Kirin's brow furrowed at the mention of his name, suspicion etching itself into her features. "What about Ares?" she asked sharply. Before the old woman could answer, she forged ahead, her voice edged with defiance, "I hope you're not here to plead for delay, to let him mend his wounds. If that's your purpose, you're wasting your time and breath—I won't shift our departure by a single hour."
The old woman shook her head, a slow, deliberate motion, her tangled white hair swaying like cobwebs in the dim light. "No, child," she said, her voice a low rasp. "When fate weaves its path, it's best to let it run its course."
Kirin's apprehension deepened, her eyes narrowing. "Fate?" she repeated, the word tasting bitter on her tongue. "Me and Ares? Has it bound us together?"
The old woman offered no direct reply, her blind eyes drifting as if tracing unseen patterns in the air. Instead, she spoke in a cadence soft and lilting, her words weaving a melody both haunting and profound: "Fate is a river of starlight, its currents vast and unyielding, threading through the lives of all beneath the heavens. Most are carried along its shimmering flow, powerless to resist its pull. Yet there are rare souls—sparks like you and Ares—who might one day seize the loom and spin their own silver strands against the dark. But not yet. For now, the river holds you fast, and its waters have twined your fates into a single, radiant braid."
Kirin bristled, her jaw tightening. "No one weaves my path for me," she declared, her voice ringing with resolve. "I'll tear apart fate's weave with my own hands."
The old woman chuckled, a chilling sound that slithered through the air like a cold wind. "You will not," she said, her words dripping with certainty.
Kirin began to retort, her words rising like a storm, but the old woman lifted a frail, trembling hand, stilling her with a quiet command. "You will follow the woven path," she insisted, "both out of necessity and choice. After all, it's the only way your dreams can come true."
Shock widened Kirin's eyes. "What dreams?" she demanded, her voice trembling with a mix of anger and desperate curiosity. "What do you know of them?"
Despite her sightless eyes, the old woman's stare pierced Kirin like a shard of ice, sending a shiver through her core. "Is your dream not to see the age of dragons?" she asked, her voice soft yet heavy with knowing.
A shiver of fear coursed through Kirin, sharp and unbidden, piercing the armor of her resolve. She had never breathed a word of her dreams to anyone—not a soul. They were a tender, childish vision, kindled long ago when she was small, ignited by the worn pages of a book she'd treasured in secret. How could this woman possibly know?
The old woman continued, unfazed by Kirin's silence, her voice a steady thread pulling at the fabric of her thoughts. "Ever since you pored over The Book of the Ancients as a lass," she said, "you've longed to see the sky rulers return.
Kirin's katana snapped up in an instant, its gleaming tip poised mere inches from the woman's frail throat, quivering with the force of her outrage. "Who are you?" she demanded, her words a jagged snarl, heavy with mistrust and a rising tide of panic.
The old woman didn't flinch, her serenity unshaken even as the blade hovered near her throat. "I am a watcher," she answered simply.
She gestured to her milky, sightless eyes and let out a dry chuckle. "Ironic, isn't it?" She went on when Kirin didn't react to her ironic joke, "The gift of sight curses us to glimpse all the paths fate has woven.
She continued, "This gift—or curse—depending on how you look at it lets me peer into the threads fate spins for all. But as I told you, you and Ares are different. You can wrest the shuttle from fate's grasp and weave your own destinies, paths unseen by its design. I'm here as its sentinel, tasked with tracking those who slip beyond its sight."
Her tone darkened, carrying the weight of an ending. "My time as watcher is done. Ares's coming has marked it. This journey will claim me, and another will rise in my stead. Fate yearns to follow his steps—for he is the harbinger of the third apocalypse."
Kirin stood frozen, the katana still raised, her mind reeling.
"How can you be sure he's the light bringer if you'll die before the third apocalypse happens?" she asked, her katana still raised, though its tip wavered slightly.
The old woman's blind eyes seemed to pierce through the gloom, her expression solemn yet distant, as if she gazed beyond the walls of the chamber. "I've seen it," she replied, her voice a low murmur. "For days now, a vision has haunted me—dragons tearing through the sky, their scales glinting as they twist and writhe. They spit fire in torrents: blazing orange and red, the hues of a natural inferno, but also violet, blue, and a black so deep it swallows light itself. The earth below them lies scorched, a wasteland of ash and ruin in their wake."
She paused, her words hanging like smoke in the air, before continuing. "The world will end again. This third apocalypse will be the last the earth can endure. Either the light bringer triumphs, and from the cinders of the old a new earth rises, or he fails, and this world is obliterated, reduced to nothingness. Regardless, the age of dragons will ignite this cataclysm—and Ares will be its herald."
The old woman's voice grew richer, layered with an unshakable conviction as she pressed on. "It will be years yet before he's strong enough to bring it forth. Too many trials stand in his path—creatures twisted by shadow, men cloaked in ambition, forces that will seek to shatter him. They'll break him, grind him to dust, and leave him in ruin."
She paused, her blind eyes shimmering with a faint, ethereal light, as if gazing upon a sacred tableau unfolding in the distance. "But I've no doubt he'll rise again," she said, her tone swelling with reverence, each word trembling with the awe of one witnessing something divine. "He'll be strong—oh, he'll be strong—with a vigor that bends the iron of fate, his sinews woven from the threads of storms, unbreaking against the world's howl. Even now, magical essence swirls around him, unseen but alive, restless with anticipation, yearning for the moment of his awakening."