The Grand Arena of Verdantia had witnessed many spectacles in its thousand-year history. Coronations where new kings knelt before the cheering masses. Victory celebrations where heroes returned from distant lands bearing tales of glory. Festivals where the very air seemed to sparkle with joy and laughter.
But never had it held such a gathering as this.
Fifty thousand souls packed the ancient stone amphitheater, their faces pale with desperate hope and growing dread. Merchants abandoned their stalls. Farmers left their fields. Even the children had been brought, clinging to their mothers' skirts as they sensed the weight of destiny pressing down upon them all.
At the center of the arena, upon a raised dais draped in silver silk, lay a figure so frail she seemed more spirit than flesh. The Eternal Seer—though none knew her true name—had guided Verdantia for longer than living memory could recall. Some whispered she had been present at the kingdom's founding. Others claimed she was as old as the stones themselves.
Now, she was dying.
Her breath came in rattling gasps, each one seeming as though it might be her last. Her eyes, once sharp enough to pierce the veil between present and future, had grown cloudy with approaching death. Yet when she spoke, her voice carried to every corner of the arena with supernatural clarity.
"People of Verdantia," she wheezed, and the silence that fell was so complete that even the birds stopped singing. "I have seen your kingdom's end... and I have seen its salvation."
King Aldric leaned forward on his throne, his knuckles white as he gripped the armrests. Beside him, Queen Isabella held their two children close—Prince Marcus, tall and proud at sixteen, and Princess Elena, who had inherited her mother's gentle beauty and kind heart. Both children had been blessed by the Seer at birth, proclaimed to be noble souls who would serve their kingdom well.
But now the Seer's milky eyes fixed upon the royal family with an intensity that made the king's blood run cold.
"A third child shall be born to the House of Verdantia," she rasped, and gasps echoed through the arena. "This child... this child shall be the mightiest being ever to draw breath in this kingdom. In his hands shall rest the power to make gods weep and demons kneel."
The crowd stirred uneasily. Such power had never been spoken of before, not even in the oldest prophecies.
"But power without purpose is a blade without a handle," the Seer continued, her voice growing weaker with each word. "This child shall walk one of two paths, and upon that choice shall hang the fate of all you hold dear."
She struggled to sit up, supported by the court physicians who had kept vigil by her side. When she spoke again, her words fell like hammer blows upon the hearts of all who heard them.
"He shall be either your greatest savior... or your ultimate destroyer. Either the most compassionate king to ever rule... or the most merciless demon to ever draw breath. There shall be no middle ground, no redemption once the path is chosen."
Terror rippled through the crowd like wildfire. Mothers clutched their children tighter. Men reached for swords they were not carrying. The very air seemed to thicken with dread.
King Aldric rose from his throne, his voice cracking as he called out, "How? How shall we know which path he walks? How can we guide him toward the light?"
The Seer's eyes found his across the arena, and for a moment, they seemed to clear with their old sharpness. "You will know him by the mark that—"
Her words ended in a choking gasp. Blood flecked her lips as she struggled to continue, her frail form convulsing with the effort. The physicians rushed forward, but even as they reached for her, she was fading.
"The mark..." she whispered, so quietly that only those closest to the dais could hear. "The mark will show..."
And then she was gone.
The Eternal Seer, keeper of Verdantia's destiny for generations beyond counting, died with her final prophecy incomplete. The words that might have saved a kingdom—that might have prevented the greatest tragedy in its history—went with her to whatever realm awaits those who peer too deeply into tomorrow.
The silence that followed was not the respectful quiet of mourning, but the hollow stillness of a world holding its breath before a storm. Then, like a dam bursting, the arena erupted into chaos.
"The mark! What mark?"
"How will we know?"
"What if he's already evil? What if the child is born cursed?"
King Aldric stood frozen upon his throne, the incomplete prophecy echoing in his mind like a death knell. A third child. Power beyond measure. Salvation or destruction.
But how would they know which path the child would choose?
As panic spread through the arena and his subjects fled into the night to whisper fearful prayers to uncaring gods, King Aldric made a decision that would damn them all. In his heart, where pride had long ago strangled wisdom, he chose to believe that any threat to his kingdom must be eliminated—no matter how small, no matter how innocent.
If they could not tell whether the child would be their savior or their destroyer, then they would assume the worst and act accordingly.
After all, it was better to be safe than sorry.
It was better to kill an innocent than risk letting a monster live.
Or so the king told himself, as the shadows of the arena swallowed his kingdom's last hope for redemption.