In the beginning there was only The Chaos

And the universe was without form or light.

From the Chaos came one single force of order.

And this force named itself Seratos

He would be the King of Gods, God of Kings.

And it was He who created all things.

-Book of the Dawn 1;1-6

In boots worth more than all the wares around him, sat Count Vallerian, in a muddy corner of the market slum; they weren't even his favourite pair. He pulled the dirt-caked blanket tightly over his gold inlaid silk doublet, careful to cover it all. The cost of anonymity in this place could be high, he knew. He had traded his fine Jöln-wool cloak for that muddied blanket. And that cloak was worth at least as much as the shamble shack Vallerian rested against. A necessary cost he figured, returning to his scan of the crowd. He weighed it all in turn.

The Southshore Market was an ever-changing mass of child beggars, cunning thieves, and wily scam artists; that was on a good day. Greedy men whom he could hardly call merchants sold foul fruits from the backs of rotting wood carts. Travellers from all orients peddled their long-carried wares with the ruthlessness of a hawk hunting a mouse. Whether smell or look, something had kept these men from entering the city proper. Teetering lean-to's that threatened collapse at any moment pressed up against the city walls, marking out the market square. Overall, Vallerian quite liked it here.

“So when does she usually come?” Vallerian leaned over, whispering to the dirt covered blonde child huddled next to him. She was a Fereni like him, one of the slender and muscular War-borne, but that was where the similarities ended.

“Iunno.” she shrugged, not daring to look at him. “Don't no one know but the Bishop I guessin'.”

Vallerian nodded at that, handing the scrawny street child a bulging Khazimi mushroom wrap. Her eyes grew wild as she ravenously bit into it, sauce dripping down her chin. Tiny thing had probably never had so much food at once before. She moved to rise but Vallerian pushed her back down by the shoulder.

“I'm not done with you yet.” He quite liked kids, just wished they could sit still a bit better. “This Prophetess, you ever meet her?” He watched as she tried to mumble an answer with a mouth full of food, chunks of fungus falling out. Vallerian shook his head. “By Seratos' left eye, finish your damn food before you speak kid.” He gave her an exasperated look; these commonfolk really did have no manners.

The girl swallowed hard, and he could almost see the food going down her beanpole neck. “Not in real close like m'lord.”

“Don't call me that.” he snapped; she gaped at the force of it. Vallerian sighed before continuing. “Just call me... Uncle Val.” He had neither niece nor nephew, gods only knew what kind of woman could handle his insufferable older brother, but he had always wanted someone to call him Uncle Val. The girl nodded slowly, unsure; Vallerian motioned for her to continue.

“I ain't seen her real close like, like I tol ya m'lo... Uncle Val.” She looked to him for approval and he gave it with a reluctant smirk. She continued. “But m'friend, Jakob, he gone met her once. She healed his bad eyes she did. Now he's a watcher for the Silver-Skulls.” She seemed almost proud to know someone who had joined a street gang. Stupid kid.

Sliding a coin out from his sleeve, he dropped it in her already empty hands. Her eyes grew to the size of her now bloated stomach. “Tell your friends, Uncle Val is nice to kids with useful information.” She nodded, not daring to take her gaze from the coin in her hand. It was only a single gold lyra. Peasants could be odd. Vallerian reached out and closed her fingers around the shimmering coin. “Get going kid, don't let me see you around here again today.” He didn't need to tell her twice as she shot off into the crowd like a fox from a hunts master.

Without missing a beat, a rough man with a missing arm shuffled up to replace the girl, moving his fat fingers a little too close to Vallerian's coin purse. A quick flash of his sword, hidden beneath the blanket, hurried the would-be thief along. Likely one of the city's many veterans, left to rot out here in Southshore. Disgraceful, at least his family took care of their men.

He stayed put for a while longer. If what he had been told was true, he would hear his target well before he saw her. For now though he let himself be drawn into the motions of the crowd once more, observing the patterns people made in their masses. Vallerian's old teacher had taught him to analyze the ebbs and flows of people in groups. He had also taught Vallerian to keep a tight eye on his own coin purse, though back then it had been his teacher who was the dirty bastard stealing from him.

“Bloody thief.” he cursed, remembering the old hunts master.

The rush of the crowds shifted, all moving towards a single direction; then he heard it. The sounds of tambourines and choristers heralding the Prophetess's coming. Vallerian rose to finally meet her.

He did not force his way through the crowd, which was an unpredictable way to move among people. With every shove given, there would be two pushes received, and that wouldn't get you anywhere. Instead, he waded out into the masses, letting the flow of them pull him along. Moving like this it only took him moments to cross the square, to where the commotion had started.

A congregation of priests and guards stood tall among the masses, like a gilded marble pillar at a murky pier. White robes rippled against a light spring breeze. The crying crescent moon, symbol of Ethinia Most Merciful, decorated the banners hoisted proudly around the procession. A wall of silver and gold ornamental guards surrounded the priests. An unimpressive lot, nothing more than fat noble brats with too much free time. At the center of this holy cavalcade, surrounded by her revelers, priests, and guards, sat the Prophetess atop a gilded litter. His target.

She shuffled in her seat, leaning to the edge of her litter, and opened her mouth. Before she could speak a Sherya man, one of the tall slender First-borne, adorned in rich herald’s garb called out.

