An end. A beginning. Between it all, death. Oh Okron, when will it end?

-Anonymous Soldier, circa 500 Post Fall of Meridian

The bodies heaped in piles on the streets of Toroth Vedd had finally ceased to smolder, but memory of the battle that had created them still lingered. Aiedra Okron, holding a glowing ball of light in her hand and hovering through the night, could feel those memories, dancing across her vision, her hearing, her smell, her touch. Even her taste. She could not resist cringing at that sensation. The metallic tingle of another’s blood spraying into one’s mouth was not pleasant, even if there was no blood actually there.

For she had lived none of the memories, even if they drifted, perfectly vivid, across her mind. She was a memory burner, connected to the First of the Three Powers, and that was the burden she carried: the thoughts and recollections of others were as visible to her as a sun’s light at noonday was to other men. It was a weight that drove lesser souls mad. That made the backs of even the strongest souls ache. But Aiedra was no lesser woman; that was evidenced by her bright blue glow, the light of Ever, an ethereal energy she had gained by fully reliving the memories of those around her. With it, she could increase the temperature of the air nearby — as she had done to create her ball of light — as well as move objects, as she did to herself, carefully burning just enough Ever to keep herself afloat as she moved toward the tower in the center of the newly conquered city.

The Tower of Foreseeing, it was called, and it was the reason this battle had been fought. The reason they’d kept fighting at all for these three millennia, in truth. The Tower could see the future, and it was never wrong in its predictions. Before Oblivion had even arrived, the Tower had said the Endowed would come to deliver them from the dark god. And so they fought on.

But men’s hearts can only beat for so long. And after the failure with Arath, the Confederacy forces had begun to doubt. Oh, Aiedra’s comrades denied it. But their bold words could not hide the truth of their thoughts, not from a memory burner. They may have faced the forces of Oblivion before, but this was different; they knew it and they were terrified, terrified and still grieving for those they had already lost. Yet the pretense continued, and they saluted as she passed, weapons held in tight fists, expressions resolute.

This battle was for them, she reminded herself. No matter how many of them had died to secure this ground.

Burning more of her Ever, she pushed herself higher, rising through the smog as she made her way toward the tower. Toward the reason all these lives had been spent.

The Tower of Foreseeing, taken back from the clutches of the Khazath. The possibilities now afforded her felt surreal; this was a device that could find the Endowed. A predictor that was never wrong.

She prayed its usual accuracy would hold. The fate of those who had died here —and the fate of all across the galaxy — depended on it.

Her eyes drifted toward the ravaged city below as she rose. The flames had gone out, but even in the dark of night she could see the smoke clouds. Large swaths of the city had been leveled, the structures torn apart, then vomited out as rubble by the vortex bombs the forces of Oblivion had so freely used. Buildings had gashes in their sides where Voidlings and memory burners had fought. Heaps of bodies were even taller in places where atom burners on both sides had been allowed to run unchallenged, cutting through human flesh like paper, leaving their victims in two pieces wherever they’d gone. Some of those towers were more than three stories tall, and surviving memory burners hovered above them, lighting the corpses with bursts of plasma from their hands as they drifted through the night.

Thirty-five thousand had died here, according to E’vin’s estimates. Aiedra had not wanted to know, but he had told her anyway, his ever-hard gaze fixed firmly on her as he’d spoken. She had not been able to meet his eyes. She never was.

A small sacrifice, if we can get what we need.

She fixed her eyes back on her destination, burning more Ever to race toward it; as much as she desired to wait, there was no time to hang about in anticipation. A pair of fellow memory burners drifted through the air toward her as she approached, saluting and escorting her to the Tower’s highest landing pad. Even more burners waited there, half a dozen memory burners glowing with blue light, and a squadron of atom burners clad in titrite and ablaze with white Purity. Aiedra nodded to them, then ordered them to stand guard as she went inside.

She wavered, for just a moment, staring down the chrome hallway that would lead to the Tower’s main room. The place where, according to the legends, she would be told her fate. Then, forcing courage into her veins, she stepped forward.

The bodies of the Khazath soldiers who had guarded this hallway had been dragged out, but the blood stains, tears, and char marks remained. Murals older than Aiedra herself, depicting events no historian had ever heard of, now lay ruined. Artifacts from millennia ago sat shattered on cracked podiums. And this was after Oblivion had scoured the Tower for centuries. Who knew what knowledge had been lost forever, even before today?

Yet, loss was nothing new, not to Aiedra. So she continued, noting the Surges inlaid into the wall, shining with bright green light, the color of Eternity, the Third of the Three Powers. The Power men called Void now, for Oblivion’s first act had been to corrupt it, tainting those who wielded it and dooming the afterlife forever. The Tower, it seemed, was one of the few places unaffected by that terrible act.

