Chapter One

Shrouded in darkness that was only half banished by the room's flickering oil lamps, the seeress lay on a flat, low divan. There was something almost corpselike about the way she was draped over it, her right hand lying palm upward, fingers lightly curled, as if in final supplication to the gods.

It was a morbid thought, perhaps, but then, Naratha was a demon. Matters of gods and death were common paths for her mind to tread.

Naratha almost moved to cross the threshold into the shadowed, windowless room but then paused. She stood there for a long moment, listening intently. The precaution was probably unnecessary— the depths of this temple were a place both secret and sacred, and few would risk defiling it with bloodshed— but she had not survived this long by being unwary. She had enough enemies even within the walls of her own city that it was only sensible to check for the slow breaths and accelerating heartbeat that might betray a hidden assailant.

But there was nothing. Only the slow, dull heartbeat of the seeress on the divan, and of course that of High Priestess Mareth beside her, the woman who had sent word to Naratha. Word of a prophecy of fire and flame.

"This is her?" Naratha asked Mareth, inclining her head to the unconscious seeress. High Priestess Mareth was an elderly woman, well past her seventieth year, but her mind was still alert and sharp enough for her duties in this temple. And that was no small feat, considering that the larger part of those duties involved trying to parse the meanings of the tangled visions of oracles. "This is the seeress you spoke of in your message?"

"One of them, Your Majesty," the priestess said, bowing. The white veil of her headdress fell slightly forward with the motion, partially veiling her eyes. It was just as well; Naratha sometimes wearied of the flash of fear that colored the gaze of humans interacting with her, even if she had little interest in doing anything to mitigate it.

Mareth continued, "There were a number of visions from different seers—both human and demon— that seemed interconnected, the fates they spoke of tightly woven and entwined. Irithia, though," she said, with a nod to the supine woman, "was able to grasp more than the others. And so I chose her to seek more clarity."

That much was obvious; the room still stank of incense, and beneath that, Naratha could detect a faint waft of the sacred herbs that could send an oracle into the half-dream wandering state that let them glimpse the minds of the gods, the paths that fate could take.

Naratha finally stepped forward. She'd chosen her usual form tonight, the one the people of this city knew best. She was a tall, stately woman with the dark silken hair that spoke to the Sabrian side of her bloodline— the human side— but no one would have ever mistaken her for human. Her wings, with their iridescent scales glimmering even in this murky gloom, made her demonic nature quite obvious. Naratha's kind had been forced to scuttle and hide like the vermin that most humans believed them to be for far too long in far too much of the world. Here, in Karazhen, Naratha had no interest in obscuring the truth of her nature. In these lands, demons ruled, and it was best that their human subjects retain a keen awareness of that fact.

"What was the nature of the danger your oracles spoke of?" Naratha asked, turning her gaze fully on Mareth, who barely restrained a flinch. It was quite rare for the oracles or their handlers to feel that their visions required direct interaction from Naratha; in fact, she was certain that they would much prefer to keep their distance from her. And that in itself was enough to tell her that their visions spoke of a serious peril indeed.

Mareth straightened, though she kept her gaze lowered. "Forgive me, Your Majesty," she said, "But I believe you may wish to hear this directly and in full, rather than hearing a summary from me."

"I would prefer to do both, actually," Naratha said briskly. Oracles were a frustrating breed to interact with; their minds were tangled from wandering the paths of fate, from exploring possibilities and dooms. It could take some time to even piece together the subject of their warning, let alone what the warning itself might be.

"What did they speak of?" Naratha asked, keeping her tone measured. Whatever it was, she refused to seem worried. She knew she was far from untouchable, but that didn't mean she meant to give any sign of vulnerability. Not to the gods, not to other demons, and certainly not to humans.

"A threat to one of our cities?" she prompted. "A possible incursion?" It had been many years since such a thing had happened, but with the occasional sword-rattling from their nearest enemies on the northern side of the narrow sea that divided the demon-ruled cities from other lands, it wasn't an altogether improbable guess.

