Of Frailty and Burden

  We are, all of us, but dust. After our time is through, when the wailing begins, our actions will be measured. Only then will we know if our precious years were spent more in seeking the light than spreading the shadow.

  — from the journal of the wandering philosopher, Baelous Mai’thrain

  When the Oakspace was empty, the ancient Kreadus slowly lowered himself into one of the four high-backed chairs.

  “The Second Coming approaches,” the withered elf whispered to the silence.

  Gone was the assured voice that had commanded the Council moments before. In its place was something hollowed, something frail, frayed by time, shadowed by fear.

  His words trembled with layered emotions, but sorrow, doubt, and fear seemed strongest of all.

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  “Father,” he suddenly cried out, voice cracking like dry bark, “who am I to be? What strength can I offer our people… like this?”

  Overcome, the druid buried his face in his long fingers and wept. His bent frame shook with silent sobs until, at last, they subsided.

  When his head rose again, the effort seemed monumental.

  From one of the deep inner folds of his robe, he withdrew a letter, creased and faded with time. He opened it with care, as though it might fall to dust if mishandled. His eyes lingered on the old parchment.

  The message had been sent to him over twenty years ago, but not a day had passed without its words echoing in his thoughts. Others had received warnings from the prophet that day. But this one, this letter, had been for him.

  He traced the broken seal with a shaking thumb: the serpent swallowing its own tail.

  Shailone, he thought. Were you wrong? Or were you too cruel to say more?

  It was a simple letter, containing only four sentences. But those four sentences had uprooted truths he’d buried centuries ago. Fears he had locked away since childhood had clawed their way to the surface.

  Fears that had begun nineteen hundred years earlier, when his father first told him the story of his birth.

  “Father,” he pleaded again, barely louder than a breath. “What must I do? How am I to take my place in this state?”

  The sigil etched into his chest, shaped like a teardrop, began to glow. It pulsed wildly, then grew hot, scorching the blood beneath his skin.

  As expected, his father—dead these past twelve centuries—did not answer.