Finally, she arrived at the gateway to the Room of Foreseeing, two large titanium doors with golden symbols emblazoned on each, though Aiedra recognized none of them. She could hear nothing behind the entrance. According to E’vin, the True Eye never stirred unless someone summoned him.

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She rested her hand on the door, breathed in, breathed out. Then shoved the gates open with a blast of Ever, and stepped inside.

The room was dome-shaped, with a ceiling made of pure black marble. Torches held flickering flames all around, though they provided very little light in the darkness that swallowed the space as the doors clanged shut behind Aiedra. Most of the floor was covered in a thin, circular pool of water, a small walkway of smooth granite stretching out into its center. Wringing her hands behind her back, Aiedra strode out onto the walkway until she reached its end, then cleared her throat, then shouted.

“True Eye, I summon you to speak my fate.”

For a moment, there was silence, save for the crackle of the torches and the soft whoosh of the water in the pool.

Then glowing, turquoise-colored, almost metallic mist swirled in front of her, twisting and churning as compartments in the wall snapped open, revealing Surges of blue and white and, most prevalently, green. The mist began to coalesce, forming into the shape of a man, and two solid-green glowing eyes burst into existence on its otherwise featureless face. A male voice rumbled, echoing far louder than even Aiedra’s shout within the now-lit chamber.

I have waited long for you, last Daughter of Meridian.

Aiedra bristled. Few knew she was old enough to have seen the days of Meridian, and fewer still knew she had helped lead their armies against Oblivion, during those first days of war. It was knowledge she did not like to share.

I know why you have come, the True Eye continued. I know all things that can be known. But you must voice the question yourself. It is a rule by which I have always been bound.

“The Endowed,” Aiedra muttered. Her heart pounded so fast she could not do more than mutter. “Who is it?”

There was a long pause. Twenty heartbeats long; Aiedra felt each one.

Do you truly wish to know, child?

Child. The word made something snap in Aiedra. She spoke, and this time she did not mutter.

“Six times! Six times we have marched on Dareth Guur, and six times we have failed! Do you have any idea the slaughter those campaigns were? You claim to know all things, see all things, but did you see that? Did you hear the men dying, see the rivers of blood as the ground seized them and squeezed it from their veins?” She felt her voice break. “You promised us a hero. Told us to look for them, and that they would end this war. How much longer do we have to wait? How many liars do we have to entertain, before our salvation?”

Another long pause. Longer, this time. Forty-three heartbeats, each one thumping harder than the last.

The Prophecy of Ever. Do you truly wish to see its fulfillment, Daughter of Meridian?

“Yes,” Aiedra hissed. “Give it to me.” A tear dripped from her eye, even as fury raged in her veins. “Please.”

Very well. I am… sorry, child.

The walls suddenly broke apart into rings, then spun, light pouring in rays from the Surges that lined them. Green flashed before Aiedra’s eyes, and the future, finally, showed itself.

***

Aiedra found herself face-down, floundering in the water. She gasped, took in only more liquid, then spat it out in a flurry of coughs. Tears mixing with the water of the pool, she stumbled her way back to the edge, then sank against the wall. The lake remained calm, but for a moment it seemed to her a raging ocean, waves splashing as high as her climbing fear.

I am truly sorry, the True Eye rumbled. If I could change this, I would.

“You promised us peace,” Aiedra rasped. She meant it to be a shout, but she could only manage a rasp after… after… after what she had seen. After watching that terrible sword, held up to the storm-filled Ethean sky. “Was that peace a lie? Why lie? Why tell us we would win, when that is in our future?”

You were promised an end, the True Eye said simply. I do not know fully the meaning of that prophecy, only that it is an end.

“You said you know everything. Then why? Why this?” Her voice broke again. “Please. Tell me why.”

A long silence. In this, the True Eye said finally, you have misunderstood. I know all that can be known, but some things cannot be. I cannot tell you why this must be. I am sorry, Daughter of Meridian. But do not say I did not warn you of this burden.

The True Eye’s misty form suddenly retreated, then vanished, too quickly for Aiedra to stop it. Furious, she shouted, screamed at the being, but it did not bring him back. Instead, the Surges on the wall slid into their slots, leaving her in darkness, save for the flickering torches.

Darkness. She felt it around her in more ways than one. She stood, trembling, for too long, before at last she steeled herself.

So Fate itself was against them. So be it. She would find a way around this, discover some path to fulfill the Prophecy, whether it was false or not. The True Eye might not have been able to tell her who the fabled hero was, but she could locate them herself. She would create a hero if she had to, would find a way to avoid that… that terrible future. She had fought too long, and too hard, to do anything else. She would succeed.

That was what she told herself. Though, even as she dried herself with a burst of heat, and pushed the worry off her face, even as she strode back to face the corpses of men she had just sent to their deaths for nothing, she wondered.

For she knew now, with more certainty than ever before, that if she failed, the galaxy would burn.