Page 1 of The Eye of the Fifth
PARTONE
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CURSEUNBOUND
Chapter One
Spark Of Fate
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Age of Mothers, 914.
Phaenon City, Nythanor.
Naal.
The wind was acutely cold. Usually a gentle and comforting hand on the Air Warden’s skin, it bit into her exposed cheeks like a toothy nip from an excited frostwolf pup. It was not the bitter air that had unsettled her old heart, but the distinct change in that all-knowing breeze.
Coupled with the fateful scroll held tight in her hand, it was no wonder a sense of doom had begun to slither over Naal Westerra’s very bones.
Behind her, the Goddess of Air, Mother Gallena, stood tall. A guardian to the temple that Naal called home, the sculpture was encrusted with crystals so flawless, that when the sun rose every morning, the shining brilliance of the temple could be seen from Nythanor’s shores, like a second sun to the east reflecting its sister to the west.
As Naal beheld Gallena’s sparkling crystal face, she unravelled the scroll once more.
Body swaying in a way that had nothing to do with the whipping wind, she scanned the barely discernible words on the parchment.
Naal read each sentence with perfect understanding for she knew this hand as well as her own. Infused into the parchment with the writing wafted a scent, subtle yet utterly lucid to Naal’s senses. It belonged to one she would know for a thousand lifetimes, and therewas none in this world or any other that could thoroughly quiver her wits like this one could.
The hand of Winvara Daeiros. The only being to have ever stolen Naal’s carefully guarded heart.
But those written words were void of affection. Naal had hardly expected a note of reconciliation after so many years, but to see such cold writing, as though sent from a stranger, cracked Naal’s heart just a little further. Winvara would not forgive her, and Naal would be a fool to expect her to.
With a whip of magic, the scroll levitated in the air before her. Naal took one last look at her lover’s words before they became nothing but dust.
The grey feathers of her great wings bristled.
The scroll had carried a mere few sentences. Winvara had wasted no time nor ink in her message to Naal. It was aptly worded and concise enough that had the scroll gone awry and fallen into the wrong hands, a stranger’s eyes would find it meaningless:
‘For when the Earth cracks and the Sun hides behind the moon,
Then shall she of light and land be born.’
My newest granddaughter came into the world concurrent with the quake and eclipse that has rattled the stars. Take from that what you will.
I do not require a response. Do not come here. Not until she is ready. I will inform you when she is.
Nonsense poetry to most, but Naal knew the vague lines of that prophecy as well as she knew Winvara’s stubborn soul. Long had she waited for those words to fatefully come to pass, anticipating the beginning of the end.
But never had she imagined Winvara Daeiros’ granddaughter to be the poor soul in which the foretelling alluded to.
She felt, rather than heard, the approach of a friend behind her. She had shared the contents of Winvara’s message with him only, and aburdening command now lay taut in the air between them, one that Naal was reluctant to give.
Orro Myrso, Naal’s Second in the Eternal Order, stood strong by her side, his black feathered wings tucked tight at his back. ‘Ask it, Naal,’ he said quietly. He had a way of reading her like no other, a result of hundreds of years of friendship and loyal servitude.
Naal’s throat tightened. ‘You know I do not want to.’
‘You must,’ Orro simply replied.
