Prologue

North of the Lowlands, Or-Nagar’s village.

Caden dismounted his horse and looked around. His wife had insisted they stop in the small village on their way home. They had been staying with her family on the northern coast for a month. The couple and their escort had been travelling for days, and he was eager to reach their residence. Lord Ambrose was relieved to have several men accompanying them on this journey; with all the revolts happening lately, the roads were unsafe.

It was mid-morning, and Caden hoped they could be home before nightfall. He went to help his wife out of her litiere. It was so large it had to be pulled by four horses. It had been a late wedding gift to his wife. He’d had it made with the finest materials: silk from Tâlal and wood from Stateria, a work of art crafted by the best artisans in the kingdom. Lady Ambrose always remarked on how comfortable and spacious it was.

The servants pulled open the light wooden doors, lifted the curtains, and he held out his hand to Raelynn.

“My love, will you finally tell me why we are here? And whom do you intend to visit in this… house?” Caden asked.

His wife didn’t answer straight away. First, she asked a servant to bring their daughter. She took the baby in her arms, smiling down at their child. At six months old, Thalen was so full of life and curiosity. Their daughter gurgled, tugging at her mother’s long necklace, and put it in her mouth, making happy sounds. Raelynn looked at her affectionately and smiled.

“We are here for our daughter. There is a woman in this house who can look into her future,” she answered at last.

“You know how I hate oracles, my dear. They never answer straightforwardly. Do you remember what happened to King Stephan of Merin when he wanted to cross the river to attack King Argyron of Presus and his men? He went to see an oracle. She told him, ‘If you cross the river, a kingdom will be destroyed.’ What ensued? Merin became a province of Presus. Why didn’t she just say, ‘Don’t do it, you will lose and die’? They are so damn cryptic, it’s insufferable.”

Raelynn laughed at her husband’s indignation.

“Darling, that happened a century ago.” She knew his aversion to oracles. “The person we are visiting is not really an oracle, I swear, but gifted. She will give us a little insight into our daughter’s future.”

“We don’t need her,” Caden complained.

“Don’t you want to be prepared? I want to protect her from any danger. It’s better if we know what’s coming,” she insisted.

Lord Ambrose looked at his daughter and touched her cheek with a finger. The baby abandoned her mother’s necklace to grab her father’s finger. Caden sighed. Why not? They were living in troubled times, after all, and he would do anything to protect his family.

“Fine, but she had better not give her any potions or suspicious substances.”

“She won’t.”

“How did you hear about this woman?” he asked.

“Mother.”

“It figures.” Caden’s mother-in-law appreciated traditions and rituals. She had pestered them during their visit to present their child to someone with second sight. They had already had their daughter blessed by the priests in the name of the gods, and for Lord Ambrose, that was enough. It was an old tradition to have someone look into the child’s future. Caden and Raelynn had hoped for a child for so long, he didn’t care if their daughter turned out to be lazy or a spendthrift. He would love and guide her no matter what. Every day, as he looked at his daughter’s face, he understood what unconditional love meant.

Caden put his arm around his wife, and they headed towards the house. He knocked on the door once, but nobody answered. He knocked a second time. The door finally opened with a creak. A roundish woman wearing dark robes appeared. She looked at them and their escort.

“We are here to see Meloa,” Raelynn told her.

“You three inside, your lads outside,” the woman demanded. She was missing a few teeth, and the ones remaining were in bad shape. She was clearly a woman of few words.

Caden was reluctant to leave their two guards behind, but they would remain close enough to hear if any commotion occurred inside. He nodded, signalling his men to wait outdoors, ready to intervene.

The couple entered and found themselves in a small, dark corridor. Caden was unimpressed. The interior of the house was as neglected as the outside. There was little light. He pulled his wife closer.

“You pay now,” the woman said, holding out her hand. Why bother with manners? Caden thought.

Raelynn looked up at her husband, who reached for his small leather pouch. He opened it, took out two silver coins, and put them in her dirty hand. The woman didn’t move and kept her hand out. Caden looked at his wife, who gestured towards his pouch. He sighed and gave her two more silver coins. She took one, bit into it, and, satisfied, pocketed it.

“Go upstairs,” she instructed before leaving.

