The heavy, bronze-plated door slammed shut with a sound of utter finality. The thud of the locking bar sliding into place was the last sound Elara heard from the outside world.
She was not in a dungeon.
She was in a cage, but it was a gilded one. The "Bronze Chamber" was aptly named. It was a large, opulent room, clearly meant for a high-status guest. The walls were hung with thick, woven tapestries depicting Kaelen's ancestors conquering desert tribes. Shields of polished bronze, each one a masterpiece of ancient metallurgy, were mounted between them. A low brazier in the corner burned with a smokeless, sweet-smelling wood.
As a museum researcher, Elara knew that a single shield from this room would be the centerpiece of a global exhibition. Here, they were just... decoration.
Four guards—four, not two—stood at silent attention outside her door. She was the most well-appointed prisoner in the Ashurian Empire.
The adrenaline that had kept her standing in the courtyard drained away all at once. Her legs gave out, and she collapsed onto a pile of silk cushions, her entire body shaking.
It was real. It wasn't a hallucination. It wasn't a dream.
The air was too hot, the smell of the spices in the brazier too sharp. The rough, priceless tapestry behind her was too real against her skin.
She had traveled two thousand years into the past.
But that wasn't the most terrifying part.
She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, her academic brain finally, belatedly, processing the full, horrific implications.
The "Miracle of the Kaelen Flood."
It was a foundational text. The moment Kaelen the Man became Kaelen the Divine-Chosen Emperor. His first act of "prophecy."
"I didn't predict it," she whispered, her voice a dry croak. "I caused it."
She was the source. She was the "divine message" from the gods. She wasn't a historian observing the past. She was a rogue variable that had just written it. This wasn't just time travel. This was a paradox. A temporal loop so tight it was choking her.
And the man at the center of it—the cold, beautiful tyrant who had just declared her his "oracle"—was testing her.
This wasn't a display of faith. It was a wager.
Her "prophecy" of the flood in three days was a gamble, and her life was the currency.
The next three days were the purest form of torture Elara had ever known.
Day One was frantic. She paced the room from wall to wall, a caged animal. She tried the door; it was as immovable as a mountain. She called out to the guards.
"Please! I need to speak to someone! I need... water!"
The guards were silent. Hours later, a small wooden slot at the bottom of the door opened, and a clay cup of water was pushed through. No one spoke.
Day Two, the panic subsided, replaced by a cold, gnawing dread.
She was completely, utterly isolated. Food was delivered the same way: a piece of flatbread, some olives, a few dates. They were keeping her alive, but she was cut off from all information.
This, she realized, was Kaelen's true test. He wasn't just testing her knowledge. He was testing her nerve.
She spent the day agonizing over her own data. Was it three days? Did she read the tablet correctly? Was 'Serqet' the right river? What if the translation was flawed? What if the 22nd-century historian who wrote the paper she cited had made a mistake?
In her world, a mistake meant a retracted article. A note in a journal.
Here, it meant a bronze blade.
Late in the afternoon of the second day, the heavy bar on the door was pulled. Elara shot to her feet, her heart leaping into her throat.
The door opened, but it wasn't Kaelen.
It was General Vorak. The man who had wanted to take her head.
He stood in the doorway, a mountain of scarred muscle. He obeyed the King's order—he did not speak to her. But he didn't have to. He turned his head and spoke to the lead guard, his voice a low growl designed to carry.
"The King waits," Vorak said, his eyes fixed on Elara with pure contempt. "And the sky remains clear. The air is still. The river in the north is as dry as a bone."
He took a menacing step forward, just over the threshold.
"I have spoken to the priests. They sense no magic. They hear no word from the gods. They only smell... a lie."
He looked at her, a cruel smirk on his face. "Tell the executioner to sharpen his blade. If the sun sets tomorrow and that river is still dry... I will have my due. The King will see this 'oracle' for the foreign witch she is."
He spat on the stone floor at her feet, turned, and the door was slammed shut, the bar thudding back into place.