“Attend ye all Terminians. Bask in the merciful glory of her Most Radiant the Prophetess Celeste.” The man spoke in the First-borne tongue, and Vallerian doubted if anyone else in the crowd but him could understand. Except perhaps the girl herself, who shrunk in on herself at the words.

Vallerian whistled a pitched call, and the beating of heavy wings answered. Charlotte, his lifelong companion, swooped down and rested upon his shoulder. She was a large falcon, with plumage unlike any other. Her brilliant white feathers faded into silver and gold at the tips, as if brushed by the finest gilder. Her eyes, however, matched the royal family's. Matched his Target's too. He focused on Celeste, measuring her with his gaze.

She looked younger than her purported fifteen years, a smooth round face that seemed concerned with every soul she saw. Her eyes, the mismatched silver and gold only seen in direct successors to the throne, narrowed. The reports understated her hair though. Long golden locks that fell in pools around her, filling up crevices made by the pillows on which she lay.

The Prophetess reached out, her slender pale hand hanging above the heads of her protectors. She seemed to be reaching out to the commoners, a hurt look on her face as her guards kept them apart. Vallerian grimaced, it didn't require trained men with glaives to keep peasants back.

She's genuine, he thought with honest surprise. Now that was a shock, not that it mattered really for what he was doing.

“How a'much for your birrd?” A thick heavy hand pulled Vallerian’s arm and focus. Turning he found a grubby looking Khazimi man, short heavy-set shape, and thick knotted beard indicative of his people.

“Not for sale.” Vallerian brushed the man off.

“Don't be speaking to a'me like that. I's pay well I do!” He attempted to pull Vallerian around once more. Instead Vallerian spun on the man, dagger slipping from sleeve to hand, piercing beard to rest on the man’s throat.

“Do not argue with me Khazimi.” Vallerian growled as the man gulped. “Try again and I'll give you more than just a shave.” His gaze shrunk the man and Vallerian turned his attention back to Celeste. Things had changed quickly it seemed.

“Bare witness ye children of Terminia. A miracle befalls your own eyes!” the herald shouted, still in the First-borne tongue as if anyone understood what he said. A miracle, though; now that could be interesting.

One of her guards, another Khazimi man, this time blonde with a tightly cropped beard, pushed through the crowd with a commoner in hand. From the golden hammer painted on his left pauldron, the Khazimi man would likely be her only guard worth his salt. The Golden Hammers were holy warriors that wielded the Pantheon’s divine favour. That was certainly something Vallerian had no intention of being on the wrong side of. But how dangerous, really, could a warrior of the Most Merciful Goddess Ethinia be?

The Khazimi guard held the peasant by the arm, and as they left the crowd Vallerian’s interest was piqued. The man was a leper, thick lesions covering his paper dry skin. The pair approached the Prophetess, her eyes growing as wide as the moon she represented.

The Prophetess reached out once more with a trembling hand. Her frail body stretching out to cup the leper's face in her hand. A careful embrace, a mother’s embrace. She closed her eyes, and in only moments, the man gasped. Seconds later the crowd followed suit. With the faintest glow leaving the Prophetess's hand, the man's skin flushed. Like stiff clothes tossed into a well, his complexion deepened. He was clean, not a single scar or welt marked his body. The former leper began to weep. The Prophetess, however, appeared exhausted. But, he reasoned, how could she not be?

Healing was often administered by the Ethinian faith. By the gods he had once himself had a broken leg healed by the priests of her very order. But that had been twelve priests working for hours in prayer; even after both he and the priests were left resting in bed for two days. This? This was miraculous. And so, her miracles are legitimate as well, he thought. She seemed to be almost all that she was said to be. Almost.

He certainly had more than enough to report already, but his mission wasn't only to observe. There was one more piece to determine before he could make any real decisions, one more piece that was more important than all the others.

She did have the eyes, the mismatched gold and silver that betrayed her royal heritage. But was she the Lost Heir? Missing child of the Lost Princess, dead these past fifteen years. He said a short prayer for her. He wasn't particularly religious, and he had been young when she had died, but even Vallerian had felt the impact of the princess's death on the king. Vallerian compared the girl to his mental image of the dead princess and her widower the king. It wasn't a bad match. In fairness though he found all the Fershya, the Half-borne, looked the same with their pale complexion and soft features.

Another tug on Vallerian’s sleeve pulled his attention once more.

“Look you old Khazimi bastard I already warned you...” he trailed of, in the place of the Khazimi man stood the little girl from earlier. Her hands shook on his sleeve and her grubby lips quivered. “I thought I told you to get out of here kid?” Vallerian furrowed his brow at her as she motioned for him to lean in.

“Uncle Val, you gotta leave!” she whispered urgently into his ear.

“What?”

“You gotta leave Uncle Val!” she stomped a foot and tried to pull him out of the crowd. “Velket told Mikel who mentioned to Krestoff that his cousin who runs with the Red Arms said...” She mumbled as Vallerian pinched her lips closed between thumb and forefinger.

“I said useful information kid.” Vallerian let her lips go after she stopped struggling.

“Attack.” she spat out, gasping for a breath. “Attack on her.” She pointed past Vallerian, past the crowd towards Celeste, the Prophetess. Vallerian almost cursed, looked like today was about to get a lot more interesting.

With a loud crack one of the men holding the Prophetess's litter aloft slumped dead, crossbow bolt piercing his neck. The uneven litter fell, the Prophetess crashed to the ground, and all chaos broke out.