There were other possibilities that would have led the priestess to summon her directly, of course. An immediate threat to herself, or to her son, Prince Darius, for instance. Naratha kept the unease of that thought from showing on her face. Darius was among the strongest demons in the world— she'd raised him to be, after all. But he was dear to her, and that paradoxically made him a vulnerability, possibly her only vulnerability. She was self-aware enough to be alert to the danger such sentiment could pose, but there was nothing to be done about that other than ensuring that he was always prepared to do what might be necessary for his kind. And on that front, at least, she was confident.

Mareth pursed her lips in a brief, anxious hesitation. "A possible threat to Karazhen, yes," she said at last. "But not by incursion or outside influences. This is a danger from within city walls."

Naratha inclined her head, waiting. Apparently taking Naratha's silence to mean that more detail was needed, Mareth crossed to the dozing seeress, stooping beside her to lay a withered but firm hand on her shoulder. After a moment, the seeress stirred.

Irithia was young for an oracle of her strength, perhaps not far beyond her fiftieth year. Even so, when her eyes slowly opened, her gaze was every bit as clouded as that of much older seers, her mind wandering too far abroad to be concerned with what was directly in front of her. Indeed, even being presented with a demon queen seemed to impress her little. She looked at Naratha, then nodded once as if this was simply to be expected. Perhaps it was, though whether that was due to vision or to more mundane sources of forewarning, Naratha didn't know.

"Irithia," Mareth said, her voice level and firm, and the seeress's gaze roved back to her instead. "Are you prepared to tell Her Majesty what has been revealed to you?"

The seeress blinked slowly, then turned back to Naratha, who kept her expression impassive despite the impatience that was beginning to stir in her breast. Oracles, she had learned through long experience, rarely responded well to the mundane demands of urgency.

Irithia raised one hand, sparks drifting lazily around her fingers. Naratha kept her discomfort at the fire-summoning from her expression. Despite demonkind's public encouragement of humans nurturing magical talent, Naratha had always felt a vague sense of danger whenever witnessing a display of power from one of them. It was a nonsensical emotion— only one type of human elementalist truly posed a threat to her— but it had long persisted, nonetheless.

"The girl is one of our own," the seeress said, her voice already colored with a faint waver, which was unsurprising; seeking truth in vision was among the most draining types of magic. Less expected were the words themselves. The girl, she'd said? A single person was at the root of a danger that required Naratha's personal attention?

Meanwhile, the sparks continued their languid swirl outward from Irithia's hand, more shimmering into existence all the while. "Your path breaks across this girl's like a mighty wave, daughter of the Abyss," the seeress said. Mareth gave a short intake of breath at the disrespect of the address. Naratha ignored it; she could always have the seeress executed later if she so chose, but right now, there was information to be had.

The sparks had nearly filled the room by that point, tiny pinpricks of red and gold swirling aimlessly as mist. Slowly, inevitably, they began to coalesce, forming into a stream that swirled around the room's three occupants, coiling twice around Naratha before resuming its winding— yet somehow, quite deliberate and purposeful— path.

"The path of your fate," Irithia said, just as thousands of tiny tributaries and branches formed of weaker, smaller sparks began to fill the air. "And the paths of your subjects."

It was an apt metaphor, Naratha thought. After all, her actions impacted the lives of many. Like a river, any change in her own course could easily give life… or destroy it.

"Thrice your path forces hers to divert, and thrice her fate is changed because of yours," the seeress said. Naratha eyed her, unimpressed. She was a queen; her actions forced changes to the paths of thousands, and poetic rules of prophecy aside, she very much doubted that such a thing occurring thrice to one subject had any significance.

"The first crossing of fates was long ago, much of it lost from her memory, though still blade-sharp in yours," the seeress continued. As she spoke, one of the many tiny subordinate streams glowed at the point it met the main river before the intensity of its light faded back, leaving it indistinguishable from the thousands of others that swelled and shriveled around the main source.

