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As a plan falls into place, the smell of burning flesh overwhelms me. Even through the helm, the stench is potent. Drakken whinnies beside me, and I reach out to comfort her. She nuzzles into my palm, the familiar motion soothing to the both of us after so many years together.
Taking one final deep breath, we walk together through the smoldering remains of the gate to the village.
There's nothing left.
The fire burned so hot it ate right through everything.
For what feels like hours, I traverse the decrepit remains of this ruined place. I search for any sign of life. Any clue. Any corpse still intact enough to reanimate. Any-fucking-thing.
But the only thing around us is destitution and mutilation.
"Quite the sight, Your Majesty," a voice sounds all around me. "This level of carnage is something I might expect from you, not to be exacted against you."
My eye twitches beneath my mask. "Ovoor, always a pleasure."
Her haggard laugh echoes behind me. "It's bad manners to lie, you know."
I turn around and see nothing but follow the voice anyway. She likes her little games, and playing along is the easiest way to deal with her.
Rounding a corner towards the town center, I find her perched on the remnants of what used to be a water fountain but is now, in fact, a trickle of a blood fountain.
"There you are," she grins as if she didn't know exactly where I was all along. "Did you like our gift?"
Ah. The sheep farmer. "You gifted me dead townsfolk. How thoughtful."
"I gifted you time," she corrects. "Gave the sheep farmer an extra few hours before the spell cast on him could take hold."
"Could you not have just kept them all from this end?"
She wrinkles her nose, the deep lines around her mouth and eyes becoming more pronounced as she does. Ovoor looks as if she was certainly once beautiful, with eyes so dark they swallow all the light around them, teeth terrifyingly straight and white, and long brown hair that dances in the wind.
But as the eyes of the past, she's always looked... well, ancient.
"Onala forbid it." The mention of her sister, the eyes of the future, sends a shiver down my spine. "But she allowed me to give those few enough time to show you what they saw."
Against my better judgment, I scoff, "They saw nothing."
"They saw enough." She raises a brow in humor. "Now you know what evil is coming."
"Syrens," I say, and she nods. "How do they have Syrens this far inland? Only the queen has the ability to walk on land."
Her eyes flash white, and her whole body freezes for just a moment before she returns from communing with her sisters. "Apologies, Your Majesty, I cannot say."
"Who commands them?"
She says nothing, only stares with that patient, indulgent, infuriating smirk.
"Okay, can you tell me how it's related to the attack at my home this morning?" There's no way this is all a coincidence. Syren magic invades my home as Syrens somehow attack my kingdom? Absolutely not.
Nothing.
"Then, with all due respect," I hold back from grinding my teeth, "what the fuck are you here for?"
"I am here to issue a warning," she speaks to me as if I'm a petulant little boy throwing a tantrum, making my fingers itch to wrap around her throat. "You can't kill the girl."
"I hadn't planned on it."
"There you go, child, lying to me again." She cackles. "Onala sees it, so there is at least one future where you do it."
