The morning after the dream, I woke breathless, heart thudding like a drumbeat in my chest. Sweat slicked my back. The vision was still burned behind my eyelids, the Crown Prince in chains, the fire, the temple, the voice that whispered fate like a sentence.
"Only one can walk the path. The other must fall."
What path? Who falls?
I sat upright on the stiff bedding, struggling to convince myself it had just been a dream. But I'd felt it too deeply. Like I'd actually stood in that broken throne room. Like the ash on my skin had been real.
Outside, the village was already stirring. I forced myself up, washed in the basin by the door, and stepped into the morning light. The warmth didn't reach me. Not today.
Seren was already tending to his vines, but he looked up as if he'd sensed something had changed.
"You saw it," he said, not as a question.
I hesitated. "You knew I would?"
"All those tied to the Sacred Text dream eventually. The Veiled One dreams first."
"What did I see?"
He looked at me long, his lined face unreadable. "Shadows of what may be. The future speaks in riddles. But the threads have begun to twist."
I didn't press him further. Not when his expression darkened like stormclouds forming just beyond the tree line.
—
The village was busier than usual. Something had shifted. Not just in me.
By midday, I noticed groups forming, whispers between villagers who used to greet each other with ease. One group spoke with quiet reverence when they looked at me. The others, with something colder. Skepticism.
Fear.
In the market, a girl no older than ten handed me a bundle of dried leaves tied with ribbon.
"For luck," she whispered, then darted off before I could respond.
Minutes later, a boy hissed, "Demon's mark," and his mother yanked him away with a sharp look, but not a denial.
My footsteps slowed. Conversations hushed as I passed. People pretended not to stare.
It hadn't been like this just a few days ago.
"Why are they afraid of me?" I asked Seren that evening.
He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he poured two cups of a bitter root tea and sat across from me. "You must understand, Elyndra remembers the last prophesy. It ended in blood. And when omens come again, people choose fear before reason."
"But I haven't done anything."
"You exist. That's enough. The disc that brought you here, only one other was ever found. And the man who carried it was the first to fall in the Great Rupture."
I let that sink in.
"So I'm some sort of… harbinger."
"To some," he said softly. "To others, hope."
—
That night, the tension cracked.
A commotion pulled me from my bed just past midnight. Shouts, torchlight, the sound of boots on stone.
I threw on my tunic and stepped outside.
Half the village had gathered in the square. Two young men stood in the center, one of them bloodied, the other furious. Villagers murmured and argued, some holding weapons, others shielding children behind them.
"He was trying to break into the archive!" someone yelled.
"I wasn't! I heard voices, strange ones coming from inside!"
"Enough!" barked an older woman with braided silver hair. "This fear is spreading like rot. First whispers of the Disc Bearer, now this?"
Dozens of eyes turned to me.
Disc Bearer. Not Minjae. Not even Veiled One.
Just… bearer of the disc. The outsider.
A man stepped forward, his eyes hard. "The boy came from nowhere. Since his arrival, dreams have darkened, cattle have vanished, and shadows stir near the woods."
"I didn't cause any of that," I said, louder than I meant to.
But even as the words left my mouth, I knew reason wouldn't win here.
"I say we ask the Prince's guard to take him to Eldrath" another man said. "Let the crown deal with prophesy. Not us."
Murmurs of agreement. Others protested.
Seren stepped forward, calm but commanding. "If you send him away, the village will lose what protection remains. You do not yet understand his purpose."
"He is not one of us," the man spat.
"No," Seren said. "He's something more dangerous. He's something new."
The crowd stilled.
I didn't know if that was a defense or a warning.
—
By morning, most of the villagers avoided me entirely. Only the girl from before, the one who gave me the charm, smiled when we passed.
Seren packed a small bag.
"You're sending me away?" I asked.
"No. But you cannot stay hidden now. You'll go to the capital soon. The prince must hear of the dream. Of you."
I swallowed hard. "He won't believe me."
"He doesn't need to. He only needs to see you."
I looked out at the woods beyond the village. Mist curled at the edges like fingers reaching in. The dream returned to me in fragments. Fire. Chains. The prince kneeling.
Whatever was coming, it had already begun.