The girl blinked at him, clearly confused.
"You wouldn't have," Ian replied softly. "That world hasn't happened yet. It'll take another two thousand years of unfolding time before it becomes the world I come from."
He reached out and gently patted the top of her head.
"But isn't that still history?"
Whether she fully grasped what he meant was unclear, but her tone suggested she had her own understanding of time. Her eyes remained filled with wonder and a trace of puzzlement.
"Do you study history, then?" Ian shifted the conversation to something less time-warping. "Is that a required skill for a Dream Queen, too?"
He was genuinely curious about the magical culture of this era.
"I read history scrolls every day, started when I was three. Been reading for five years now…" she said proudly. "A true Dream Queen must know all of history. But I'm different."
Her voice dropped slightly, tinged with melancholy.
"My predecessor, the last Dream Queen, vanished on a pilgrimage, so I never received her inheritance of memory. I couldn't absorb what should've been passed down through the Dream Queen's rites."
"So I've had to learn it all myself. Luckily, there are many ancient records in the temple. I've memorised almost all of them." Her voice took on the cadence of a student expecting praise.
Ian, sensing the unspoken desire, gave her an approving thumbs-up.
"I knew it! You think I'm brilliant!" She beamed. "I saw that in your dreams, too!"
Her cheeks flushed, her eyes gleaming with joy. She still hadn't corrected her terminology about the future, it was no wonder, really. That strange realm of flying machines and glowing lanterns was far too alien for someone from this era. It was only natural for her to believe it a dream.
"Back to the main point."
Ian sighed faintly, giving up on correcting her any further. He turned his gaze once more toward the volcano in the distance, its slopes now coughing up a slow plume of black smoke. His tone was measured, cautious.
"As a Seer… have you had any recent visions that made you feel… uneasy? Something that frightened you?"
He carefully circled back to the topic. For all his light tone, Ian was deeply concerned. The mountain's ominous signs had become undeniable.
There was no choice. He needed to confirm the timing of the eruption. Not merely to deduce Riddle's location, but to safeguard his own life.
Even powerful magic found itself humbled before the raw fury of nature, and Ian had no interest in being buried beneath an ancient city, his bones sealed into the pages of tragic history.
Not if he failed to return to the future in time.
Ian planned to depart before the volcano erupted. Naturally, he would try to warn the townspeople, but he suspected few would believe the dire words of a wandering stranger.
"I need to leave at least several hours early. If the disaster strikes while I'm still here, there's no telling whether Apparition will still function properly," Ian thought grimly.
He had read in old magical treatises about the delicate relationship between nature and spellcraft.
Natural cataclysms could disrupt enchantments, dilute runes, and even interfere with wandwork, a conclusion confirmed by numerous magical scholars in later centuries. Ian, therefore, had no desire to gamble on unstable magic when disaster loomed.
Just as the young wizard was mentally drafting his exit plan, the little girl beside him suddenly spoke up.
"Foreseeing something that made me feel uneasy? Oh yes, yes, now that you mention it, you've returned again to save us, haven't you?" The girl fell into thought the moment she heard Ian's question, her brows knitting ever so gently, like dew-touched willow leaves drooping under their own weight, brimming with youthful innocence and the occasional misreading of a deeper truth.
"Let me think… let me think… Oh! Last month, I did see something frightening. Where was it? Somewhere in the city, I believe." Her slender brows furrowed deeper, forming two delicate arches of worry, adding an unintentional gravity to her otherwise cheerful face.
"This way! Come on!"
All at once, as if she'd remembered something crucial, the girl seized Ian's sleeve with her small pale hand and eagerly tugged him toward the heart of the city that sprawled beneath the ancient temple.
"Eh?" Ian was caught off guard.
He had originally intended to guide her toward foreseeing the volcano's eruption. But had she… remembered something else entirely?
"God, I still don't know your name," the little girl chirped, glancing curiously back as she tugged him along, her hand still clutching the edge of his robes.
"Just call me the Supreme Mage. 'god' doesn't quite suit me," Ian replied with a wry smile. He wasn't entirely sure whether revealing his true name in this time period was wise, who could say whether there existed name-based hexes in an era this ancient?
The girl might be harmless enough, but what about those priests from earlier? Ian had no doubt: if they had the knowledge and the inclination, they'd try cursing him without hesitation.
"Supreme Mage?" She echoed, wide-eyed.
"That's right, Supreme Mage. Though I suppose I should decide whether I'm more of a Guinevere's Sage or a Merlin of the Isles," Ian muttered under his breath, considering the titles. "Gu Yi has a certain mystery, but Medivh… well, naming myself after him feels like tempting fate. My eyelids are twitching already."
He was mostly speaking to himself.
The girl, who clearly wasn't as fluent in Old English or subtle metaphors as Aurora had been, blinked in confusion, unable to follow the little wizard's internal debate.
"I still think I should call you god. I've always called you that," she said matter-of-factly, skipping down the steps of the temple as sunlight filtered through the cracked dome above, casting a golden shimmer over both her and Ian.
The Dream Queen of this ancient temple was simply too young.
Perhaps due to limited tutelage, or the temple's own fear of the divine, she didn't seem to grasp the weight or sanctity of the "god" she claimed to serve. Her tone bore no reverence, only warm familiarity.
Ian didn't mind.
He understood.
To the girl, perhaps, he wasn't a god at all.
But rather a companion, a figure she'd glimpsed across the veil of dreams since early childhood, someone whose life had become inexplicably intertwined with hers, and who had at last stepped through the divide to speak with her. Aside from her initial fright, her overwhelming emotions were joy and curiosity.
"I haven't asked for your name either," Ian said quietly.
His senses were sharp as ever.
He could feel the loneliness behind the girl's bright eyes, an ache he suspected was shared by many who devoted their lives to divine service. Whether in a convent or a temple, solitude often walked hand-in-hand with faith. And though he had only just met her, Ian could still offer a small measure of kindness, a flicker of human warmth, before the end came.
"Cassandra. My name is Cassandra. The last Dream Queen gave it to me. I don't have a family name. They say it came from a powerful prophetess of long ago."
She beamed as she gave her answer, proud of the name she'd inherited.
"Yes, indeed, a famed prophetess from ancient Greece," Ian said, a little surprised but not especially so. After all, names inspired by legend were common throughout wizarding history.
"I've read about Greece!" Cassandra chirped. "It refers to the southern lands along the Baltic, the Aegean Isles, and the eastern coasts of the Minor Peninsula. Our scrolls, our charms, even our architectural enchantments began there."
"The Greeks accomplished great things, philosophy, poetry, spell-theory, even early Arithmancy. They led in magical drama and the binding of knowledge to runestone and script. It's just such a shame…" she paused, her voice tinged with wistfulness. "That their civilization vanished nearly two centuries ago."
As she walked, her voice continued to spill forth with passion and detail. Her knowledge was vast, her bearing proud.
Her words stirred something quiet in Ian.
He fell silent.
Because unless something changed, this city too would soon be reduced to dust and memory, another forgotten name on a crumbling page of history.
"There are still many brilliant magical civilizations in the world; perhaps one day you ought to go and see them." Ian, in the end, felt a surge of compassion and found himself wanting to save these people, at least as many as he could.
"If I leave, I won't be able to sing for you anymore. I still like singing for you," Cassandra said softly. She didn't seem to grasp Ian's deeper meaning and shook her head after briefly weighing her options, her curls bouncing gently.
"You could still sing for me elsewhere, you know."
Truthfully, aside from today, Ian hadn't actually heard any singing.
(To Be Continued…)
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