CHAPTER 01

The winds were quiet as if lying in wait, brooding and looming, they half-heartedly fluttered leaves from trees and nudged hats from maiden’s heads in a poor attempt of kindling chaos. They hummed tunes from lullabies long lost to age and trends, of songs that held with them the words of ancient tongues and if someone simply stopped and listened, they would have perhaps noticed that something was amiss. Yet, the world did not blink twice.

In direct opposition, the streets of Canaivat were bustling with life and vigour, bellowing street vendors and liberated teenagers unsubdued by the curfew of academia. It was an erratic littering of “get your last day alive memorabilia here!” and “praise the Creator! All praises!” and “I dunno…can you smoke it?” across the town.

There was not a fringe of pessimism to be found, even though the Great Four Eyes that hung from the skies for millennia, each designed with an iridescent pupil that had never moved, did, for the first time today. Hailed as the Muns by the locals, serving as the marrying of both the sun and the moon, the eyes lived up to their nickname. Illuminated by a divine light source, and too bright for any human to get close, even though many have died trying, claiming the title of martyrs. It had always remained in the same wide-eyed expression as depicted in holy and historical scriptures.

Except for today.

It was just the slightest change but for the people who worshipped the Four Eyes, a modicum of anything amounted to the weight of thousands.

In a room, where approximately nine mercenaries gathered, a man who went by the name, Seidon, was polishing the pommel of his sword with a handkerchief embroidered with the initials M.K. He had been listlessly listening to the discussion happening around him, comments passed over him from left to right, from right to left like they were throwing a ball around.

“Don’t you see? It’s destiny! It’s our destiny.”

Keisuke, an older, small guy with a curling moustache shaped like another set of lips, frowned, so offended that he even halted in his action of buckling his breastplate. “Yer in the wrong profession, boy. Save that fanatic malarky for the monks. I ain’t here ta hear it.”

But Arataki, the green-eyed youth, was not deterred and even hopped over from his side to seat himself next to Seidon, nudging the man shoulder to shoulder, jostling Seidon out of his reverie.

“Oh, Kei! Say that any louder and you’ll be fined for sacrilege! You agree with me, right?” Arataki was boring his eyes into the man beside him, as if they were daggers, unsheathed and ready. “Don’t you, Sei?”

With a furtive glance through the curtain of his eyelashes, Seidon glanced between both parties and sensing the rising tension in the air, just said, albeit quietly, “I don’t think I heard it all.”

“Ahh, look. The Muns has never moved. Never. Never ever. But today is the first day in history that the eyes have moved. It’s a sign. It’s the start of the prophecy.

“The beginning of the end.”

The revelation silenced the room for a moment, and in it was the sole sound of Seidon gently picking at his sword with his rag, wiping over the clean with another round of clean. He did not stop even as the rest of his friends did but could not help the creeping shudder that pricked his skin, erecting goose flesh on his arms and legs, as the weight of the statement began to bore on him.

But Seidon was often a man classified as someone who did not know the difference between happy and sad, that perhaps He forgot to give him a working heart and a mouth that knew how to smile. Even as an adult, Seidon was struggling.

So, it was not surprising that he seemed unaffected, especially in comparison to the rest of the group but Seidon looked up when someone had slammed something down on the table that the bench he was sitting on was attached to.

“Pipsqueak is right. It’s all there in fancy ink.”

The newspaper, The Delegation, the only paper anyone bothered to read now, had been jettisoned in front of him where the bold letters of “COUNT THE DAYS. THE PROPHECY BEGINS” were printed, thick and conspicuous. Seidon walked his eyes over the accompanying article and stopped only when he noticed the insignia at the end. He blinked. “Signed by the royals?”

“By his royal highness, the crown prince, no less.” The woman who had thrown the paper down replied, her hands, free of gloves, reached up to collect the rogue tresses of her red hair that cascaded down her back into a single bunch, like a bouquet of flowers. “Kinda makes you wonder if it’s been longer than that, that the Muns have been moving. If they were so quick to put out a statement.”

Seidon found himself slightly distracted, snared by the sudden nakedness of Miyu’s neck and placed his sword next to the newspaper. “Here, I’ll do that.”

With a light huff and a smile that had Seidon falling over for her for the hundredth time, she released her hair in a show akin to the scattering of petals on a windy day and turned around. “Don’t get any funny ideas, merc. I’ve a reputation to uphold. Believe it or not.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, captain.”

The pair had known each other for almost their entire lives, seen either through the growth of fiery childhood to adolescence and now where the platitude of adulthood rested them to a couple that had been going strong for almost three years. Seidon ran his fingers through Miyu’s hair, his little finger curling around a particularly stubborn lock that flicked out of place and ignored the leering he got from the rest of the group. It was nothing short of amicable banter and Miyu would make sure of that, given her position, if anyone had even dreamed to step a toe of her line, they would have her wrath.

He parted her hair like it was second nature, accustomed to the style she favoured, and mindlessly braided it. “So, you didn’t hear anything about it?”

“No. Not before today. I’m as clueless as the rest of us,” Miyu sighed, rolling back her shoulders so that they brushed against Seidon’s chest, armour grazing armour in a soft screech of shhhing. “It’s finally here, then.”

“Makes you also wonder why we’re still fighting...”

Miyu turned towards the voice, and Seidon grumbled as the hair loosened in his grip in retaliation, forcing himself to move along with her. She seemed to be regarding one of her soldiers for a moment, her eyes, the colour of wet grass, gleamed like unblinking lights, outlined with a fan of blonde eyelashes that could not have existed when in the presence of the sun.

“Don’t forget your duty. We fight for a purpose. We fight for a reason.” Miyu reached around to gently shake her hair out from Seidon’s grasp, the tips of her hair fraying out like a fan and she stood in the centre of the room, enlisting the attention of the rest of the mercenaries. “I hope you all remember the oath you promised when you were made a soldier because I haven’t forgotten. I’m here as a servant of the Creator, destined to fight in His name. Destined to help rid His world of monsters. All in the name of the prophecy.”

She suddenly unsheathed her sword from her belt, the sound grating through the air so harshly that almost everyone winced and brandished it high so that the tip of the blade pointed towards the ceiling, the sky. “I fight for Him.”

“For Him!”