“Have you forgotten about the Great Betrayal? You would have us work with the cretins responsible for sundering the realm?” shouted Gael.
“It was notourkind who carved up the continent in a fit of rage,” hissed the ginger-haired human woman.
“Fae scum,” added her brother.
Elyria rolled her eyes.Helpful contribution.
“True, you’re certainly not powerful enough for that. Your kind just committed an act so heinous that it launched a war,” said Cyren.
“The war that led to the Shattering,” Gael added.
The cries of dissent grew louder.
“We didn’t train like this. We’re not prepared for this!”
“And why have we never heard of such a thing before?”
Yes, why hadn’t they?Elyria wondered. It was a fair question. Elyria had only ever known the Crucible to be an individual competition—one where champions entered knowing they would win or they would die. Was this just another part of the Crucible’s strange magic?
She pursed her lips, looking around the room at the furious, confused faces of the champions and their entourages. Even as someone who thoroughly disagreed with the entire stars-damned concept, she had to admit it hardly seemed fair that the Crucible would keep its champions ignorant as to the true nature of the trials.
Unless, it hadn’t.
She thought back to Ollie’s recitation of the prophecy back in Coralith, regretting the way she cut him off before he finished. The prophecymight have been common enough knowledge throughout Nyrundelle but, having made a distinct point to avoid all Crucible-related topics for the past twenty-five years, Elyria’s recollection was rather rusty.
From shadow and fire, champions rise,she thought, trying to remember.Forged in the Crucible of fate.
That part seemed simple enough. A rather dramatic beginning, but here they were—a room full of champions about to take on the Crucible.
Strength, spirit, magic, and concord test the trials beyond the Gate.Again, easy.
But what was the next part? “From bitterest rivals to...Bitterest rivals...” she murmured, thinking aloud as the cacophony of complaints around her continued to swell.
“To heartbreaking ends.” A low voice cut through the noise as smooth as a knife through butter.
Elyria looked up to find the brown-haired knight eyeing her with bemusement. “What?” she snapped.
“From bitterest rivals to heartbreaking ends,” he said. “The prophecy, yes?”
She rubbed her jaw, grinding her teeth as she wondered just how long he was watching her.
Her reaction certainly didn’t seem to bother him as he continued to speak, however.“From shadow and fire, champions rise, forged in the Crucible of fate. Strength, spirit, magic, and concord test the trials beyond the Gate. From bitterest rivals to heartbreaking ends, blood shall find a way. With mettle and promise, darkness and light, so dawn brings a new day.”
Elyria felt the skin tighten around her eyes as she listened to the knight—whose input she most definitely did not ask for—complete his recitation with an ostentatious flourish, a smug look in place. She wanted to wipe it right off his chiseled face. She bit down on the impulse, though, supposing she couldn’t betooannoyed with him. As obnoxious as it was, the knight had been...helpful. She’d clearly forgotten more than she realized.
Although she could have sworn she remembered the prophecy being much longer. And that last line in particular felt foreign, like she was hearing it for the first time only now.
She also had absolutely no idea what it meant. Perhaps there wasa touch of what the Arbiter had proclaimed hidden within the prophecy—wasn’t concord just another word for unity?—but it was so subtle that Elyria couldn’t blame the champions for not recognizing it ahead of time.
“Cryptic celestial bullshit,” she muttered, and the knight’s accomplished expression morphed into a glower.
“Don’t say things like?—”
“This must be a test!” cried one of the champions, cutting off what Elyria presumed was some protestation at her obvious sacrilege. “It’s meant to throw us off kilter, have us distracted, fretting over alliances instead of focusing on the challenges ahead.”
“All I know is I’d rather face the Crucible alone and die with honor than debase myself with one ofthem,” said someone else.
“Silence,” commanded the Arbiter. They did not yell. They did not scream. But the word reverberated through Elyria’s very being, as if spoken directly into her mind.
