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In the city of Tenebranth, where the rivers ran black with crushed obsidian and the sky forever held the hue of a dying ember, a festival was being prepared.
They called it The Night of Shifting Moons — a celebration of twin moons crossing paths, where masks hid faces and prayers were whispered to gods who no longer answered.
But deep beneath the city, in the under-sanctum of the Obsidian Oracle's Tower, the High Seeress was not preparing for a festival.
She was preparing for fire.
"She's awakening," the Seeress murmured, voice echoing in the hollow of her ribcage. Her hands trembled as she held the Eye of Eol — an orb forged from the tears of a forgotten god. "The child born under mirrored moons. The one who saw the name of the forbidden heir."
A dozen disciples knelt behind her, cloaked in ink-dark silk. One of them dared to raise her voice.
"Is it truly her, Mother Oracle?"
The Seeress turned, and for a moment her face fractured — flickering between the face of a woman and something ancient. Something burned.
"Yes," she said. "The smoke-eyed girl. The Echo. She's crossed the first veil."
"And the boy?"
The Seeress hesitated.
Her knuckles whitened around the Eye.
"He doesn't remember," she said bitterly. "Not yet. But his soul is moving. The old maps burn again."
Silence.
And then a question, whispered with fear:
"What must we do?"
The Oracle turned toward the great brazier at the center of the chamber. It had not been lit in a hundred years. She raised the Eye of Eol, breathed a curse older than the empire, and threw it into the firepit.
Flames erupted — not red or gold — but violet and gray.
A vision spilled through the room: a boy crowned in shadow. A girl bound in ash. A blade forged of smoke. And a third figure, faceless… holding the fate of empires in one pale hand.
The Seeress dropped to her knees.
Tears burned down her cheeks.
"The Oath has awakened. The Spiral turns again. And if they remember…"
She didn't finish the sentence.
The fire devoured the Eye.
And far, far away — in a desert not marked on any map — a girl with smoke-filled eyes opened her palm and found ashes there.
The same ashes that once crowned her in another life.
She did not know what it meant yet.
But she would.
Very soon.
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End of Chapter 3
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