Sing Me a New Song

(12 Hunter’s Paxts: 1 week: 6 days until the Day of Light)

The world stank of death and sulphur.

Inky black silhouettes of crumbling stone pierced the hellish glow of a foggy red light with sharp edges. Once-vibrant vines, now blackened and burned, curled around his frozen feet, clutching at the remains of a pillar.

The distant peak of the mountain smouldered, its rumble vibrating through the air, shaking apart the ground beneath him, opening ever-widening cracks. Inevitable, suffocating, sucking the breath from his lungs as it consumed him whole—

Seih awoke in a tangle of blankets, a sharp gasp for breath echoing in his ears.

Rey— Reyahn.

For a long moment he stared up at the patterned ceiling and its decorative window above him, the thud of his heart pounding in his ears. A dream. The cool light drifting through the glass was a sharp contrast to the darkness still flickering behind his eyelids.

He pulled his arm free of the light sheet twisted around him, sliding up to sit at the edge of the bed.

What kind of dream... was that?

“Sir.”

His hand dropped from his face as he blinked blearily up at the still form standing expectantly in the sculpted archway to his bed chamber. Silver eyes with a muted glow watched him, unblinking, from a too-perfect human face.

“Voice, good morning.” Offering the Divination a smile, he greeted him the same way he had every day for the last two years.

“You have a council meeting set for noon today, scheduled to last two hours. It is now one hour since sun’s rise. You also arranged to meet with Brei [trainee of conduit construction at Copax Hospital] at mid-morn, in two hours.”

...And received the same sort of answer as he had every other day.

“Thank you.” He rose, giving him a dismissive nod, and pulled a fresh tunic from the wardrobe behind the sliding panel hidden seamlessly in the wall.

Slipping it on, he settled his belt and moved through the rest of his routine—a quick swipe with the razor, a splash of cold water to drive away the fog. Some form of conversation might have been nice, to dispel the shadowy shreds of a destroyed city clinging to the pit of his stomach like heavy tar. But Voice, despite his name, never spoke much. None of the Divinations he’d ever interacted with did.

It was just a dream, he told himself, blue eyes in the mirror checking over his face for anything out of place as he briefly flicked a damp strand of light brown hair off his forehead. Pulling the short fringe back to slide on his soulbind crown, a relatively plain band inset with gem-like scalelets, he straightened with a quiet sigh and a brief roll of his shoulders. From a quick check into soulspace through the connection it gave him, no one was urgently trying to get hold of him now that he was bound and available.

|Ugh, all of you high and mighty nobles are allowed to get up so late.|

Apart from one. It seemed like she’d just checked in.

He smiled, exiting the cool ambience of the bathroom and striding out into the airy connecting space between his chambers and the living room. |I’m sorry?|

|You’re incredibly punctual, though,| she complimented him.

|Thank you.| The smooth, patterned stone was cool against his bare feet. Tickling between his fingers, the leaves of the vine creeper crawling up the partially-sunlit inner wall rustled as he brushed by, nodding to Stream—the Divination who tended all the plant life here—in passing. She acknowledged him with the briefest pulse of a glow in her violet eyes.

|I was here before daybreak, you know,| Brei continued. |I’ve been up for longer than some people have been asleep. I’m existing on the worst ceffludge blend any human being could ask for, and I’m about ready to throttle this damn construct if he doesn’t sit still.|

He snorted softly. |Stop bullying the Divinations, Brei, they’re just doing their job.|

|He keeps scowling at me like I offended his experience impressors.|

|You probably have.|

|...I’m buying you a sparkly pink robe, and a pair of ear antlers for this pole of a statue.|

He smiled, the faint smell of food wafting from the kitchen area awakening a pang of hunger as he called through the wood-woven doorway. “Damor! I’m headed out. Direct any housecallers to get hold of me through Voice.”

“Oh! Of course! Of course, young sir!” His housemaster’s weather-worn, wrinkled face peered back at him with a smile from where he stood tending to the hanging herbs spilling down from the garden on the roof. “I trust you slept well?”

He hesitated for just a moment. “Not too badly. I’ll be back before Brei comes by. If I’m not, she’ll have found me out in the city.”

“Of course, sir! Enjoy your day.”

A part of him would have liked to stay for longer and engage the old man in a conversation about his herbs to help dispel the shadows, but he had a couple of things to do before he met up with Brei. And if he let him, Damor could ramble all day about everything gardening.

