That false prophecy would not leave Elara's head. The verses she herself had commissioned now began their silent journey into the world, one day to be quoted as ancestral wisdom. The weight of what she had done would not release her. It manifested as a constant tension at the base of her skull, a metallic taste in her mouth that not even the strongest tea could wash away.
And Kaelen's words, that phrase about searching for someone who never existed there, had spent the night with her, mingling with Anya's feverish dreams into a tapestry of guilt and longing that left her drained by dawn.
The public ritual at the Temple of the Primordial Sun could not have come at a worse time. It was a balance ceremony, that symbolic business where the Empress renewed her pact with the gods and the people. For Elara, it would be a stage. An arena.
The Temple was a colossus of white marble and gold. The Great Dome, studded with blue stones, dominated the capital's skyline. Inside, the air was heavy and warm, thick with the cloying smell of incense, human sweat, and the wax of a thousand candles. The light of the midday sun, filtering through the high stained glass, stained everything in dancing pools of crimson and gold.
Elara walked the central aisle. Her ceremonial mantle, a thing of gold brocade so heavy it required two pages to carry its train, dragged across the mosaic floor. Her crown, the Diadem of Pacts, weighed like a stone. Every step was an act of will.
On the raised altar, the high priests waited. And among them, standing with downcast eyes, was a figure that made Elara's instincts scream.
Lydia.
The seer of the Ancestral Cult was younger than she had imagined, perhaps only a few years older. Her face was pale and calm, framed by curls of dirty-blonde hair. She wore a simple robe of raw linen, a stark contrast to all the opulence around her. But her eyes, when she raised them for an instant, were a grey so light it seemed almost silver, and as empty as a winter sky. Eyes that seemed to see through flesh.
The ceremony began. Chants in ancient Latin echoed in the dome. Elara made the offerings—sheaves of wheat, a crystal, a cup of wine. Her voice recited the sacred words with a metallic clarity that was all Anya, while inside, Elara shrank, feeling herself a walking blasphemy.
Then came the time for the Seasonal Prophecy. The High Priest announced that the Seer Lydia, touched by the spirits of the Founders, would share the whispers of fate.
Lydia stepped forward. A heavy silence fell over the congregation. She closed her eyes, raised her hands palms upward, and drew a deep breath.
When she spoke, her voice was not her own. It was deeper, resonant, as if many voices spoke through a single throat.
"The Sun looks upon its own reflection in the waters of time… and sees a crack."
The crowd sighed, interpreting it as a poetic metaphor for political challenges.
"A wandering soul treads where it should not step. Its footprints do not echo on present soil, but on shores of future ages. It weaves with threads stolen from tomorrow's loom, thinking to mend yesterday's tapestry."
A chill ran down Elara's spine. She kept her face a mask of devout attention, but her hands, hidden in her sleeves, trembled. She knows. Not everything, but she senses it. She feels the disconnect.
"Beware the edifice whose foundations are dreams!" the prophetic voice rose, a note of urgency entering it. "For dreams change shape with the morning light. What seems strong in the dawn mist may turn to sand under the midday sun. A crown may weigh the same as a world, and a heart may shelter two kingdoms at war… one of stone, the other of yearning."
The last phrase fell like a stone into the silent lake of Elara. Two kingdoms at war. Hers and Anya's? Her mission and her humanity?
Lydia stood still for a moment, then swayed, as if the force that had possessed her had abandoned her. The silver eyes opened, now cloudy and ordinary. The crowd erupted into reverent applause.
Elara felt a wave of nausea.
The rest of the ceremony passed in a blur. Her mind was stuck on that silver gaze and the words about wandering souls. The Ancestral Cult was not just a political faction. Lydia had a true gift. And that gift was scenting her anomaly in the fabric of time.
After the ceremony, in a side sacristy, Elara tried to recover her composure as servitors helped her remove the heavier pieces of the mantle. It was then that a sweet, sharp smile entered her field of vision.
"Your Highness shone today like the Sun itself."
Vivel. The young lady-in-waiting was impeccably dressed in a gown of sky-blue silk. She carried a small censer, as if assisting with the post-ritual rites.
"The devotion of the people is what shines, Lady Vivel," Elara replied, her voice neutral.
"Oh, but it is your presence that kindles that devotion," Vivel insisted, her tone one of admirable adulation. "To see you there, bearing the weight of the realm with such… renewed determination. After the so unsettling events lately, it is a relief to all of us, your servants, to see your unshakeable strength."
Every word was a thread of poisoned silk. 'Unsettling events'—the field accident. 'Renewed determination'—suggesting a prior lack of it.
"A ruler's strength comes from duty, not mood," Elara said, turning away.
"Precisely!" Vivel exclaimed, her eyes bright with feigned fervor. "And that is why I wish to offer myself, most humbly, as your most loyal handmaiden in these times. My eyes are young, but observant. My ears, open to the whispers of corridors that may not reach you. All that I am I would place at your feet to safeguard the stability you embody."
She gave a slight curtsy.
"Let me be your eyes where yours cannot be. Your true empress deserves no less."
The offer was a masterpiece of ambition disguised as loyalty. Vivel wanted to be at the center of the web. Elara felt an almost irresistible urge to refuse, to push this serpent-in-training away. But this was the young Vivel. The future Queen-Mother. To alienate her would be to alter the past. And, perversely, having her close meant being able to watch her.
The cost would be having her future murderer at her side every day.
"Your offer is… notable," Elara said, weighing each word. "Loyalty is a rare jewel. I will consider it, Lady Vivel."
Vivel's smile deepened, but her eyes remained calculative.
"I pray to be found worthy, Your Highness."
Elara left the sacristy, feeling Vivel's gaze sticking to her back like a pinprick. The air in the vestibule, cooler, brought little relief. She needed space.
As she stepped out through a great side door leading to the private gardens, a figure emerged from the shadow of a column.
It was Lydia.
The seer was alone, her face now marked by a deep weariness. She gently blocked Elara's path, not with aggression, but with a quiet inevitability.
For a moment, they stood in silence. The Empress in her remnant opulence, the seer in her stripped simplicity.
Then, Lydia leaned forward, as if to adjust a fold of Elara's mantle, and her whisper, softer than the rustle of a dry leaf, reached her ears:
"Your veil is thin, stranger. Mind the wind."
And then, without a bow or even waiting for a reply, Lydia turned and melted back into the deeper shadows of the corridor, leaving Elara paralyzed under the dappled light of the stained glass, the seer's words hissing in her ears like the sound of time itself unraveling around her.