Chased By The Dark

BEARER OF ECHOES

"I speak now not as flesh, but as flame. Not as breath, but as memory. The world forgets but I do not."

The room was still. Silence pressed into the cracks of the stone chamber like smoke, dense, cloying, watching. At the center, the Oracle stood, her eyes a milky white, her body swaying as if her bones no longer remembered how to hold her.

The circle of ancient ones watched.

When the Oracle opened her mouth, her voice was not her own.

"In the era of devouring suns, when the veil thins and the old gods turn their faces away, a shadow shall rise wearing the skin of man."

Her voice echoed strangely, both young and old, trembling and certain.

"Born from cursed blood and marked by war, he will walk the line between ruin and redemption. The one who bends to no law, no crown, no prophecy — and yet, becomes the fire that reshapes the realm."

The chamber stirred, the ancient ones glancing at each other. Some leaned forward. Others frowned.

"He will find her in the age of fracture. A girl bound not by power, but by pain. She who was not meant to see the stars, but will carry their light. She who bleeds like the old world and burns like the new."

The Oracle trembled. Her feet lifted an inch off the ground. Dust curled around her.

"Together, they shall wake what sleeps beneath the bone of kings. Together, they will remake what time has broken. Or they will end it."

The voice cracked, splintering like ice underfoot.

"One shall fall for the other to rise."

The final words fell like a stone dropped into deep water. The Oracle collapsed. The flames in the chamber blew out, one by one.

The ancient ones said nothing. For a long time, no one moved.

Then the High Seer whispered, "And what if the prophecy is wrong?"

To which the oldest among them replied, "Then we will bleed for nothing."