“As you wish.” He took another puff of his pipe and settled back in his chair. “Now the first thing you must know is almost all prophecies are vague enough to be open to interpretation. Like with the one heralding the coming of Rassa’s blessed Harot.” He grimaced. “I’d heard it secondhand from a passing merchant and believed it meant one thing, but what actually happened was nothing like what I expected. I might have done something to stop it otherwise.”
Ravi frowned in confusion. The man spoke as if he’d been there in person when Harot had returned from the Riftlands and ascended to join the gods, but that couldn’t be right.
“Lyuc,” Yan murmured gently.
The wizard glanced at him and smiled. “Right. Getting off topic. What I meant is that you should take my interpretation with a grain of salt. So, there’s the first lines: ‘To heal the wound, you will need the strength of all. Twin roses of the winds, ever after entwined: the pillar and the shield.’”
Ravi listened closely, since it was his first time hearing it, but it meant absolutely nothing to him.
“This may sound a bit conceited,” Lyuc continued, throwing at smile at Yan, “but if I choose to believe the prophecy was meant for me—or us—I have to conclude the ‘wound’ is referring to the Rift. If that’s the case, your prophecy could be very important indeed, particularly with regards to another prophecy I’ve only recently learned about.” He turned his gaze toward Tas. “Did Singer have anything to say about it today?”
As Ravi gaped at Lyuc in growing fear and disbelief, Tas shook his head. “He asked to be alone with… his friends.” Tas shot a meaningful glance in their direction before facing Lyuc again. “But that’s where he prefers to be most of the time. If he had any thoughts, he kept them to himself.”
“Stubborn rock,” Lyuc grumbled. “But it’s a fair guess that is what it’s referring to.”
“Closing the Rift,” Ravi choked out. “Like, you’re talking about the Rift, the hole in the world that monsters come through.”
Yan stood up and came around the table, while Ravi was still shifting his gaze between each of them, trying to determine if this was all some kind of joke. After sitting down next to him, Yan gave him an understanding smile. “This is why I tried to save this conversation for later. It’s a lot to take in all at once.”
Ravi shifted backward, mostly on instinct. The last thing he wanted was another Vision involving these people, given what little he’d learned so far.
Daks squeezed his hand again to get his attention. “Do you want to go?” he asked, ignoring everyone else. “I can come back to get the rest, but I think we really need to know what’s going on before we make any decisions.”
Ravi shook his head. “No. I’ll stay. I’m the one that spouted it, after all. I’m not going to be just some vessel for fate or the gods. I control my own life.”
He spoke with more determination than he felt, but Daks’s smile was proud as he placed his other hand over their joined ones.
“Good for you,” Yan murmured encouragingly.
Lyuc cleared his throat, drawing everyone’s attention back to him. “Shall I continue?”
At Ravi’s nod, he explained, “So, as you all probably know, a rose of the winds is a compass rose, which could mean from every possible direction, or something more basic, like the rose itself, an eight-pointed star. The latter part of the prophecy makes me lean toward that, given it names eight things: three that we must ‘cleave to,’ four we must ‘gather,’ and one who will ‘come.’ That’s eight. But the ‘twin’ part leads me to believe there must be two of them—‘the pillar and the shield’—which would be sixteen and not eight.” He grimaced and took another puff from his pipe, his attention drawn inward. “‘Free the stones from Black Tower to Knowledge’s heart’ seems a bit more straightforward, but worrisome at the same time. Obviously, the Black Tower is in Blagos Keep. The Brotherhood built the keep around Ryarth’s black tower almost five hundred years ago, and it’s where the Thirty-Six go when they aren’t out on missions. With what Singer told us of the other prophecy, we already know we must gather their stones, but ‘Knowledge’s heart’ is something else altogether.”
When Lyuc fell silent for several beats, frowning, Yan moved to his side again and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Lyuc, what’s wrong?”
“Something I thought was safely locked away and forgotten a long time ago. I don’t like that someone or something remembers its existence.” Lyuc looked at Ravi as he said it, and Ravi shivered and turned away.
“I don’t know where the Visions come from or what they mean most of the time,” he protested.
Daks tensed next to him, and Ravi allowed himself to be pulled against his broad chest for comfort. So much in his life had gotten so complicated. He was having a hard time keeping up.
“Right,” Lyuc said a little more gently. “Anyway. We need to collect the stones and gather the points of the star or stars—who or whatever they are. That seems fairly clear and only marginally troubling. But that warning he gave at the end concerns me more. The Seer looked right at me when he said it, and he called me Riftwielder. There aren’t any other Riftwielders in the three kingdoms… or there weren’t. ‘Another has returned,’ he said.” Lyuc paused and glanced at each of his companions. “Yan and I have told you about the magic-wielding Spawn we faced. And we all know what happened in the mountains last winter was no accident. Livestock missing or killed with no one knowing how. Food stores rotted inside their barrels and crates. Clan members disappearing, no matter how many shields or barriers we put up or how many times we tried to scry out the culprits… and the shaman and chief dying, of course.” Lyuc turned
