In the labyrinthine corridors of the Bright Castle, a particular handmaiden was performing her daily duties, tending to the castle in a steady silence. Her deep blue hair was tied in a loose ponytail, keeping it out of the way.
Then, something changed. An invisible ripple echoed past the halls, and the ring on her finger trembled and shattered.
Aletta froze, silently watching the crumbling metal shards fall uselessly to the floor.
The bright red gem quickly lost all its colour, leaving behind a black lightless husk.
She had told her son that the ring would be destroyed if he died or took it off.
She had lied of course.
For it was never meant to be an indicator of death. Instead, it was an indicator of something far more sinister.
A Daemon.
One of them to be precise. The Daemon of Destiny, Nether.
Slowly, she closed her eyes and sighed. Her son had not heeded her warning it seems.
Still, she could not blame him. Mortals like them could not hope to go against that which was predestined.
Though, that certainly didn't stop them from trying. She had tried to change the course of her son's future, but simple words could never do something that grand. Certainly not one who had barely started to walk the path of Ascension..
'So… it's happening already.'
Sighing bitterly, she left the empty corridor and returned to her chamber. She had been preparing for this day for a while now.
Ever since she saw the remnants of the Stone Children on these Shores, to be precise. As such, everything was already prepared.
And by everything she meant supplies. Food, water, extra clothes, and everything she needed to survive in the wild was waiting for her, stored in the only storage memory she had.
She rummaged through the compartments of her memory, taking stock of the contents. As a soft knock echoed from her door, she raised her head.
'Who could it be at this hour?'
Frowning, she went to open the door.
A moment later she was face to face with one of the lieutenants of the Bright Castle.
Song Seishan was standing outside her door.
"May I come in?"
Aletta slowly nodded. If there was one person she could trust in the Bright Castle, it was her.
The Scion of Clan Song, swept her gaze across the room, and her eyes landed on the storage memory.
"You're leaving."
It was not a question, simply an observation.
"Yes," Aletta said, following her gaze to the bag.
"And your son?" There was a hint of concern in her voice. She had not met Lucien very often, but she had seen him grow up in the streets of the outer settlement.
She had a solemn respect for the mundane human who had survived these ruthless shores longer than her. The boy had made quite the name for himself, even before becoming a carrier of the Spell. Hunting nightmare creature as a mundane tends to do that.
With a penchant for danger, he quickly became a core member of Changing Stars cohort. In fact, Seishan and the cohort were rather dependent on him as a point of contact.
For Aletta to leave before their return could only mean one thing.
"He's not dead," Aletta reassured her. Seishan tilted her head in a silent question. Aletta continued, "He's just…occupied. He won't be returning with Changing Star."
The lieutenant frowned, "What makes you say that?"
Aletta remained silent for a while, staring at the weathered carpet of the room. Eventually she spoke again.
"Would you believe me if I told you this was foretold?"
Seishan's frown grew deeper. Aletta's aspect had nothing to do with seeing the future. Such aspects were incredibly rare and extremely valuable– foresight was a weapon far sharper than any tool at Seishan's disposal. To her knowledge, Aletta's aspect was related to wind. Not fate.
Then again, she didn't necessarily have to be the seer.
"As far as I remember, there has never been a seer that strong in the castle."
Unless they had died before she arrived on the Shore..
She shook her head, "It wasn't a seer from here."
Seishan stared at her handmaiden in silence. She had heard many rumours over the years– Aletta was an easy target, after all. Most of them had been baseless, yet one kept washing in with the tide every now and again.
She had always been a little strange. As rumor would have it, Aletta had been stuck on the shores long before the First Bright Lord set foot on them. On one of their outings, his cohort had stumbled upon her, trapped. Seishan had tried on more than one occasion, but even she was deprived of the full truth.
"If you knew he wasn't coming back, why did you let him go?"
Aletta swiveled her head to stare at her, a deep regret in her eyes.
"Some things cannot be changed, no matter how much we try."
That…was not the answer she was expecting.
In the end, she stayed for a bit longer. Seishan wouldn't say it outright, but the handmaidens were her sisters. Soon, she bid farewell and left Aletta to her preparations.
Now alone in her room, Aletta walked over to the window at the far end of it.
Her room was one of the few in the Bright Castle to have a window. With one glance, she could view the entirety of the slums from the comfort of her quarters. She stared at the scene below with a strange longing in her heart.
Weirdly enough, she would miss this place. Tonight would be her last night in this small pocket of civilization.
The very next morning, she would leave for the desert.
