Unknown, 10416 P.C.

The place was deserted and desolate, baked by the heat of an unforgiving sun and cooled by the moon's weeping gaze. The rocks breathed, cracking in anguish beneath the curse, begging for mercy and receiving none. The woman's feet paced their backs carefully — she knew the ground could be truly become alive with jaws capable of swallowing any unsuspecting traveller. She had no need to fear, however. These rocks knew her. She came to their abode often. No one had touched this place but her in over a hundred years.

Her bare feet slipped over the loose rocks as she skipped down the mountain path and came to land firmly on the pebbled bank of a small stream. It had not been there the first time she had visited this lonely ravine, but slowly, surely, the water had cut through rock, filling the place with the sound of its bubbling. She followed it, holding the bouquet of flowers she had picked close to her chest. They were just simple field flowers, ones she had plucked from a ditch a few miles back. Already, they were beginning to wilt, but she knew he would have loved them all the same. He had always found beauty in the simple things.

Reaching the large rock marking the grave, she pulled the crusty, dead flowers from her last visit out of the old clay pot at the foot of the rock and replaced them with the ones she had brought. Reverently, she filled the pot with stream water before placing it back and admiring her handiwork.

It wasn't much. Few would have recognized that it was a grave at all. Few even remembered what had happened here. It had been lost over time, over centuries of Creation sinking deeper and deeper into the spiral of madness fighting to consume the worlds.

But she remembered. She remembered it all. Some days, she wondered if that was a blessing or a curse.

His presence filled the ravine so suddenly she was nearly startled. "My King," she said to the clay pot of flowers. "You return."

"I had never truly left."

She rose to her feet and turned to Him, inhaling a deep breath. "You have a mission?"

The Immortal One smiled. "Always so eager to get to the point."

"I live to serve."

He nodded slowly. "The time has come. Are you ready to return?"

"I wish I had never left."

"I know. However, your abilities were needed here."

She understood His words. The brokenness in the world around her was suffocating. Her abilities, though, had hardly put a dent in it. "How long must they wait?" she asked quietly. "How much longer shall they suffer for the sins of the Condemned?" She looked down at the grave, her heart aching.

The Immortal One gently cupped her chin in His large hand, turning her eyes to Him. "Soon, child, the dawn will come."

She smiled faintly. "And all this pain will wash away."

Soon could be today.

"Go, now," the Immortal One instructed gently. "Use your gifts. My protection will be with you."

She nodded firmly. Taking a step back, she crouched low, letting her golden curls fall about her cheeks as her pearly white wings unfurled from within. They stretched out on either side of her, powerful and beautiful, glad to be of use once more. With a powerful leap, she propelled herself into the air, soaring out of the ravine and leaving the grave and its sorrows behind. Pumping her wings, she sailed into the clouds, high over the mountain peaks.

Soon could be today.

Peace consumed her. Purpose drove her. Levelling out, she turned to the horizon. To the ocean. To Desmond.

The war for the worlds had finally begun.

END OF BOOK 1