The flames rose high in the obsidian brazier.
High Priestess Kinvara stood before them, her red robes pooling around her feet on the temple floor and the ruby at her throat glowed with each heartbeat, casting red light across the stone walls.
For three days and nights, she had watched without food or drink, her eyes fixed on the sacred flames.
Incense and ash filled the air.
Outside the temple, Volantis continued its daily rhythm, unaware of what unfolded within.
"Show me," she said quietly. "Show me what is to come."
The flames surged higher, deepening to the color of fresh blood.
Kinvara watched as shapes formed within the fire.
She saw the Valyrian steel dagger of Targaryen legend, its rippled blade catching light.
On its surface, words had been carved: "The prince that was promised will bring the dawn."
Words that had guided her faith for centuries.
Then the words began to disappear.
Not at once, but letter by letter, as if being slowly erased.
"...will bring the dawn" faded first.
"The prince that was promised..." remained briefly before vanishing.
Kinvara gripped the edge of the brazier.
The heat burned her palms, but she did not pull away.
The dagger now gleamed without any words, empty of prophecy.
"This cannot be," she whispered. "The prophecy cannot simply disappear."
Her mind raced, struggling to understand what she had just witnessed.
Her entire existence had been built around the belief in the prophecy; the Song of Ice and Fire.
But now, that prophecy was no more. It had been erased, as if it had never existed in the first place.
The flames shifted again.
It was not a king, nor a conqueror of old.
It was a dark silhouette, seated upon a throne unlike any she had seen before.
The strange and imposing throne seemed to pulse with an unnatural, almost grotesque power.
Its back was sharp, as though it had been carved from dark obsidian, and twisted into forms that reminisced of broken bones and ruins.
Shadows stretched from its sides like reaching fingers.
The seat looked like a ruined altar, once holy, but now, cursed and forgotten.
The figure was only a shadow. No matter how hard she looked, Kinvara could not see a face, only a dark outline against the flames.
But there was something unmistakably regal about its presence. The shadow radiated power in a way that twisted the very air around it.
Then, Sallera saw something terrifying.
Warriors, all kneeling, and each one unique in their own right. They were powerful, but unlike any she had seen before.
They were not the kings or knights of old.
These were figures forged from something different, something… unnatural.
And they knelt to the shadowed throne.
She could feel the weight of their loyalty, and it was absolute, a deep binding devotion that chilled her.
Behind them stood dragons, dark shapes with massive wings.
They bent their long necks down, giant creatures submitting to the figure on the throne.
The shadow raised a hand.
Kinvara felt something change in the world itself, as if destiny had shifted course.
"Who are you?" she asked the flames. "What have you done with the prince that was promised?"
The shadow turned to face her across time and vision.
Though she could see no features in its darkness, two eyes suddenly appeared; not any color a human might have.
Those eyes held her still.
They saw through her flesh to her spirit beneath.
Kinvara understood without words that this being knew her completely.
Fear gripped her heart.
In all the visions she has seen, they never stare back.
This was no champion of light.
This was something outside her understanding, beyond the prophecies she had studied all her life.
The vision trembled.
Before it broke apart, Kinvara sensed the shadow was amused by her fear.
Then the vision ended.
The flames that had burned so strongly during her vigil suddenly shrank to small, weak flickers barely taller than her fingers. Their light dimmed though no wind blew in the temple.
Kinvara stepped back, her legs weak after days of standing.
The ruby at her throat flashed once, then dimmed to almost nothing, as if its power had drained away.
She fell to her knees on the cold stone, reaching toward the dying flames. "Speak to me," she begged, but the fire gave no answer.
The Lord of Light had gone silent.
And the future had no place for prophecies anymore.