I think she would feel differently if she knew what I had found was a lost stanza of the prophecy. The Song of the Destroyer. The only sacred text that matters.
Of all the things foreseen, the Song predates every one, going back to the time of the Exodus. Some scholars say it was written by the gods themselves before they left, as explanation or apology for the rift they tore in our world. My tutors claimed it was written by the first living god, the beginning of my line, who stayed behind to guide and protect humankind when the others took to the sky.
All life happens in cycles, even the world itself, and the life of ours was drawing to an end a thousand years ago. A young god named Lightbringer was given the task of ending the world so that it might be reborn again, new and free of suffering. But when that god, also known as the Destroyer, looked into the future and saw what lay in the gaping emptiness of the space between death and rebirth … he left us, and fled into the sky.
The Song of the Destroyer, as central to our faith as my own existence, tells us that one day the Lightbringer will return, with the Last Star to guide him. That amid omens of rising waters and falling stars, the Lightbringer will rejoin the living god to walk the land once more, before bringing us to rest in the instant of oblivion before the world bursts forth renewed.
Scholars and priests alike have devoted entire lifetimes to studying the Song. They ask what would have happened had the Lightbringer ended the world when he was meant to, whether we would now be in a new cycle of rebirth.
Some suggest that the last thousand years of suffering and waiting for the Lightbringer’s return have been a test of our worthiness, destined from the beginning. Others have gone so far as to suggest he never existed at all, that the Lightbringer is just a Fisher King’s tale, no more real than the stories of the Sentinels who guard the way between worlds, or the mist-touched wraiths that wait in the thickest, darkest mist-storms to drive the unsuspecting to the edge of insanity.
The Lightbringer cannot be real, they say—for how could a god turn his back on his destiny?
I could not help but wonder if the answer might be simple: that the boy-god born to destroy the world was afraid. I suggested this once, to one of my tutors—she came as close as anyone could come to calling her living divine a blasphemer. For what hope have men if even the gods know fear?
But I too am a god—the latest in a long, long line. And I know fear; I’ve met it many, many times.
Could I have destroyed the world, in his place? Would I have had the courage, the faith, to believe all that I was to destroy would be born again?
I wish I could say yes—but the truth is that I don’t know. I cannot know—no one can, unless faced with that terrible choice themselves. Maybe the answer is that no one person, divine or not, can make that choice alone.
I was twelve years old when I fully understood the implications of the Song: that the Lightbringer would rejoin the living god, and together they would bring about the end of the world.
Together.
I used to imagine that he would come to me, that I was the one preordained to stand with him against the darkness. I could not help but long for it. To have someone by my side who understood the weight of destiny, someone who would give my life purpose and meaning. Someone who could touch me …
Perhaps that is why not even Daoman believes that my lost stanza is anything other than a girlish fantasy.
But I know what happened. It was no dream. I woke in darkness a fortnight ago, drenched in sweat, my skin tingling as if a mist-storm were all around me—and when I would have gone to the window, a vision seized me.
I saw myself in the temple archives, uncovering an ancient version of the Song of the Destroyer. But as soon as my eyes fell on the page, the letters began to glow and shift, until I was dazzled by light. When I could see again, there was a new stanza there, nestled in among the old familiar prophecy. And my heart was filled with such certainty, such purpose, that when the vision faded, I found myself standing in the middle of my chamber, gasping, face wet with tears.
When I could move again, I ran to the shelf in the archives where I’d found the scroll in my vision. I crouched there on the tiled floor, unrolling the dusty text that had been hidden behind a row of ancient census notes, while the bindle cat batted at night insects attracted by my lamp.
The letters would not change or glow, no matter how hard I stared at them. There was no lost stanza, no sign of anything unusual.
But the ancient scroll was there, exactly where it had been in my vision. Though the words were missing, how could I have known of its existence unless my vision was real? Divinely inspired, showing me the path to my purpose?
That scroll meant everything.
When I showed it to the Master of Archives, he glanced at it briefly and shrugged. “The lettering is ancient, but the page is not,” Matias said. “See how the edges of it are milled here? It’s a copy at best. More likely, it’s a fake. Young scholars and acolytes do sometimes try to speed up their rise in the ranks by claiming to have found lost examples of prophecy.”
But I knew what I had seen. The lost stanza in my vision was burned into my mind with perfect clarity.
The empty vessel, it read,
will at the end of days
seek the land kissed by the sun.
For only on that journey
before a swift gray tide
will the last star fall.
The empty one
will keep the star
as a brand against the darkness,
and only in that glow
will the Lightbringer look upon this page
and know himself… .
The thick humidity of the forest-sea vanishes at the river’s edge, the change in the air pulling me from the memory. The bindle cat is waiting for me there, as if he knew I would seek some quiet out beyond the trees. I stoop to run a finger along the underside of his chin, then step out onto one of the smaller rafts lashed to the barge. Before I was called it would’ve been no different from walking on solid ground. Now, I notice how unstable it feels.
I’m becoming too pampered, I think sourly, glaring down at the bundled reeds below my boots.
The words of the prophecy’s lost stanza fade in my mind’s eye, replaced by the Graycloak we saw at dawn, his words still ringing in my ears.
An empty girl called Nimh …
I could not explain to Daoman’s satisfaction why the lost stanza had seized me so completely. I was filled up with the idea that there could be a reason, some purpose to this torture of a half-life.
I was empty, without aspect, because fate had chosen me for something far greater than I had guessed, surrounded by the rising, swift gray tide of dissenters… .
The time of the Lightbringer’s return had come—and I was the one who would discover him.
Just to think it is almost too much to bear, much less speak the idea aloud, as if the telling would somehow rob it of meaning.
Or you’re afraid, my mind whispers. Too scared of failure to let anyone know how hard you’re trying …
As my thoughts threaten to tangle themselves together, I draw in a deep breath of the fresh air and lift my chin. I cannot afford to indulge my worries. I can worry when I’ve returned.
Fireflies glint among the reeds and over the water, a dazzling arrhythmic display. As if in answer, their larval offspring nestled in the creases of the river lettuce glow in a gentler, softer dance.
Like stars lured down and held spellbound by their reflections in the water, the fireflies sing a song of light and dark.