The Prophecy - ACOTAR

Prologue

On the longest night of the year,

The Cauldron will gift the world a warrior,

She will be brought in with a vanishing birth.

She will bridge two worlds,

And will return when most needed.

The shadows will welcome her just as they do their master.

Strength, Night, and Song be gifted.

The prophecy was known throughout the whole world, human and fae alike. The wording would differ depending on where you were, but a warrior was still whispered to come. It was the oldest known piece of literature, as old as the story of the world's creation. Sometimes cauldron would be swapped with the gods or omitted all together. The most common change was she for he, and oh how wrong they were.

Scholars debated and fought over different aspects of the prophecy. What was a vanishing birth? What of the shadows? There were many times throughout history where you could find humans and fae on their knees begging for the warrior to come. To stop the war coursing through their lands. To bring home their loved ones. But she did not come, for it wasn't time yet. The humans enslaved by the fae would pray for the warrior to come, for she was meant to bridge two worlds. Could that not mean she was meant to free them? To bring peace?

The only thing for sure throughout the lands, she would be born on the winter solstice. The longest night of the year. Each solstice, if a babe was born, they would be watched closely, watched to see if this vanishing birth would happen. As the years pushed on, this custom would fade just as the hope faded that she would come.

In Prythian, the prophecy became nothing more than a bedtime story or a story to urge soldiers and warriors to push forward in their training. Until one winter solstice night, a father and son wait nervously as their wife and mother gave birth. The husband, anxious to see if he'd be gifted with another son. The son praying his mother would be ok and excited for a sibling. Her screams rang throughout their palace, her handmaiden and healer the only ones with her. The sweat dripped down her brow and tears crept from her eyes, she couldn't remember it being this hard of a birth with her son, every nerve in her body told her this was different.

When the clock chimed for 11pm, silence was finally welcomed into the palace, the mother's breath came hard as she waited for her trusted healer to place her child in her arms. Her heart sped up with each beat as she didn't hear the cry of her baby, it was a long and difficult birth, and she was fearful that something would be wrong with the child. But a few minutes later, a smile spread across her face as the small child was placed against her breast. She stared into the small purple eyes of her daughter; but she could not shake how something still felt very different, very wrong.

The healer was getting ready to bring the high lord of the night court in, to inform him of his new daughter, when she felt the wind picked up in the room. A gasp escaped the woman lying in the bed as her daughter disappeared from her arms, she looked wide eye at her hand maiden and her trusted healer. Both women looked at their lady in shock. The handmaiden was the first to move, rushing to tell a guard and let their lord know. But as her hand reached for the door, a knife found itself burrowed in the back of her head. A knife loosed from the hand of the courts most skilled and trusted healer.

The mother looked at her healer, fear, confusion, and bewilderment swimming in her eyes. The healer came to her bedside, bending down to whisper in her lady's ear, "We cannot risk anyone knowing what happened here this evening, we need to tell everyone she was born still. You sent her away with Ana because you could not bear to have her here."