Naratha frowned, though she otherwise kept a ripple of uncertainty from her face. An action meaningless to a queen that had impacted one of her subjects would have been expected… but the reverse? A choice of hers that had altered someone's fate, one that they could not recall, but that Naratha herself did? The strangeness left her unsettled, and she had to consciously stop her wings from giving a rustle of discomfiture.

But she would have to consider it later; the seeress was speaking again. "The second has occurred already, or perhaps will soon come," she said. Further down on the river of sparks, another stream flared bright before fading to obscurity once more. Naratha almost rolled her eyes, though a part of her was relieved. Seers' tendency to lose their anchor on such trivial matters as sequential order of events, though aggravating, was at least familiar territory.

"Past, future, or even this very moment, the event is sure," the seeress continued. There was a tremble of weariness in her voice, which Naratha ignored. "The third… the third is yet to come, and the form it takes is not yet ordained."

"And this third… intersection," Naratha said, her gaze traveling down the river's path. "It is the danger of which you spoke?"

The seeress made a small motion, a flick of the fingers that was clumsy with growing exhaustion. As she did, a change erupted in the river of sparks. One of the tiny streams grew brighter, changing from red to yellow to a sudden, blinding white heat. Mareth covered her eyes with one arm in a quick motion. Naratha, for her part, barely refrained from looking away as the smaller stream collided forcefully with the main river.

The main flow of sparks began to roil and seethe like boiling water, the tiny points of flame and light growing brighter and dancing with frenetic, chaotic energy. As Naratha watched, it began to split into smaller rivers, each one roiling and twisting and intersecting with thousands of other tiny streams. All the while, the brilliant stream of painfully white sparks cut through them all.

"The streams of fate," the seeress whispered. "Ripples of possibilities. Flashes of destiny, or perhaps of doom. Some end in prosperity and strength. And some… some end with this city in flames."

Naratha's heart was beating loudly enough it would not have surprised her to learn that even the dull ears of the room's human occupants could hear it, but she kept her face as impassive as ever.

"Who is it?" she asked, though with no real hope of a clear answer. "This girl whose destiny could bring that sort of danger?"

The seeress suddenly slumped back, her strength clearly spent. She fell back against the divan, her eyes rolling back. Naratha pursed her lips, irritated.

Mareth stepped forward quickly. "Irithia is the most clear-sighted of those I asked to pursue this thread of vision, but not the only one," she said. "This girl has appeared in the seers' visions for months now, and they have been seeking her tirelessly. But there is more. This girl… she is destined to rise in power, perhaps to greater heights than Diantha herself."

The mention of the name of this land's first demon queen jolted Naratha, and her wings rustled with the start of disbelief that ran through her.

"What did you say?" she demanded.

Mareth dropped her gaze, an obvious tremble running through her body. "Following the threads of her fate alone, my seeresses all report the same, Majesty," she whispered. "There are many forms her destiny might take, but whatever occurs, she will rise to enormous influence."

Influence . Such an innocuous word in most contexts. But not here, not now. Not when applied to a human in the only safe haven that demonkind had. Not when it could mean that haven collapsing into flames.

"And with all your seeking, have you learned who she is?" Naratha asked, her tone perfectly even.

"Yes, Majesty," Mareth said, bowing her head yet further. "For a time, we thought perhaps she must be from another land, to have such strength of destiny and yet be unknown to us. But that proved not to be the case. We have managed to identify her."

Naratha considered this. There were any number of people she might suspect of conspiring against her, some human, some demon. But they were all highly ranked citizens, people that the oracles would recognize if they encountered them in vision. If identifying the subject of these visions had been a matter of months, the girl they spoke of must be no one Naratha would have considered to be of consequence. To think that someone seemingly insignificant could pose enough of a threat to appear in ever-greater detail in the oracle's visions was, to say the least, disconcerting.

Disconcerting, but also perhaps a blessing. A subject who was insignificant was one who could be dealt with quietly… and quickly. And when confronted with a threat, Naratha had never been one to waste time.

"Give me the name," she said.