, preferring to stay in Arcadia,' Christine said. Lewis had lost count of the number of flights of stairs that they had climbed while she had been talking.

'Why did he come here if his father had tutored him then?' he asked.

'You are just like him in more than appearance, I see,' she said. 'Arden was always very methodical. He would assess every option, logical or not, before making a decision. It was what made us such good friends growing up.'

Not sure how to respond to her compliment, he stayed silent as they reached the top of the staircase. Instead of turning towards the next one that led further up into the tower, she turned away, leading him across the hallway to a door with a cloudy pane of glass set in the wood. Producing a key, she unlocked it, opening it to reveal a warmly lit room. Unlike the rest of the tower that he had seen so far, it was furnished lavishly.

Directing him towards the chair in front of the mahogany desk, she shut the door behind them. 'Have a seat,' she said as she moved over to the tall drinks cabinet that stood against the wall behind the desk. While she busied herself with a pair of glasses and a bottle of deep amber liquid, he looked around the room.

Behind the desk was a small window with dark red curtains pulled across in front of it. Through the small gap, he could see the darkness outside pressing against the glass. On the walls around the room were various paintings, the majority of them featuring different views of the tower surrounded by snow-covered mountains.

'I'm afraid we have few luxuries here. Everything we eat or drink has to be produced within the tower, and, as you can imagine, the side of a volcano isn't the best place for produce,' she said, setting a crystal glass that had been half filled with the amber liquid. 'This is Wintercress nectar; it should help to warm you. Olivia tells me, you have had a tough couple of days.'

'Thank you,' he said, taking the offered glass and sipping it. She was right; it was warming, he thought as the thick, sweet nectar slipped down his throat, leaving a warm trail.

'When Arden Vandemark came to the tower, he brought a young girl with him. Her name was Lillian,' Christine said, returning to their previous conversation. 'In all my studies, I had never come across anything that even remotely resembled someone like her. I had met many precursors before, and I have met many more since, but there has never been one like her.

'Arden brought her to me in the hope that I could help him understand. According to him, she had just turned up out of the blue with no memory of how she had gotten there or any of her life before that point. For an eleven-year-old, she seemed to be handling it very well. He thought that she might be a Seer precursor.'

'Emily is a Seer precursor,' Lewis blurted out before he could stop himself. Christine raised her eyebrows slowly.

'In that case, you understand the visions that they have from time to time. Lillian was different; she could almost access them at will now. Apparently, it was something she had developed in the two years since Arden had found her.' Pausing, Christine took a sip from her glass, letting out a soft sigh as she swallowed the liquid. 'While she was in my company, she made a prophecy. One that I believe is about you.'

'I thought Seer precursors just saw bits of the future?' Lewis asked. How could a little girl have made a prophecy about him a century before he had even been born?

'That is the case. Normally,' she said. 'But, as I have told you, Lillian was far from normal. Tell me, have you ever heard of The Prophecy of Days?'

The second the words left Christine's lips; he recognised them but couldn't place them. Desperately, he tried to recall it. 'I've heard of it, but I can't remember where. I'm sorry.'

'Don't apologise,' she said gently. 'The Prophecy of Days is a part of something larger, something known as The Scroll of Days. The scroll is a collection of prophecies that are said to detail dramatic changes in our world, whether natural or man-made. The day she came to the tower with Arden was when the scroll was created. It spoke of the first war and the fall of Oldiron and Arcadia, the rise of a new kingdom, and a time of trials.

'The Prophecy of Days refers to the time of trials. It is said that when the time is upon us, a green star will appear in the sky to serve as a warning,' she said as she got up. Turning her back on Lewis, she drew the curtains that obscured the window. In the dark sky outside, a green star stood out. 'You are here, in this tower, because of that star. When I saw it, I knew the time had come. The trials in the prophecy are great, and as it was made in my presence, I took it as my job to find the one who had been promised to us. The one who could help us Save us.'

'I thought the prophecy was to do with finding the true heir to the throne?' Lewis asked. As soon as she mentioned the star, he remembered where he had heard the prophecy before. It had been Edmund who had shared it with him when he was trying to convince him to retrieve the crown.

'That is no more than a footnote on the prophecy,' Christine said. 'There are much worse things that lie ahead. It is our job to prepare you for them as best we can.'

'If you've seen the scroll, then surely you know what is supposed to happen?' Lewis said. Draining the last of the Wintercress nectar, he set the empty glass carefully on the desk.

'You will soon come to understand the dangers of prophecy,' she assured him. 'Many have tried to understand the things that are not meant for them, and the consequences have been horrifying. But that is for another day. Veronica, you should not linger outside and pretend you are not!'

On the other side of the door, Lewis heard a groan, and the door opened a moment later to reveal Veronica. 'My apologies, Headmistress,' she said, gazing at the floor intently.

'As you are here, you may as well escort our new arrival to his quarters. Foot eleven, room nine,' Christine said as she pulled a thick envelope from the small pile on her desk. 'Lewis, you will need this; it has all the details for your lessons, meals, and other relevant information. I will see you around the tower, I am sure.'

Recognising his dismissal, Lewis got to his feet, thanking Christine as he took the envelope from her. It was far heavier than he had been expecting. If he hadn’t been able to see that it wasn't thick enough, he would have expected to find a brick inside it.

'Come on, let's get you to your room; I have to be up early,' Veronica said, ushering him out of the door quickly. He was sure that she was only keeping her voice level because of Christine's presence, but he could feel the icy tone pushing back the warmth that had been left behind by the Wintercress nectar.