The Burning Loom

  The castle pages moved with frantic urgency, their boots splashing through puddles as they rushed buckets of water toward the basement. Sweat streaked down their faces, leaving pale tracks on soot-blackened skin. The fire had begun nearly an hour ago, an unexpected consequence when the temporal loom overloaded during its last and admittedly somewhat queer operation.

  “More water! Quickly now!” shouted the head page, his voice hoarse from the smoke.

  The temporal loom, the pride of Desinai, glowed ominously pink in the center of the chamber as its ends were ablaze. Its hourglass shape stretched vertically, suspended in midair by an unseen force, constructed entirely of luminescent string that pulsed with each passing second. String that was getting consumed by hungry flames.

  Desia had designed the loom herself over the course of past century, weaving each luminescent thread with painstaking precision. It was more than an artifact—it was an extension of her own consciousness, as natural to her as breathing.

  Through it, she had guided civilizations away from extinction including humans,giants and even Helborne. She had steered Origins away from catastrophic decisions, and maintained the delicate balance of fate itself.

  She had never failed at a reading. Not once in a hundred years. At least not till recently.

  Even somewhat damaged, Desia could not help looking at it and thinking it remained magnificent. A testament to her power as the Origin of Fate.

  As she looked downwards, flames not only caught at the ends of the loom but also licked at the stone walls around it, casting dancing shadows on them. Several pages formed a bucket brigade, passing water from hand to hand while others used thick woolen blankets to beat back the smaller fires that threatened to spread.

  Up the grand spiral staircase, in the main observatory just under Desia’s own view on the terrace above, Grand Master Thaddeus, her loyal assistant, paced anxiously. The edges of his long silver beard singed, and ash smudged his normally pristine blue robes because he was near the loom when it caught fire.

  He was the normal overseer of the operation of the loom. For that, Desia had placed him in charge of the ambitious abnormal experiment they had attempted to perform. She had hoped he would lead it successfully, but she was hopelessly wrong. Desia could not blame the Grand Master, who still looked shocked. Neither she nor he witnessed the beautiful artefact fail. No one had, especially not as spectacular as this.

  The youngest of the pages, a boy no older than twelve with wide, frightened eyes, burst through the observatory doors. He stumbled to a halt before the Grand Master, dropping into a hasty bow.

  “Grand Master,” he gasped, struggling to catch his breath. “The chief artificer believes we’ll have the fire contained within the hour. He would also like you to know that no serious damage has been done to any of the strings.”

  Thaddeus nodded solemnly. “Thank you, lad. Return below and tell him I’ll be down shortly to make an assessment myself.”

  As the boy hurried away, Thaddeus turned toward the balcony where a slender figure had appeared, silhouetted against the twilight sky. Desia, the Origin of Fate, stepped into the room, her presence immediately commanding attention despite her diminutive stature. She stood barely five feet tall, yet carried herself with the dignity of one who had helped shape the very fabric of reality. Her light brown hair cascaded down her back in elaborate braids interwoven with silver threads that caught the light with every movement.

  Her sky-blue eyes, startlingly bright against her olive complexion, held wisdom beyond mortal comprehension. The elegant purple dress she wore, with its intricate embroidery depicting constellations and timelines, rustled softly as she approached.

  Thaddeus, bowing deeply, informed Desia that the fire was almost extinguished.

  Desia’s lips could only curve into a small smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

  “I can see.” She walked to the ornate wooden table in the center of the observatory, running her fingertips lightly over the scattered scrolls.

  “When will the loom be ready for another attempt?”

  “Excuse me.”

  “You heard me well, Thaddeus,” Desia said without looking at him directly. “When will the loom be ready for another attempt?”

  “You don’t mean the experiment we just tried my Queen, do you?” Thaddeus asked.

  “Did my tone imply any alternative enterprise?” Desia asked in response

  Thaddeus hesitated thus Desia took the chance to continue.

  “I shall answer that for you, it did not”

  Thaddeus continued in silence, choosing his words carefully. It had become a habit of his late whenever he spoke to her.

