Celadine
The small room was hot – almost stiflingly so – as a woman tossed and turned upon a tiny bed. The scent of herbs was thick in the air as the woman flopped onto her side, brows scrunched, her thick, brown hair a wild tangle of curls stuck to her sweaty forehead.
Normally the medicinal plants that overflowed from the shop out the front and into her room would offer her a comfort from the dreams that sometimes plagued her overactive sleep, but tonight they were of no help.
It had been an unusually busy day, which had prevented her from fixing her usual sleeping draught. Today, unlike other days where she was but a helper in the background, she was called upon to deliver a pain draught directly to the King. That small interaction alone had taken the most out of her. She had never seen the man up close before, having only spied glimpses whenever her services were called to the castle. But today, when she had lain eyes upon their ruler, she knew he was becoming a ghost of himself. She did not know Lorch Kruel well, but even she could tell that his shoulders had become plagued by a heaviness that had not there before.
When she arrived home late, her bones laced with fatigue, she had foolishly sprawled upon her bed, thinking she would rest her eyes for but a moment.
Sleep had claimed her as soon as her head hit the lumpy pillow.
And then the dream – no, the nightmare – began soon after.
There was blood and fire and chaos, and no matter where she looked, she saw bodies, countless bodies sprawled across the rubble of the destroyed castle courtyard. Her gaze flew across them, her heart thumping in time with the drums that thundered upon the golden walls above. Screams filled the air, pleading voices mixed with inhuman sounds that she knew would follow her beyond this dream.
She broke into a run, passing more bodies as her bare feet slapped the cobblestones. Her eyes lifted, desperate to avoid seeing the faces of women, children and men – broken, bleeding and desperate – and instead she focused on the path ahead.
She knew not where she was going, knew not her destination as she streaked past the town square and the temporary gallows, an empty noose swinging on a breeze.
She gasped for air as she dashed towards the open front gates, the massive doors blown off their hinges, barely holding on.
She wailed as she passed the threshold, for what she saw before her had her heart stuttering in her chest.
The town – her home – connected to Viridya castle was in utter, chaotic ruin. Fires consumed buildings as people fled, smoke polluting the air. Guts splattered the stone streets and blood coated the walls of homes and shops, shattered glass glittering like crystals on the roads. Bodies were littered here too, so many lives ripped from existence by unimaginable violence, as sparks and ash drifted in the air.
All the devastation she saw could not prepare her for what was next.
As tears streaked down her cheeks, Celadine, a mere city apothecary, dropped to her knees, her eyes taking in the vermillion sky. Something dark began to form above the city, a colossal black hole rimmed with energy as it slowly grew bigger and bigger. A low, droning sound preceded the anomaly, lightning snapping from the depths of the gaping void.
Then, from within the depths of the black hole, gargantuan fingers appeared, black and charred and tipped with claws, curling on the outer rim as something large – something terrible – began to emerge.
The herbalist wept, clutching herself as a resonating boom of thunder shook the earth. Her fingers pressed against her chest as she began to rock back and forth.
Wake up.
This was no longer a nightmare. It was a premonition of a future to come.
Wake up.
Everything she had done, everything she fought for was for naught.
It would all end in death.
“Cela! Wake up!”
She woke with a gasp, eyes snapping open as she shot up in bed. Strong hands grasped her arms as she sucked in hasty breaths – swift and shallow breaths that burned like fire in her parched throat. Without words she spun to her bedside chest, fumbling for her sketchpad and charcoal as her father rasped, “Cela, speak to me, what did you see?”
At the foot of her bed, a little girl clutched a severely loved teddy bear, her eyes wide and cheeks pink with worry. Normally Cela would downplay an event such as this as to not worry her daughter, but this was not a normal nightmare.
Cela’s fingers moved furiously, desperate to get what she had seen onto the paper before her shock could erase some of the memory. It was all chaos in the forefront of her mind, but one particular symbol burned behind her eyes. It had been inked with blood upon the walls she had dashed by and stained with residual magic on the stones of the courtyard where her dream had begun.
Silence thickened the air as the woman inhaled a shuddered breath, slowly placing the paper on the covers between them.
A serpent curled into a figure eight, jaws swallowing its own tail.
The symbol of the Ouroboros.
Cela’s eye drifted closed, words tasting like smoke as she said, “All will end in fire, fury and chaos. And I fear there is nothing we can do to stop it…”