Baruch moved silently through the young forest, each step sinking into the moss, thick and soft beneath his boots. Shadows twisted and writhed between the slender trees, shifting and dancing like restless spirits under the erratic light of a moon struggling to pierce through the gloom. Each breath he took was short and sharp, misting in the frigid night air as he pushed aside low-hanging branches that clawed at him with gnarled, skeletal fingers, as if the grove itself had risen in silent rebellion against its father.
The wind that swept around him was not the familiar sigh of nature he had known and loved; it was thick with a strange cold, a malevolent chill that seeped under his skin, accompanied by a flickering shadow that flitted through the darkness, vanishing and reappearing like a ghost.
Above, the once-full moon had been swallowed by a dark mass, vast and unnatural, circling high in the heavens. It was no bird, no beast he could name, but something stranger, something wrong, that drifted like a living storm, blotting out the stars in its flight. Its wings stretched unnaturally wide, and through their tattered edges, slivers of moonlight leaked, casting splintered shadows over the tiny forest’s floor.
A voice, soft and strained, broke the opressive silence. “Your Radiance,” it called, barely louder than the wind. It was a sound that quickened Baruch’s step, sharpened his senses, and brought a surge of urgency to his limbs. His steps quickened, movements growing sharp and hurried until he stumbled into a clearing—and there, at last, she stood. Tabitha, still and unyielding as if hewn from marble, her back straight, her posture unwavering save for the faint, telling tremor in her hands. Those hands clutched an amulet against her chest, a token that once pulsed with Diurnix’s radiance and might. Now it hung dead, robbed of its former brilliance, its light swallowed by the same darkness that poisoned the sky above.
Her face, typically radiant with holiness and resolve, was composed—a rigid mask of calm—yet her eyes, twin pools of worry, glittering and raw, betrayed her. It was a rare and unsettling sight, for she was a woman he had thought unbreakable, a queen crowned not just by her proud antlers but by an unyielding strength that no force had ever shaken.
“Did I do something wrong?” Her words were fragile, trembling on the wind, which snatched them up greedily, eager to carry them away and bury them deep among the waiting trees.
Baruch's pace faltered, each step growing slower, more measured, as he drew closer to her. He moved with a cautious reverence, as though approaching a fallen temple whose sanctity still lingered despite the ruin. The earth beneath his boots seemed to shiver, as if it too could feel the quiet desperation woven into her voice. “Tabitha,” he called out, his voice soft yet laced with an urgency he struggled to keep at bay. “What’s happening?”
She did not turn. Her shoulders tensed at his words, but she kept her gaze locked on the blackened sky, her eyes searching, perhaps yearning, as if hoping for a glimpse of something lost, something beyond the vast, circling shadow above them.
When Tabitha finally turned, the expression she wore was one Baruch had never imagined he’d see upon her face. It was a look that threatened the very foundation of who he believed her to be. Her eyes, so often wells of serene assurance, now swirled with something unfamiliar and disconcerting—raw, unguarded disbelief. “Adon Diurnix,” she whispered, her voice brittle, fragile as cracked glass. “He’s gone.”
Baruch’s brow drew together, confusion spreading across his features. "Gone?" he echoed, the word falling from his lips like something foreign, strange and senseless. "What do you mean, gone?"
Her fingers tightened around the amulet until the tendons strained beneath her skin. “I don’t know,” she murmured, her voice trembling, each word fraying at the edges. “I don’t know what I did wrong. How I failed him.”
A tremor coursed through her, but she drew in a steadying breath and lifted her chin. Even in that fragile moment, she remained unyielding, her posture a fortress against the oncoming storm, defiant and unbowed.
“The amulet…” she murmured, her voice hollow. “There’s nothing left. Not even a whisper.” Her gaze found Baruch’s, and in that fleeting connection, he saw the fracture in her eyes, a crack in the facade of the unbreakable woman.
Baruch’s instinct pulled his eyes skyward, to the ominous presence that loomed above them. It seemed to press down on the world, suffocating, even under the expanse of the sky.
"Do you have any of Adon Diurnix’s essence left?" he asked, his voice hushed, cautious not to provoke the creature.
"Just a drop," she said, her voice steady, though shadowed by the faintest quiver. It was a glimpse of vulnerability that made her seem fragile for a fleeting heartbeat. "Let’s hope we won’t need it," she added, but the words did little to ease the tension straining the air between them.
The cold shadow that loomed above slithered over Baruch's skin, silent and unyielding, a threat as heavy as a blade hovering above a neck. But before the chill could fully settle, the prophetess straightened, and that fragile uncertainty vanished.
"I don’t want to hurt anyone," she declared, her tone sharpening into something steely, almost defiant. Her shoulders squared, her spine a line of rigid defiance, and she pulled herself taut, every muscle coiled with determination. To the unknowing eye, she might have appeared calm, distant, but Baruch knew her too well. He saw the fire simmering just beneath the surface, the irritation she kept on a tight leash, like a hunting hound barely restrained.
In that instant, Baruch’s worries melted away, dismissed like leaves swept by a sudden gust. The tremor in her voice, the momentary falter he had heard, did not come from fear of the monstrous shadow circling above. No beast, no nightmare, could break her. It was the bitter sting of failure that threatened to crack her resolve, the crushing weight of knowing she might have disappointed the heavens themselves. The thought of that, and only that, had shaken the unshakable Prophetess.
ns 15.158.61.45da2