Caden hadn’t even noticed the small stairs near the door. He eyed them suspiciously. He took his daughter from his wife so she could climb without tripping on her dress. They reached the second floor, which had only one large room. It smelled of herbs, and all the windows were closed. Like the rest of the house, it was poorly lit and sparsely decorated as though the occupants had just moved in. A woman was sitting behind a round wooden table, shuffling cards at great speed with her short nails painted black. Caden looked at his wife in disbelief, but she just shrugged. Raelynn took their child back and moved forward, greeting the woman.

“Good day, we are here–”

“For your daughter,” the woman interrupted, putting her cards down and standing up. “Put her on the table.”

Caden eyed the furniture distrustfully, uncertain if he wanted his daughter to lie on it. He stopped his wife as she moved to do so.

“Wait,” he said. He took his cloak off, folded it, and placed it first. He didn’t want his daughter’s covers to touch that table. One never knew what had been on it before. Given that cleanliness didn’t seem to be a priority for the inhabitants of this house, he had to be careful. Raelynn slowly laid the baby on the table.

The little girl looked up at the adults with her big brown eyes, fingers in her mouth. She lifted her legs to play with her feet.

“Your child is adorable,” the woman remarked. She took a necklace from around her neck. The pendant was shaped like a moon. She let it sway over the baby’s body. The pendant moved slightly. Meloa shook her head.

“No, for you, it will be the sun,” she told the cooing baby. She put the pendant back around her neck and took another one, this time in the form of a sun. She swung it over the baby, and it moved rapidly. Thalen tried to grab it, but Meloa moved it out of reach, letting it rock over her legs.

“She is a daughter of the sun,” she remarked, smiling.

“What does that mean?” Caden asked.

“She’s solar. She will bring you joy, a happy child. She will love nature, forests, animals,” she explained, still rocking the pendant. Caden glanced at his wife and smiled at this. Thalen, who was watching it intently, gripped it with her wet fingers. The woman slowly removed it from the baby’s grasp.

“Oh, she will be impulsive, clever, and strong-minded,” she continued, smiling down at the baby, who was now making sounds and sucking on her hand. “I see passion, strength, beauty.” She put the sun pendant back and took out a third piece of jewellery still around her neck.

“Let’s go deeper,” she offered.

The pendant this time was a mere white pearl. She made it move up and down over the baby and then closed her eyes. When she opened them, her eyes had turned white. Caden immediately stepped forward to take his daughter back, worried, but Raelynn stopped him, grabbing his hand.

“Wait, she is seeing something.”

Caden looked at Meloa. Her eyes were closed, and her head was thrown back.

She started speaking. “I see a man, from the North, a black wolf. He will take her away from you. Wait… in the dark forest, the trees are talking – they are saying… he is coming. He’s coming, the child of the Moon and the Sun. He will appear on a night of thunder and fire. The darkness is covering the sun. I see shadows and light. Power and weakness, desire and pain, love and lust, birth and death entangled, dancing to the rhythm of the drums of life. Your daughter stands tall, walking in a long marble corridor, barely avoiding the call of the sepulchre… The trees are watching over her.” She put her hands on her head, moaning, as if she was suffering from a terrible headache.

Caden stood paralysed. He didn’t understand everything she was saying or what it meant, but he was frightened. A man would take their daughter away from them. That would not happen. He would protect her with his life.

The woman opened her eyes. “That’s it. You may leave.”

Raelynn took their daughter, thanked the woman, and headed for the door. Like him, she seemed rather shaken by what she had heard. He was about to leave when the woman stopped him.

“Lord Ambrose, they are looking for her. They will come for her,” she revealed.

She looked at him intently, narrowing her eyes. “You know nothing stays hidden for long when it involves… kings and gods.”

Lord Ambrose didn’t answer and followed his wife out of the house.

Meloa, left alone, rubbed her aching eyes and went to the window. She pulled back the curtains and watched the Ambroses leave with their escort.

“Damn it.”

“What is it?” a woman behind her asked.

Meloa went to the table, grabbed a piece of paper and a quill that she plunged into the ink and started writing furiously. When she was done, she handed the letter to her servant.

“We are leaving tonight. Pack up and go north. Find the elder and give him this; he will know what to do.”

“What about you?”

Meloa kissed her servant’s forehead. “I need to find answers.”

The servant looked around the room and sighed. “We’ve only just arrived. What about the house?”

“Burn it to the ground. Erase it and us.”

“You want people to believe we died in the fire?”

“Yes,” Meloa answered, as she began gathering what she would need into a bag. She grabbed a black book with a white snake on the cover and shoved it in her bag.

“The child?”

Meloa nodded.