  “With all due respect, my Queen, I’m uncertain another attempt would be... advisable. At least not so soon.”

  “You propose I relinquish my investigation?” Her voice was gentle, but with steel beneath the softness.

  Desia too had recently made that a habit as well when speaking to him. Recently, it seemed her own appointed Grand Master was losing faith in her with every passing day. She wasn’t very sure how much he had after today’s events, but she still expected him to follow her will.

  “ Do I look like a quitter to you? I shall not relinquish this pursuit until I have the answers I seek”

  “It simply bears noting that...” Thaddeus said, watching his words once more.

  “The last attempt was...” Thaddeus cleared his throat, “quite catastrophic. The loom was never designed to look so far forward into potential timelines, at least not under the management of oracles.”

  “They were grand oracles, Thaddeus,” Desia corrected

  “Regardless, my Queen...”

  “Excuse me” Desia replied not giving him any time to finish his statement.

  “I apologize your highness but I am simply suggesting we first consider things,” Thaddeus pleaded

  “Such as?” Desia asked, “What things deeply require our consideration”

  “Well, the loom’s safety for one,” Thaddeus answered

  Desia sighed, her shoulders dropping slightly. Even she had to admit Thaddeus was right. Desia had designed the loom such that it could look toward any future just factoring in its aura, but the only person who could see the distant future with impressive accuracy was Desia herself.

  Oracles could look into the future, whether near or far, but could do neither with serious accuracy as Desia had designed such that anyone who ever got their prophecy read to them by one would not know too much to avoid it from happening. Her grand oracles could look into the future both near and far but could only look at the near future vividly.

  Probing further was a privilege only Desia enjoyed.

  Desia was not too selfish with the power though and also granted them the ability to help her weave near futures. She had called upon her six strongest grand oracles, hoping their combined power would help see vividly into the distant future, but it only ended up putting strains on different sections of the loom, leading to a burst of power that started the fire.

  The very fire that nearly incinerated the grand oracles and Thaddeus, whom Desia saved only at the last second.

  “I know the strain was greater than I expected.” Desia turned to face Thaddeus directly. “Great mercy of fate, I didn’t expect it to be that bad but I had an understanding of the risks”

  “But these nightmares, Thaddeus. They’re becoming more frequent, more vivid. I must understand what they mean.”

  “Is it truly that important to risk our most precious artifact and the lives of your own people? Perhaps with time, the meaning will reveal itself naturally.”

  “Time?,” she said with a sad smile. “Should I?, the weaver of destinies, find myself captive of time.”

  “By the Loom’s threads do you know how ridiculous that sounds?” she asked

  “I did not mean to offend you, my Queen,” Thaddeus replied. “I was only suggesting....”

  Desia did not much care to listen to him finish. She moved to the large mural on the wall. A mighty picture of her realm painted by the Origin of Fate herself.

  “The nightmares feel like warnings, Thaddeus. Warnings I cannot ignore. What happens if I do? The world could be destroyed”

  “You are not sure of that” Thaddeus replied

  “I am not sure of anything, that is why I need the answers”

  The Grand Master answered her by stroking his singed beard thoughtfully.

  “If we continue this experiment, we’re more likely to destroy the loom than extract any meaningful prediction. Surely, you can see that. The grand oracles themselves are still recovering from the physical effects, never mind the psychic backlash that came with them.”

  “Then fetch new ones,” Desia commanded

  “My queen...”

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  “You may have forgotten this Thaddeus but I am not only your Queen but an Origin,” Desia reminded him, a flash of power briefly illuminating her eyes. “Your Origin”

  “I know the limits of my own creations better than anyone. The loom responds to my will, so do my oracles and so do you.”

  “Then why not make the prediction yourself? Why leave it in the hands of the grand oracles?”

  Desia turned away, a hint of embarrassment coloring her cheeks.“You know the reason.”