That night, she had a dream. No, simply calling it a dream would be wrong. This was a memory, one from an era that was long gone.
It was a place she had not seen in a long time. She stood inside a titanic building, drinking in the familiar view.. If she closed her eyes she could still visualize the gargantuan tower that brushed past the heavens.
Ahead of her, a wide arch opened into the center of the tower. In there was the biggest statue of Storm to ever be made by mortal hands. That was why the building was so tall. Along the shaft of the tower, hundreds of windows had been carved out of the stone, so that the sun could still illuminate the great statue. Alas, a veil of clouds had blanketed the world outside, so very little light had actually managed to fall on the statue.
But that was not important right now. There, in front of that statue, a woman knelt on the ground. It was difficult to tell what she looked like, her face was hidden after all. No one was allowed to see what the Seer looked like.
Aletta had been summoned that day, for reasons she would later dread. Her husband would have been here with her, if he wasn't en route to battle the stone abominations.
One hands rested over her belly, which had grown into a sizable bump. She was with child. A smile made its way to her face as she looked down at it. It wouldn't be long before her child would be born, a month at most. Her thoughts drifted again towards the question that had plagued her since she answered the summon.
Why had she been called?
That question kept coming back to her.
It was customary for new parents to bring their child to the Seer. Her own mother had done the same for her. Still…
'Couldn't they at least wait until he's born?'
Soon, the priestess rose up from her kneeling position and beckoned her to come.
Slowly walking over to the altar, Aletta sat down and waited. She schooled her face into an impassive wall.
The masked Seer hovered her hand over her belly, as if sensing the child within. Her movements faltered for a second, then stopped.
Whatever it was she had seen could not have been good.
"What? What is it?" Aletta asked impatiently. Was something wrong with her child?
The Seer slowly turned to look at her and said in a raspy voice:
"Your child…shall be the last of our kind."
It was at this moment that the veil of clouds parted, and the world was suddenly bathed in bright blue light.
Lucien stared in silent horror as the ring on his finger crumbled and fell. That wasn't supposed to happen. The ring's function was to inform his mother of his death, a silent reassurance of his constant survival.
He was pretty damn alive right now. So why had it broken?
"Oh?" His companion's gaze landed upon the newly naked finger.
"That's… a rather intriguing trinket you were wearing, Stormborn."
It knelt down and prodded the remains with his dark finger.
"I'm told it's to break if I die or lose it," Lucien said, his tone betraying shock. Why had it broken? His mother thought he was dead now!
"No it wasn't."
Lucien blinked. "What do you mean it wasn't?"
"I've seen similar crafts before. This metal has quite the unique property– it reacts to daemonic presence." He dug out a black gem from the remains of the ring. "This gem was carved from the same rubies that run through our veins."
Crushing the gem in a swift motion, he watched as the fine black dust flowed between his fingers.
"This ring was made to signalto the presence of my maker."
Lucien stared silently at the black dust. It was… made to react to the presence of a Daemon? The Prince of the Underworld?? But…his mother had said…
'She lied.' He realized.
His mother had lied to him. But why? Why would she lie about this?
A terrible thought struck him. Had…had she known this would happen? Had she been privy to his fate? Did she not give him the ring for her own peace of mind? Did she know that he would one day stand face to face with one of Nether's children? She had known and warned him of the stone gate as well…
'You knew, you had always known this would happen.'
But that begged the question: How?
How did she know? And why hadn't she told him anything about it?
No, that's not right. She had explicitly warned him about it. It was he who hadn't listened.
Still, he couldn't help but feel a little betrayed. If she had told him why, he would've been more careful. Perhaps he could've avoided this fate a while longer. For all her warnings, she could have shared the truth. She could have prepared him better.
Could she?
Could he say with absolute certainty that he would have still followed with Changing Star in the search for the First Lord's Body? That he would've gone down the same path if he had known what awaited him?
Would that really be a bad thing? To run away from all the dangers of the world.
'Yes.' What was he doing, mulling over his life and fate when his absence could very well meant the death of one or more members of the cohort? Each and every one of them was of paramount importance. Their journey to the edge of the Forgotten Shores would've ended long ago if even one of them had chosen to stay behind.
Regardless, he would have to talk with her once he returned to the Dark City. There were simply too many questions– and too many answers which had been kept from him for too long.
"Are you coming or not?" The impatient voice of the stone saint pulled him out of his thoughts.
Sighing, he followed the child of Nether into the endless dark tunnels of the foreboding Daemon's Citadel.