The Messiah's Dream

I sat upright on a velvet chaise near the window in my chambers in Kaisergrad. The room was cold, the immense height of the ceiling seeming to draw the warmth out of the air. Moonlight, sharp and unforgiving, poured through the gothic arch of the window, casting distinct, silver threads across the polished stone floor. The crucial political documents rested in my lap: the signed treaties from the Northern nobles of Eisenfurst and Feldheim, securing their neutrality. With Lianne’s Elven forces at Luxion, Fredreich’s war felt not just doomed, but strategically over before the first major battle. I had won, or so the meticulous logic of the prosecutor told me.

But the relief was a brittle thing. I had slept barely an hour in the last seventy-two, fueled only by desperation and cold strategy. My eyes, gritty and heavy, grew slow. My grip around the thick sheaves of parchment loosened, and the world began to stretch and warp. The silver light from the moon pulsed, blurring the edges of the room, until everything dissolved into a churning, lightless black.

I stood in a place of terrible familiarity. It was a konbini, the air buzzing with the high-pitched drone of cheap fluorescent lights. The white plastic shelves stretched into infinity under the artificial glare, yet every single product label was written in an unfamiliar script that swam before my eyes. I gripped a pack of cigarettes, the cardboard brittle and dry, and scanned the shelves. My usual brand was gone, replaced by endless identical rows of blank, featureless packaging. The light directly above me flickered violently, strobing the mundane scene. The cigarette pack in my hand suddenly morphed and chilled, transforming into a dagger, cold and heavy, pressing an intricate, unsettling pattern into my palm.

The store's walls then vanished, sucked into the ceiling like sand in an hourglass. The floor dissolved. I was standing on damp earth in a field of roses, stretching endlessly under a sky that burned with the pure, scorching white of a blazing sun. The air was thick and sickly sweet with the scent of countless blooms, their petals a vibrant, unnerving shade of crimson.

Another flicker, sharp and painful, behind my eyelids. I felt a visceral lurch, and the light went dark for a breathless moment. When vision returned, the serene white sun was gone. The sky was now a swirling, churning blood-red vortex, and a colossal, crimson moon hung low on the horizon, glaring down where the sun had been. The rose petals beneath my feet felt sodden, and when I looked down, my hands were entirely stained with blood, glistening darkly in the moonlight.

Amber stood before me. She wore the familiar, simple tunic from her time in Mittengrad, but her posture was rigid. Her eyes, which I knew better than my own reflection, once so warm and clear, were now burning with a cold, terrifying disgust that froze the marrow in my bones. "What did you do, Itsuki?" she whispered, her voice a fragile sliver of glass. "Why did you have to do it? This path of blood was never meant for us."

I reached for her, my bloody hand stretching out across the crimson field, desperate to wipe the condemnation from her face. But the ground beneath her dissolved into liquid, then vapor, and she slipped away, her image shattering like a broken mirror. I plunged into a void, a silent, crushing nothingness. I floated, utterly weightless, drifting in infinite black space.

Just as the silence became unbearable, a familiar, powerful hand cradled me. It was the All-Mother, her form radiantly milk-white, a towering celestial figure in the black expanse. Her two immense eyes, glowing an intense, mesmerising red, gazed down at me with the same terrifying gentleness as when she had first summoned me to this world.

"What is this?" I asked, my voice thin, trembling with the cold of the void. "Am I doing right by you? By the prophecy?"

“Yes,” she said, her voice soft, reassuring. "But you do right in ways you do not yet imagine. A monarch and a messiah will bring peace, establish justice among the people. But justice is a path of blood and sacrifice."

“Amber and I,” I murmured, trying to grasp the certainty that had guided me for months. "She’s the monarch, I’m her messiah." The All-Mother smiled. It was a cryptic, vast expression that held the weight of millennia, a promise and a threat intertwined. The void around us suddenly trembled, a deep, jarring vibration like the distant collapse of mountains.

A loud knock shattered the dream. I jolted awake, the treaties slipping to the floor. Jaeger burst in, pale-faced, breathless.

A loud knock shattered the dream. I jolted awake, the treaties slipping to the floor. Jaeger burst in, pale-faced, breathless, his axe gleaming in the moonlight. “The invasion’s launched,” he whispered, eyes wide. “Fredreich’s legions marched at dusk, fighting rages at Blutklamm.”

Rage surged, hotter than any Tokyo courtroom. Fredreich’s lies, his war, Amber’s pain, ignited a fire no logic could contain. His smirk from the banquet hall haunted me, that sly glint mocking my efforts. “How did you learn this?” I demanded, standing, fists clenched.

“Scouts outside, from Faelar,” Jaeger said, voice low. “They’re guarding the hall, waiting for your orders.” I nodded, forcing calm. Fredreich’s betrayal wouldn’t break me, not yet. “Signal Lianne,” I said, grabbing parchment and quill. “Tell her Luxion rises now, join Ur’s forces at once.” Jaeger took the note and slipped out, his heavy steps echoing.

I paced, the All-Mother’s words ringing: Blood and sacrifice. Amber’s disgusted gaze lingered in my mind, a warning I couldn’t shake. But Fredreich’s war was doomed, Eisenfurst, Feldheim, and Luxion stood with me. I had to act, not falter. I sat again, penning letters to Faelar and Lucius: ‘Fredreich’s offensive will fail, his nobles fracture. Push forward, Lianne joins you. Hold Blutklamm.’ I sealed the letters, handing them to a waiting scout outside my door, his cloak damp with mist.

The castle stirred beyond my chambers, shouts and footsteps echoing through the stone halls. Fredreich’s betrayal had ignited chaos, and I needed to see it for myself.