  Indeed, he did. For all her power, Desia had been limited by this one prediction. She had no idea when it would happen or what exactly would happen either. She had no means of finding out either. she could not directly view this one future and knew not who created it either.

  All she was sure of was that it had appeared in her loom a few months ago, about the same time that her nightmares began and both it and them were really starting to worry her. The prediction most of all. As Origin of Fate, Desia ruled over time and prophecy wholly, yet here was one fate that was not subject to her will and if not hers to whom was it subject to and what was its significance.

  Thaddeus took a deep breath, his expression softening.

  “I cannot pretend to understand what you’re going through, my Queen. These nightmares clearly disturb you deeply. But we will solve nothing by pushing the loom beyond its capacity. Perhaps the answer lies elsewhere.”

  For a long moment, Desia stood motionless, her gaze distant. Finally, she nodded in agreement.

  “Perhaps you’re counsel demonstrates some prudential wisdom...some but enough . The loom has served us faithfully. It would be reckless to damage it out of impatience.”

  “Exactly. Allow the artificers time to repair it properly,” Thaddeus suggested.

  “In the meantime, perhaps you should rest. Clear your mind. The answers you seek may come to you naturally.”

  “Rest?” Desia repeated the word as if it were a foreign concept or in her case, a forgotten one. “Have you forgotten I am an Origin?”

  “I was only suggesting my Queen...”

  “Maybe you have a point” Desia agreed, again refusing to let him finish, “Yes, I suppose I should try.”

  She moved toward the door, her steps unhurried but purposeful. At the threshold, she paused, looking back at her faithful Grand Master.

  “When the grand oracles recover, have them record every detail they can remember from the last reading, no matter how fragmented.”

  “It sounds as hopeless as the experiment itself,” Desia admitted “but sometimes the most important clues hide in the smallest details.”

  “Will do, my Queen” Thaddeus said whilst straightening his posture.

  “You promise?” Desia asked.

  “You have my word,” Thaddeus said bowing deeply

  “I expect nothing less”

  After she departed, she could hear Thaddeus sink heavily into his chair, exhaustion finally catching up to him. He motioned to a waiting page to bring him wine, knowing he would need its fortification for the long night ahead.

  To Desia, it was no secret that Thaddeus had in fact grown to become worried of his queen of late. Desia had always been to him, herself and many others, the definition of an Origin. She was proud, confident and regularly wise. She had made everyone around her get used to their jobs as simply being supplements.

  Thaddeus, for one had gotten used to his being about seconding Desia’s opinions and decisions. Neither had he nor she ever imagined him actually having to contest them instead. Yet here they were. Where everyday felt like the two were contesting about something new. It had all started after her first major nightmare. It had made her more frantic, irritable and less tactical in decision making. She knew he feared that she was on a spiral even though he had no way of proving it or responding even if he was proven right.

  Desia was at least glad about that. That no matter how many of her faculties she lost, she was still Origin of Fate and Queen of Desinai. Hel, if she grew tired of her grand master’s opposition, she could even replace him with another one of her grand oracles.

  Her favorite Raynor had been her steward a long time.

  Hel, she could even build an entire new servant out of thin air as she had their realm.

  Of course, Desia knew she would never actually move on with any of those since she respected Thaddeus’ council to much to seek an actual replacement for him. But she knew that those possibilities kept her Grand Master’s opposition to a minimal. That is why, even despite the numerous protests he kept making towards the queen’s experiment, he had let her continue on with it.

  Desia knew his trust and patience were unwavering for that was the very reason she picked him but she also knew eventually, Thaddeus would have to change is priority from sparing the Queen’s feelings to protecting the loom and the realm as were his primary instruction .

  For both their sakes, Desia hoped she would get answers sooner rather than later.

  Desia continued walking down the long corridors to her private chambers, her mind troubled. Each step echoed against the marble floors, matching the rhythm of her racing thoughts. Servants bowed as she passed, but she barely noticed them, too consumed by the fear that had haunted her sleep for months now.

