The last words of Svere the Drae

“My time comes near. Listen, then. I cannot say what lies beyond my sight, but from the shape of the fall, I can tell you this. You must provide guidance, protection, counsel, succour to those who will share your path. Five chosen, who must band together, stay together, if anything can be salvaged from the fall. Five chosen, who I suspect, like all heroes, like those that came in the eras before them, are fucking idiots.”

She gestures with bony, wrapped finger to Pavayne, “The breaker of nations, the all-slayer, is my favourite. He will need you, to find the new path he seeks. He will need you most, at the hour he wishes you least.”

She loves her attention off to the window, to the world beyond.

“The eye of the serpent hunts the darkest creature in the dreaming, a mind as almost as ancient as my own, and far more cold and cruel. They must be protected from seeing too much, least they shatter and break, and become the pawn of their quarry.”

“There is one who will seek a treasure very different from yours. She will try unearth that treasure, even once is is gone. She must be shown a way to find something new, a treasure not stained in blood.”

The Drae sighs.

“Lastly, I speak to you of the sorceress. When she moves her will, the dreaming sea will rouses uneasily, to the sound of fire and fury and power beyond inagining. Whether the sea wakes or dissolves beneath her touch entirely, I cannot say.”

“My warning for her is simple, priest. Khoja Maeb Andraos must not die.”

Svere exhales, seemingly done.

“That is it. I am done. With me gone, you are the fulcrum around which uncertain futures turn. The path of your circle will be yours to guard, favourite of the noonday sun.”