The Old Soothsayer
High up in the eaves of House Armand, where cobwebs clung to dusty beams and a candle flickered on a narrow sill, an old woman slumbered in her chair. In her hands, she clutched her tarot deck.
It was long after midnight and despite the ravens croaking on the roof, Madame Josephine Fontaine was fast asleep.
There was no peace in her slumber. Not while the thread that bound her to her ancestor, Oriel Beauregard, was as taut as a sailor’s knot.
The Saint of Destiny was yanking on the other end, whispering.
Look and see, Josephine.
The fate of Fantome is changing.
Josephine scowled in her sleep. A thousand years gone, and Oriel would not leave this bloody kingdom alone.
Let me be, you infernal pest! I am old and tired and soon to die.
She cursed that blasted drop of Beauregard blood in her veins.
Not magical like the blood of the saints but old and powerful in a different way.
The remnants of a bond she could not sever, no matter how she tried to ignore it.
Was she doomed, in her ninth decade on the vast continent of Arthos, to never know peace again?
That familiar voice hissed at her.
The world is falling into great danger, Josephine.
You must rise to your destiny.
Pah! Destiny had left it late enough. Josephine was half blind and all but deaf, not to mention mostly drunk these days. What use did destiny have of her now? What use had she of destiny?
A vision was knocking on the door of her mind. It had begun as a tap just after dinner, rising to an insistent thud as she’d sat reading in the library afterwards. Oriel’s fist was heavy with impatience now, pounding and pounding and pounding.
Too tired to fight it any longer, the soothsayer relinquished her stubbornness. As she sat slumped in her rocking chair, gilded by the dying candlelight, the door inside her mind flew open…
The winged army of Urnica rose up from beyond the Western Ridge like a plague upon the skies.
A flock of monstrous black birds blanketed the horizon, tail feathers like flames beneath the rising sun.
The Strix. Native to the southern cliffs of Urnica and not seen outside their kingdom for over one hundred years, the war mounts were weapons unto themselves, with keen eyes to see in the dark and talons as sharp as cutlasses.
There was a touch of magic about them.
Dark magic.
Upon their backs, the notorious Stargrazers of Urnica were as fearsome as their mounts, the king’s prized legion of aerial fighters clad in black leather and helmets crowned with a mane of blood-red feathers.
The smudging of kohl round their eyes obscured their gazes, but there was no doubting their destination.
The western peaks of Valterre seemed to shrink beneath their shadow, as though nature, in its oldest and truest form could sense death on the wind.
Down by the shore, waves thrashed against the rocks, as if to jostle the kingdom awake.
In the west, villagers turned their face to the darkening sky and quailed.
And in the east, Prince Andreas Mondragon Rayere, the silver-tongued saint of Valterre, rode out to meet his cousin’s army. His golden eyes shone bright, proof of the divine blood that now ran in his veins, of the power that would soon bring the kingdom to its knees:
Persuasion. Coercion. Subjugation.
As the sun crested the Western Ridge, the first Strix alighted on the banks of Calliope’s Looking Glass. For such a tower of strength, the king’s brother, Prince Darius Mondragon, dismounted with surprising grace, removing his helmet and tucking it under his arm.
The Silver-tongue Saint embraced his cousin at the foot of their shared mountains.
A violent earthquake gripped the land.
But – no.
It was the vision that shook.
Back in her chair at House Armand, the soothsayer trembled.
The vision had sprawled. She was high enough now to hear the war cries of the Strix.
A wretched, clawing chorus. High enough to see the rivers of Valterre turn red.
To glimpse townspeople hanging from flagpoles, to watch the ravens of Fantome gather above the cathedral in a great black cloud.
A terror.
A warning.
An omen.
‘Josephine … Josie!’
Her eyes flew open.
Another pair stared back at her, brown and filled with worry. They belonged to Madame Cordelia Mercure, custodian of House Armand and current Head of the Order of Cloaks.
‘I heard you cry out,’ said Cordelia, gripping her gently by the shoulders. ‘I thought you were having a heart attack.’
I wish.
The old woman blinked herself back to the present. She could see by Cordelia’s silk bonnet that she must have been asleep.
‘Josie, you’re shaking.’
‘Oh, get a hold of yourself, Cordelia,’ snapped the old woman. Despite their friendship, she did not like to be caught unawares. As the previous Head Cloak, she had earned the right to her own privacy. And certainly her own nightmares. ‘It was nothing. I was sleeping.’
You were divining, whispered that incessant voice in her head.
Oh, piss off, she hissed back. You’ve done enough for one night.
Cordelia was still staring at her. ‘You’ve not been well these past few weeks, Josie.’
The old woman snorted. ‘Has anyone in this hell-bitten city been well?’
Not since the Aurore Tower had fallen and the saints had come roaring back. Twisted and power-hungry, and woefully ill-equipped for their own destinies.
A card slipped from the deck in Josephine’s fist and came to rest on the floorboards.
They both looked down.
‘The Hourglass,’ muttered Cordelia. ‘Time is running out.’
Josephine hummed. ‘Very astute, Cordelia. Perhaps there is some Beauregard blood in you, too.’
Cordelia remained unamused. ‘Magic thrums in the bones of our kingdom. I sense it now in a way I never have before. All these grasping hands snatching at power. And the rest of us players in a deadly game, whether we wish it or not.’ Cordelia stood with her back to her old friend and gazed out into the dawn.
‘I can feel a change in the wind, Josie. The ground is shifting, and we are all losing our footing.’
‘Oriel will not let me rest,’ Josephine admitted.
For a moment, they were silent.
‘How will it end?’ asked Cordelia quietly.
The soothsayer frowned. ‘In blood, I expect.’
The truth was, it had barely begun – this grand changing of fate.
‘Urnica will send out the Strix.’
Cordelia stifled a curse.
Josephine went on. ‘King Rafael Mondragon will aid his cousin’s bid for the kingdom. His brother, Prince Darius, rides at the helm of the Stargrazers.’
Darius, Terror of the Skies.
A breath of silence. ‘He will meet resistance.’
‘I’m counting on it.’
Cordelia wrung her hands. ‘There’s still no sign of the girl.’
‘The Saint-maker will come.’ Of that, Josephine was certain. After all, House Armand had once been Seraphine Marchant’s refuge. And it was a damn sight warmer – not to mention prettier – than the catacombs of Fantome. ‘Oriel will make sure of it.’
Cordelia returned to silence.
Josephine scowled. It wouldn’t do, this stewing. Not this early in the day, and not in her bedchamber.
‘For now, there is a far more pressing concern,’ said the old woman as she rose from her chair.
‘I need some pancakes to soak up last night’s brandy.
’ And that cursed vision. She gave her friend an expectant look.
‘Rouse the chef. And tell her if she skimps on the syrup, she’ll meet the blunt end of my cane. ’
Cordelia responded with her usual graceful restraint. ‘I’ll relay the message.’
Alone again, Josephine bent to retrieve the Hourglass. In her haste, she snagged her fingernail on an uneven floorboard. A smear of blood now marred the sands of time.
‘A little on the nose,’ she muttered as she folded the card back into the deck. But for once, the voice inside her head was quiet.
The silence was most unnerving of all.