A Crown Of Blades(ARTK, Book 3)

Chapter 143-144

  Anug 21st,3330 A.G

  Nara woke in a clean dress, her head still foggy. She were there, but she were also somewhere else. Somewhere colder, where the wind were far worse than it'd ever been on the cold continent- where the summers were far hotter than that in Bracari and the mountain range taller than that in libera.

She were here, but she were also there- as if she could see out of two sets of eyes. She walked along the top of its mountain range, so tall the clouds looked like they were halfway to the ground- and looked for any sign of life.

  But there was nothing there, and she meant nothing but her. Not a single bug crawled along the dirt, not a single Liberan goat or bird- and there didn't seem to be a single cave entrance this high up where the more sensitive animals could hide from the wind.

  The wind were stronger than it'd ever been in the other place, yet somehow she walked through it. Somehow Nara managed to ignore that her hair painfully whipped against her face , that the dress wouldn't stay down as she walked.

  It were hell and it wasn't.

  Nara kept going. She kept going until she reached a slightly taller mountain where she saw her first sign of life- a very familiar, very beautiful man.

  The most beautiful man she'd ever seen were standing atop that slightly taller mountain, connected to the range she'd been walking along- so climbing it didn't feel very difficult, but when the man turned around.....  she'd never seen such a display of emotion on such a still face.

  "Fenthos." Nara said. Some voice in her head said not to speak again until the god did, some horrible feeling that filled her mind and the back of her throat. She felt as if she were in trouble.

  And with the god of all knowledge.......

  Well, that weren't someone a person wanted to anger.

  "Nara Ashhand." He sighed, drawing her name out as if he were trying to taste every syllable. "How you've fallen."

Nara frowned, daring to take a step forward. "If I've .... Fallen, as you say- then you knew I was going to take the actions I have. You know exactly what actions I will take in the future, exactly how my war will end, how I will die, how I'll fulfill that prophecy- you know everything there is to know. So tell me something, F-"

"Do not deign to speak to me as if we are old friends." Fenthos calmly mumbled, his words ones Nara would have expected to hear in a sharper tone. "It is true that I know exactly what actions you will take and when. It is true that I know how you will die and how your war will be won or lost, and how you will fulfill the prophecy."

"Will it be won or los-"

"That is not knowledge you're allowed to know, child." Fenthos sighed again, looking bored. "It would upset the balance of things. You are here because of the way you've gone about this war. Because us speaking is all a part of this new era you can still usher in. Funny thing about knowing almost everything- I cannot change the course of events. Not in the way some of you humans would think. If I were to tell you something before I was supposed to, it would set of a catastrophic chain of events like never before. The peaks of mountains would fall. The frozen rivers and lakes of ebon would never unfreeze- as the three or so week's worth of a warm period that continent gets in the middle of the year would cease to exist. The Ashhand iron mines would cease that 'unnatural', magickal regeneration that seems to happen when no one is looking. What I'm here to say is- what do you see when you look around you?"

Nara blinked, wondering what sort of trick question that were. She saw mountains. Clouds, a sky, dirt, and a god. All very normal things.

But there was nothing else. Absolutely-