Scooping up his money pouch from the going-out shelf in the entryway and clipping it to his belt, he slipped on a pair of sturdy sandals and stepped out onto the cobblestoned path that wound down towards the street, early morning sunlight brushing through the light trees edging it.

The valley of Fire’s Abode almost glowed in the light that spilled over the hazy, distant ridge of the Skalter’s Back mountains, illuminating flat white roofs with lightly-coloured accents and splashes of green herb gardens. A light haze hung over his corner of the city stretching down the mountainside, the sounds of wagon wheels and bird whistles echoing, a whiff of fresh bread tickling at his nostrils as he inhaled deeply.

“Ho, Losan,” he called across the street to one of his neighbours as he unlocked and unlatched the gate, the man pruning at the creeper curling up the wall beside his front door.

“A bright morning to you, Domini Seih!”

“How goes—” He stepped back out of the way as a couple of children raced past, satchels bouncing as they chirped a rushed pair of apologies. Late to tutelage. “How goes the vine?”

“She’s going fine. Taken to the masonry like a child to sweets. Walls should be fully reinforced in a couple weeks at this rate.”

“Glad to hear it.” He stopped at the stone steps, gazing up at the weave of branches and almost translucent-green leaves of the white-veined crystallis. “It’s a fine specimen.”

“That she is.” The man snipped a few shoots reaching towards the doorframe. “I might pass by and give your housemaster another thanks for picking her out.”

He laughed, turning to go with a wave. “The only thanks he needs is knowing that she’s doing well.”

Strolling down the street, he greeted a couple of others briefly on his way, tracing the route to the most prolific source of that bread smell—the bakery set on the corner of the open square doubling as a crossroads, a fountain in its centre. There were errands to do, but not on an empty stomach. And besides, Celaph had been having issues with supply, the last few days, and he did need to check in on that.

A series of chimes tinkled as he pushed through the door into the warm interior, the sound muted against wooden beams festooned with a thousand varieties of dangling pot-flower and curly-moss running along the patterned grooves in the walls. Half the room was dedicated to a cosy handful of tables, the windows festooned with creepers letting sunlight stream across the wood, adding to the soft glow of the Light stones on the ceiling. Eyeing the honey-combed boxes holding pasties, rolls, and sliced loaves on the other side kept warm by fire scalelets, he stepped up to the counter, poking his head around a budding flower line. The shop was unusually empty, even if it was a quiet morning. “Hoi! Celaph?”

An indefinable shout came from somewhere in the kitchen, the sound of bustling growing closer until it resolved into a slightly dumpy woman rounding the corner, a beaming smile breaking out on her face. “Seih! I thought that might have been you— morning, morning! Breakfast or business?”

“Both, actually.” He smiled, pulling a kernel from his pouch and tossing it onto the counter. “A couple of brekk buns, thanks. I hear supply is still rough for you?”

“Oh, it’s just teething issues with the new line.” She took the kernel and slid the top off one of the boxes, deftly pulling a pair of steaming buns from the pile inside just as the tinkle of the chimes sounded again. “Meklin’s having a bit of struggle with his drivers and their new routes.”

He took the buns as she bagged them, a pair of new customers wandering in. Meklin handled Lower Abode’s supply routing for the delivery wagons, and usually he didn’t have any issues. “There’s no problem with the goods you’ve been getting?”

“Oh, there’ve been a few mix-ups, but I’m sure it’ll straighten out.” She turned to the back. “Appy! Up front!”

Turning her attention back to him as he took a bite out of the sweet, steamed bread, the spicy, sharper filling bursting across his tongue, she leaned on the counter with a smile. “Like I said, it’s only early days. And just a small thing, really. A Domini like you shouldn’t worry yourself with it.”

“I will have to if it threatens my supply of baked goods,” he said drily. “And everyone else’s.”

She laughed. “Well, it’s good to hear from our happy customers—”

A sharp ripple, almost a resonating ping, cut through his mind, across his soul, and she went quiet.

What—? His gaze automatically snapped in the direction of Fire’s Temple, distantly noticing the others in the shop doing the same despite the wall in the way, echoing ripples touching the edge of his connection from a group ping that strong. A universal call? There hadn’t been anything scheduled—

|To all of Firemount|

An abrupt and inexplicable, nameless sense of dread coiled up in the pit of his stomach.

|The Light illuminates, and the Light sees.|

...A prophetic call?

|The year past Dragon’s Crown, in your new Day, this land will be torn asunder by your own hands. Your time is coming to an end.|

|In one of your years, you will end.|