Prologue

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

Caden dismounted his horse and looked around. His wife had insisted they stopped in the small village on their way home. They had been staying with his wife’s family in the north coast for a month. The couple and their escort had been travelling for days now. He was eager to reach their home. Lord Ambrose was glad to have several men accompanying them on this journey, with all the revolts happening lately the roads were not safe. 

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 big it was pulled by four horses. It had been a late wedding gift to his wife. He had it made with the finest materials, silk from Talal and wood from Stateria, a work of art crafted by the best artisans in the kingdom. Lady Ambrose always remarked how comfortable and spacious it was. 

The servants pulled the light wooden doors open, lifted the curtains, and he held out his hand to Raelynn. “My love, will you finally tell me why we are here? And whom you intend to visit in this…. House?” Caden asked.

His wife didn’t answer straight away, first she asked a servant to bring her daughter. She took the baby in her arms, smiling down at their child. At six months, Thalen was so full of life and curious. Their daughter gurgled and tugged at her mother’s long necklace and put it in her mouth making 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, it happened a century ago.” She knew his aversion for oracles. “The person we will visit is not really an oracle, I swear, but gifted. She will give us a little insight into her future.”

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

“Don’t you want to be prepared? I want to be able 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’d better not give her any potions or any suspicious substances.”

“She would not.”

“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 had their daughter blessed by the priests in the name of the gods. For Lord Ambrose that was enough. It was an old tradition to have someone look at the child’s future. Caden and Raelynn had hoped for a child for so long, he didn’t care if their child turned to be lazy or a spendthrift. He would love and guide her no matter what. He understood every day, looking at his daughter’s face, 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 creaking sound. 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, the remaining ones looked in bad shape and she was 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 asking his men to wait for them outside, ready to intervene.

The couple entered and found themselves in a small and dark corridor. Caden was not impressed. The interior of the house was as neglected as the outside. There was not enough light. Caden pulled his wife closer.

“You pay now,” the woman required, 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 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. The man sighed and gave her two more silver coins. She took one, bit it and satisfied, pocketed it.

“Go upstairs,” she said before leaving.

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

“Good day, we are here….”

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

Caden eyed the table distrustfully uncertain if he wanted his daughter to lay on that. He stopped his wife when she moved to do so. “Wait,” he said. He took his cloak off, folding it and putting it on the table. He didn’t want his daughter’s covers to touch that table. One never knew what was on it before. And given that cleanliness was not apparently important for the people living in this house, he had to be careful. Raelynn slowly laid the baby on the table.

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

“Your child is adorable,” the woman spoke. She took a necklace from around her neck. The pendant on the necklace was in the shape of a moon. She let it rock 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 in the form of a sun. She swung it over the baby and it moved rapidly. Thalen tried to grab it but she moved it out of her 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 that. Thalen who was looking at it intently gripped it between 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 making sounds, sucking on her hand. “I see passion, strength, beauty.” She put the sun pendant back and took a third piece of jewellery still around her neck. “Let’s go deeper,” she offered.

The pendant this time, a mere white pearl. She made it move up and down over the baby and she closed her eyes. When she opened them, her eyes were white. Caden immediately took a step forward to take his daughter back, worried, but Raelynn stopped him, taking his hand. “Wait, she is seeing something.”

Caden looked at Meloa, she had her eyes closed … her head thrown back. 

She started talking. “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 in a night of thunders and fire. The darkness is covering the sun. I see shadows and lights. Power and weakness, desire and pain, love and lust, birth and death entangled, dancing at 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 towards the door. Like him, she seemed a little bit shaken by what she had heard. He wanted to leave when the woman prevented him from doing so. “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 remains hidden for long when it involves… Kings and gods.” 

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

Meloa remaining alone rubbed her painful eyes and she headed towards the windows, pulled the curtains and watch the Ambroses leave with their escort. 

“Damn it.” 

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

Meloa went to the table, grabbed a piece of paper and a quill and started writing furiously. When she was done, she handed it to her servant. “We are leaving tonight, pack and go north find the elder give him that, he would know what to do.” 

“What about you?” 

She kissed her forehead, “I need to find answers.” 

The woman looked around the room and sighed, “We just got here, what do we do with the house?”

“Burn it to the ground, erase it and us.” 

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

“Yes,” she answered as she started putting what she would need in a bag. 

“The child?”

Meloa nodded.