Elara's legs failed her again. She slid down the wall, her breath coming in ragged gasps. He was right. There was no storm. Her prophecy hadn't been about a storm; it was about snowmelt. A flash flood. It would come with no warning.
But if she was wrong by a single day...
Day Three. The sun was a relentless clock. Elara didn't eat. She didn't sit. She stood by the room's only window—a narrow, carved slot in the thick stone wall—and watched the shadows lengthen.
Morning bled into the blazing heat of noon. Noon cooled into the long, orange afternoon.
The shadows grew long. The sun, a swollen red ball, began to touch the distant mountains.
Her time was up.
She was standing in the middle of the room, trembling so hard she could barely stand, when the bar on the door was drawn.
This time, there was no loud slam. The heavy door swung open on silent hinges.
It was Kaelen.
He was alone. He was not wearing his armor, only a simple, dark-red tunic that made him look less like a king and more like a warrior at rest. But the change was terrifying. It was personal.
He glided into the room, his movements silent and fluid, like a great cat. He stopped in the center, his golden eyes fixing her. The dying, red light from the window lit one side of his face, throwing the other into a cold, hard shadow.
The silence stretched, thick and heavy.
"The sun is setting, little scholar," he said. His voice was a soft, dangerous whisper.
She flinched at the name.
"My priests have fasted," he continued, taking a slow step toward her. "My scouts have flown their fastest birds. The skies are clear. The river... is dry."
Elara's stomach turned to ice. No. He's lying. He has to be. This was the final test. To see if she would break. To see if she would recant her story.
She was a scholar. Her data was her only weapon. Her only shield.
She met his gaze, though it felt like staring into the sun.
"You're... you're wrong," she whispered, her voice a raw, broken thing.
His eyes narrowed.
"It... it doesn't come from the sky," she said, her voice gaining a desperate, paper-thin strength. "It comes from the mountains. The snow... the snowmelt. It won't be a storm. It will be a wave. A wall of water."
She took a shuddering breath, her entire life, past and future, balanced on this one, historical fact.
"It is... it is certain."
As the last word left her lips, a sound penetrated the thick walls.
It was a low, distant rumble.
It wasn't thunder. It was a vibration, a low-frequency hum that she felt in the stone floor, in her teeth. It was a sound that didn't stop, but grew, like a giant, invisible boulder rolling toward the palace.
Kaelen's head tilted, listening. His expression remained utterly unchanged, but Elara saw a flicker, a flare of light, in his golden eyes.
The door behind him, which he had left open, was suddenly filled. General Vorak stood there, his heavy armor clattering as he stopped. He was breathless, his face pale, his eyes wide with a terrifying, religious awe.
"Your Majesty..." Vorak gasped, falling to one knee. "The messenger... he... he rode his horse to death..."
"Speak, General," Kaelen said, his voice still a calm whisper. He did not turn. He did not take his eyes off Elara.
"The northern post... the Serqet..." Vorak stammered. "It... it is gone. The river. It's a raging sea. A wall of water, just as the... just as you predicted."
Vorak stared at the back of his King's head, his voice choked. "The Sand Wolves. Their entire camp. Their warriors, their women... vanished. Swept away. There are... there are no survivors."
Elara felt the blood drain from her face. Vanished. No survivors. She had known. The history books had said "annihilated." But hearing it... knowing her words had been the trigger...
The rumbling was now a distant, hollow roar.
Vorak was still staring at Kaelen, waiting for a command from his all-seeing, all-knowing, prophet-king.
But Kaelen was not looking at his General.
He took the final step, closing the distance between himself and Elara. He was so close she could feel the heat radiating from him. He smelled of the dry desert wind and the faint, metallic tang of bronze.
He slowly raised one hand, as if to touch her face, but stopped, his fingers hovering in the air near her cheek.
"General Vorak thinks I am divine," Kaelen whispered, his voice so low it was for her and her alone. "The entire army now believes I speak to the gods."
His golden eyes held hers, and for the first time, she saw something in them beyond cold authority. It was a sharp, terrifying flash of triumph. Of possession.
"But I," he murmured, "I have you."