  As she reached her chambers, she dismissed her waiting handmaidens with a gentle wave. Tonight, she wanted solitude. She moved to the window seat overlooking the endless tapestry of fate lines stretching to the horizon, glowing softly in the darkness.

  “What are you trying to tell me?What?” she whispered to the night sky, as she always did.

  She expected no answer though.

  With a heavy heart, she prepared for another night of restless sleep, knowing that the nightmare would wait for her, as it always was. And wouldn’t you know it.Within no time, she was asleep and once again the nightmare began as it always did.

  Desia ran, her breath coming in ragged gasps that tore at her throat. Gone was the elegant Origin of Fate; in her place was a frightened woman in a dark, heavy cloak that tangled around her ankles with each desperate step. Her face, usually serene and composed, was twisted with fear, her sky-blue eyes wide and darting frantically from shadow to shadow.

  The ground beneath her feet was uneven, strewn with obsidian rubble. All around her loomed the ruins of what had once been a magnificent castle. Unlike the white marble and gold of her own palace, these walls were fashioned from obsidian so dark that it seemed to absorb what little light existed in this nightmare of a realm. Even in their fallen state, the walls towered over her, jagged teeth against a blood-red sky.

  Everything was burning. Flames licked at the collapsed towers, and thick, acrid smoke stung her eyes and filled her lungs. The heat was oppressive, pressing against her skin. In the distance, she could hear screams. Whether they were human or something else, she couldn’t tell.

  “Hello?” she called out, her voice small and lost amidst the crackling of flames.

  “Is anyone there?” she asked to the void

  No answer came except for the ominous rumble of more stones collapsing somewhere behind her. Desia pressed onward, scrambling over a fallen column. Her hands came away slick with something dark and wet that she didn’t want to identify.

  A sudden shadow passed overhead, momentarily blocking the crimson light. Desia froze, her heart hammering against her ribs. Slowly, she raised her gaze to the sky. Above her, wings spread to blot out half the burning sky, circled a monstrous crow. Its feathers were even darker than the walls, each the size of a man’s arm. Its beak, curved and sharp as a scythe, opened to release a cry that shook the very air.

  And its eyes.

  Its eyes burned with malevolent intelligence as they fixed directly on her.

  In this nightmare world, Desia still stood barely five feet tall while the crow was easily fifty times her size, a behemoth of feather and beak and talon that defied all natural laws at least the ones Desia knew.

  She knew it was a beast of darkness, but she could never imagine one that big. She didn’t even know if that was possible. And the aura it emitted so powerful and ancient. Not like anything she had felt before. In fact, it felt so intoxicating it seemed to be dampening her powers.

  “No,” she whispered, backing away. “No, no, no,no,no...”

  The crow tucked its wings and dove. The air screamed around its massive form as it plummeted toward her. Desia turned and ran, her legs pumping frantically, her lungs burning. But she knew, as she always knew in this recurring nightmare, that she could not outrun this creature of the sky.

  She risked a glance backward and saw the crow gaining, its terrible beak open wide enough to swallow her whole. In her panic, her foot caught on a protruding stone, and she went down hard, the impact driving the breath from her body. Pain lanced through her ankle as she tried and failed to rise.

  The crow’s shadow engulfed her. She could feel the wind from its wings, smell the carrion stench of its breath. Desia threw her arms up in a futile gesture of protection and squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the end.

  As usual, it never came though.

  Instead, there was a sound like thunder, and a blinding flash of light forced its way through her closed eyelids. Desia opened her eyes to see a creature of equal magnificence and terror engaged in battle with the crow.

  A white dove, as massive as a crow, had appeared from nowhere. Its feathers gleamed with an inner light that hurt to look upon directly, as though it had swallowed a star. The two giants clashed above her, talons raking, beaks stabbing, their cries shaking the already ruined castle to its foundations.

  Portions of the wall crumbled further as the birds crashed against them. The ground trembled beneath Desia as she struggled to her feet, transfixed by the battle raging overhead. The crow’s darkness seemed to spread like ink through water, while the dove’s light pushed back against it like the coming of dawn.

