the seas are alive,
and they are raging with monsters, old sport.
| based on the voyage of the dawn treader |
| BOOK TWO OF THE KING IN DISTRESS DUOLOGY |
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
IN THE DEAD of the beautiful night, a prophecy was reborn into a curse.
It began with bloodied hands, and a velvet dress stained with the stench of death. White lily flowers and shards of shattered glass were a fiasco on the oakwood floor, like a moonlit sky full of glittering stars above a haunted graveyard. Those petals of white were once symbols of peace, but now, they only harbored something carnivorous and vile, perfectly plucked from the spoils of the victims of a decades-long war.
A young child stood in the middle of a battlefield, bones wan with hard labor, clothes wrinkled from reuse, and hair oily from months of being unwashed. As chaos ensued around him, he stayed standing, unyielding stare affixed straight ahead of him, straight into the eyes of a green-eyed maiden with hair as fiery as the red sun of Velestia.
The fiery-haired maiden was a priestess, and a soothsayer that served the emperor of Shaa'Valun. She had not known this young child, not until he appeared in front of her in a vision, in the middle of the battlefield. She knelt, then, on the blood-stained grass, and prayed to the gods of the old religion, hands clasped together, head facing the dark heavens.
The child stayed rooted on where he stood, watching the priestess pray her useless prayers to gods that would not answer her. Then, in the midst of the blurry war raging around them, snow fell down from the heavens, painting the ground a soft shade of white. It was divine, it was sinister, it was a third other that the priestess could not quite place a word to.
She thought it was the gods replying to her. She thought wrong.
A thunder from far lands echoed above them, a rhythm that shook the ground. The snow was a thief in the night, a song yet to be sung. The child laughed, his laugh resounding in the dark like a sinister melody. The priestess let out a gasp, reconnecting her gaze with the child's, and then, she let out a piercing scream.
"Oh, my dear, you don't need to hide. I am here. I am here. I will shield you, cradle you, feed you my milk and sustain you with my blood. I am your friend, your lover, your family, and your darkest nightmare. I am war, I am peace. I am land and sea. I am nothing, and everything. At the same time."
"Who are you? You are not my god!" The priestess wailed. The voice chuckled, low and enticing.
"No. Your god is dead."
The priestess cried out, salty tears staining her lovely face. She looked to where the child stood, and indeed the child was still there. Still staring. Waiting for something. Waiting for her.
"My god is everlasting." She fought. "You will not hold power over me."
For the first time, the child took one step forward. And smiled.
The priestess grabbed her knife, gripping it tightly as she pressed the blade to the palm of her hand. Blood dripped from the cut down to the earth beneath her. And from where her blood touched the earth rose a thin veil of smoke and wisps of sparks that reflected in her green eyes. And for a split moment, her eyes spoke of blazing forest fires. The child's smile widened.
Then, the priestess let out a sharp gasp before her back arched, feet no longer touching the earth, eyes not of fire, but of smoke and cloud. Violently, a string of words flowed from her mouth as she quickly spoke in tongues, as if possessed by something not of their physical world. Her voice grew more and more crooked, words flowing at a more incessant pace. Until, it stopped and she collapsed to the ground.
The fates have spoken.
When the Northern Star glitters high And the Treader glides through waters tide The Blood of the Warrior will taint the moon The Love of a King shall end in doom Maiden, Mother, Crone in chains Dark is the night in which you will reign.
For all of Eternity.
The child's cackle rose like the fumes of a flame licking the dark, and the priestess' knuckles whitened as her grip on her knife tightened when she sliced the blade across her pale throat and her blood trickled onto the earthen soil.
The Prophecy of the Dragon had been spoken, and it has now become a Curse.
