I was standing in front of an Emperor, and, for once, not one I was being paid to kill.
The thought sat bitter on my tongue. I didn’t belong here. I didn’t belong anywhere near gold crowns and marble floors, cold enough to anchor me to the floor. The walls of the chamber felt suffocating with their high wooden beams. Tapestries lined the walls, each telling a different story. One stood out: a sun intertwined with a moon on either side.
In my world, power came from how hard you could hit, not what symbols hung on your walls.
Emperor Lyrian dismissed a line of older men with a wave of his hand. Their protests echoed as they shuffled out, voices grumbling about rivers and crops. His expression never changed, sorrow and steel, woven into one face.
Two people remained beside him. A woman with graying brown hair, her posture so poised she almost floated, a dark tattoo winding up her right arm. And a man built of edges, broad-shouldered, his face carved into a permanent frown.
“Ami,” the woman said, her voice soft and musical, though it trembled with urgency. “How do we bring her back?”
Ami opened her mouth. “Well… Cyrus is working on the next steps—”
Her words faltered. Her eyes glazed, gold swallowed by white. The man behind her moved instantly, catching her before she fell. His armor clanked as he moved. It was practiced—he had done this many times before.
Ami exhaled a single sharp breath. When she spoke again, her voice was not her own.
“The gods Banthys and Nithina have an agreement,” she said—calm, distant, ancient. “An agreement of life…”
Her head tilted to one side, eerily slow.
“And of death.”
No one moved. No one even flinched. I glanced around, waiting for someone to react, but apparently, this was normal.
Ami’s voice deepened, hollow and echoing.
“This agreement states:
Ten Shards will restore the Stone of Ilina,
Each one is called to a soul at birth.
Each bound by Fate.
The ten to restore the stone shall be granted the impossible gift of life after death,
the risen untouched by death's hand.”
Her eyes fluttered. The glow faded. She blinked once, confused, and took another breath as if nothing had happened.
“Uh, what the hell just happened? Are you possessed? Do we need to get someone? What is this stone?”
The questions tumbled out before I could stop them.
Ami looked at me with heavy eyes. “I am a Seer, I can see past and future.”
“This stone is a myth, it’s a dead end.” Says the man who caught her. He is tall with graying, curly black hair. His eyes were a sharp violet. “I don’t have the time nor the patience to explain the Celentrian pantheon to you. The Stone of Ilina is the stone given to the Goddess Ilina of Seers when she was born. It is a Stone that holds all of her power to twist fate.”
I blinked at him, trying to process the words goddess and fate as they belonged in the same conversation as me.
“So… you’re saying a rock can bring someone back from the dead?”
Emperor Lyrian turned to me then, and for a moment, I wished he hadn’t. His eyes were glazed with something more profound than hope; it was hunger.
“Not just someone,” he said softly. “Her.”
I didn’t have to ask who he meant. The name weighed heavily in the air.
Kathera.
Ami steadied herself against the table, her breathing still uneven. “The vision was clear,” she murmured. “The Stone of Ilina exists, and it can be found. It’s not a myth anymore.”
The man who had caught her crossed his arms, his gaze sharp as broken glass. “It may exist,” he said, “but finding it won’t be easy. The stone was shattered into pieces and hidden when the gods made their pact. It’s been lost for centuries.”
“Then we find it, Castor,” Lyrian replied, his voice iron wrapped in silk. “If that stone can bring Kathera back, I will search every corner of this realm myself.”
His words cut through the air like a blade. Everyone went still.
I shifted uncomfortably, wishing I could melt into the wall. “That’s great and all,” I muttered, “but I think you’ve got the wrong person for divine treasure hunts. I’m not exactly—” I gestured vaguely at the gold and marble around me “—Empress material.”
Ami’s golden eyes met mine, steady now, bright again. “You’re not here because you’re Empress material,” she said. “You’re here because the soul of one lives inside you.”
I froze.
Lyrian didn’t look away. “And I intend to bring her home.”
The silence that followed was heavier than any crown.
Something rose inside of me, that thread getting tighter, almost painfully so. It felt like I was being pulled somewhere, but I had not yet reached the end of the ache in my chest.