  Then, suddenly, a voice filled Desia’s mind — not heard with her ears but felt within her very thoughts. The voice was female, melodious and urgent, yet tinged with infinite sadness at the same time.

  “Run, Daughter of Light. Run while I hold back the darkness.”

  The white dove’s eyes, gentle yet fierce met Desia’s for a brief, electrifying moment. In that instant, Desia felt a connection so profound that tears sprang unbidden to her eyes. There was something familiar in that gaze, something she knew she should recognize but couldn’t quite grasp.

  “Please,” the voice urged. “There is so little time.”

  Desia hesitated only a moment longer, then forced her injured ankle to bear her weight. She turned and limped away as quickly as she could, the sounds of battle growing more vicious behind her.

  She had only gone perhaps twenty paces when an unearthly scream tore through the air, a sound of such agony that Desia stumbled and nearly fell again. She whirled around to see the white dove enveloped in brilliant white flames that seemed to consume it from within.

  “No!” Desia cried out, reaching toward the burning apparition as if she could somehow save it from this distance.

  The dove’s form was dissolving into pure light, fragmenting like shattered crystal, each piece blazing intensely.

  Both the crow and the dove went ablaze screaming in agony, somehow Desia knew it was a sacrifice by the dove but she did not know to why that had to be the sacrifice nor why the dove cared so much about her to set its own form ablaze. The fiery form then exploded into a supernova.

  Desia jerked upright in her bed, a scream dying on her lips. Her silk nightgown clung to her sweat-drenched body, and her heart pounded painfully against her ribs. For several disorienting moments, she couldn’t remember where she was, still half-trapped in the nightmare world of ruins and monsters.

  The door to her chamber burst open, and a tall figure rushed to her bedside. Raynor, her most loyal servant, stared down at her with concern etched in his unnaturally pale features. His skin was remarkably wrinkled despite his ageless nature, paper-thin and almost translucent in the sunlight filtering through the windows. His blood-red eyes, startling against his pallor, examined her with scrutiny.

  “My lady,” he said, his deep voice weighted with concern. “You were screaming again.”

  Desia closed her eyes briefly, gathering her composure. When she opened them, she had once more donned the mask of the serene Origin of Fate.

  “I am fine, Raynor,” she said, her voice steady despite the tremor she still felt in her limbs.

  “Are you certain? This is the seventh night in succession. Perhaps your sister Adelia...”

  “I said I am fine,” Desia interrupted, more sharply than she intended.

  Realizing her rudeness, she softened her tone. “It was merely a nightmare, nothing more.”

  Raynor’s ancient face creased further with doubt. “Are you sure?”

  “Are you questioning my assessment?” Desia asked, raising one elegant eyebrow.

  Raynor immediately bowed his head. “Never. I am merely concerned for your well-being, as is my duty.”

  Desia sighed, regretting her earlier harshness. Raynor had been with her since the Desinai’s’ creation, one of the first beings alongside Thaddeus, thought the latter had aged better. His loyalty was beyond question.

  “I know, old friend. Forgive my temper.” She pushed back the tangled sheets and rose from the bed. “I am simply... tired.”

  “Of course. Shall I prepare your morning tea while you dress? Perhaps the calming blend with Valyrian root?”

  “That would be lovely,” Desia said with a grateful smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

  Raynor bowed once more and retreated from the chamber, his movements as silent and graceful as ever despite his apparent age. As the door closed behind him, Desia’s smile fell away. She moved to the grand windows that dominated one wall of her chamber and looked out over her realm. The endless tapestry of rivers stretched to the horizon, glowing softly in the pre-dawn light. Her creation. Her purpose.

  Yet, for the first time in her century long existence, Desia felt something she had never experienced before: helplessness. Night after night, the same nightmare. Night after night, the same ending. And night after night, she awoke with no clearer understanding of what it meant.

  She pressed her forehead against the cool glass, letting the sensation anchor her to reality.

  “Great mercy of fate, what are you trying to tell me?”