Chapter 7 — Whispers Beneath the Heavens
The mortal world was a tapestry, its threads glowing faintly to Draevan's sight — strands of fate, ambition, and blood, all weaving themselves toward inevitable knots. He sat upon a throne not of gold, but of shadowed stone, high above any mortal reach. The air here was neither warm nor cold, existing outside such measures, yet carrying the taste of storms yet to break.
Before him, the strands trembled. One, bright as a fallen star, had appeared in the weave. A mortal soul, wrapped in the blessings of a rival divinity. Its light was gentle — almost painfully so.
The Goddess moves her piece.
Draevan's voice, though never spoken aloud, rippled through the spaces between worlds.
Another pulse in the tapestry drew his gaze — darker, colder. A slow-spreading shadow, not born of divine essence but sharpened by it. Mortal, yet guided by an old and pitiless mind.
And the High Priest sharpens the blade.
He closed his eyes, not in weariness but in thought. His awareness flowed along the threads, reaching into the deep wells of mortal fear and longing, where whispers are born. It was there, between breaths of reality, that he felt her.
The air shifted, heavy with an ancient scent — neither flower nor blood, but something both. A presence pressed against his own, luminous and unyielding.
Draevan, came the thought, smooth as glass yet edged with steel. Already you stir the quiet world. And already I answer.
He smiled faintly. You gift blessings to children and call it war?
This child will become a sword you cannot ignore.
Then I will forge my own, Draevan replied, his tone calm, though the shadow about him deepened. And I will see how your light fares when it meets the dark between stars.
Her presence flared — not in anger, but in a warning that was older than the stones of the earth. Tread lightly, shadow. You are not the only one who remembers the first dawn.
And you, he murmured into the space between heartbeats, are not the only one who waits for the last twilight.
The connection frayed, like silk burning from both ends. The threads of fate remained, yet they quivered now — aware of the hands that sought to pluck them.
Draevan opened his eyes, his gaze returning to the mortal plane. There was work to be done. Cities to claim. Souls to bind. Champions to awaken.
But above all… there was now a game worth playing.