Chapter 187.5 - Prelude of Storm II

Gasping desperately for air, Meltys awoke from her slumber with her feathers doused in cold sweat. She had once again been stolen from her dreams by a horrifying nightmare of a prophecy. There had been a brief point, during the weeks that she had seen it, where the vision bothered her little. But that time was long in the past.

She had already done everything she could. She had traveled the seven holy mountains, solicited prayers and offerings from every city and village, and spent all her spare time hunting. She had gained three dozen levels in just a month. And yet, the vision continued to persist.

Unlike the others, all of which she eventually overcame, the prophecy that yet haunted her dreams did little but profess that her efforts were in vain. It almost appeared inevitable, like a future already set in stone. None of her careful strengthening had done anything to affect any one bit of its outcome.

Shelving the thought, she poured a glass from the keg next to her bed—the only reason she had been able to get any sleep at all over the course of the past week—and swallowed it whole. The potent liquor stung as it slid down her throat, a sensation that brought her more comfort than pain. The fire it lit in her stomach warmed her from the inside out. And yet, she found her fears unquelled, only intensified.

The arviad had drank too much for the night; it was already her fifth time waking, and each had been accompanied by at least one cup, if not three or five. She was completely intoxicated, and the sinful liquid only pushed her miserable mind further beyond the edge. Knowing that she needed to part herself from her glass, she got to her feet and proceeded through the old shrine.

She teetered and tottered as she walked, tripping her way down a trio of corridors before finally arriving at a room with an entrance to the garden. She would have been able to visit it directly had she chosen to inherit her father’s study, but neither the guardian deity nor her mother wished to see it changed. Preserving what little of him they had left was a necessity, not only to cater to their own emotions, but also to ensure that the boy, her brother, would grow up knowing something of the man from whom he had inherited his blood.

Not that he would ever have the chance, if the prophecy was to be believed.

Shuddering, the pink bird fell face first into the soil and covered her head with her wings. She was lost, lost as the moon, which was bouncing to and fro in random directions as it tried to navigate the sky. The bird eventually rose, pushing herself off the ground and planting her flippers firmly in the dirt. She resolved herself to return to her bedchambers and drink another glass, but stopped short when she heard a knock on the temple door. It was distant, quiet, as if to not wake the two sleeping in the back, but present all the same.

Meltys had more alcohol in her body than blood, but even in her inebriated state, she knew better than to show herself so slovenly. She charged her divinity as she waddled to the entrance and poured it through her body, the purifying silverlight cleaning her nerves of their toxins. Alongside the clarity came a more detailed scene of her brother’s death, but she clenched her bill and shook it off. The cityfolk could not be allowed to witness her suffering. It was her duty to guard their minds from worry.

Opening the door, however, revealed her concerns to be in vain. What greeted her on the other side was not another arviad, but a phantom in the form of a tiny giant. He stood at less than half her height, a meter at most. Many of his features were the sort that his kind rejected, sickly green skin, a beardless face covered in bumps, and a grin with half its teeth removed. Even as one of a completely different species, she found him revolting. There was something about him that set off the bells and whistles in her mind—it was as if he did not belong, just like the lantern that hung from his hand. The night light emitted not a bright orange flame, but one dyed in a dangerous emerald hue.

“Might I stay the night, divine protector?” he asked, his voice sick and raspy. “I require shelter from these cold biting winds.”

Meltly’s first thought was that she ought to close the gate in his face. He was clearly suspicious; the man was not of her species, and her people were the only ones to have settled in the area. A brief look at him raised countless flags of caution. She could tell that welcoming him would bring nothing but ruin and misfortune.

But on a whim, she not only allowed him inside, but welcomed him in with open arms. She showed him to her dining room and prepared a high-class meal for them to share. For the main course, he was served the fresh giant’s heart that would have been her own breakfast the next morning, seasoned with herbs that could only be cultivated in the highlands. For his accompaniments, the duck sought the finest root vegetables from her garden, lily bulbs grown in soil free of miasma, chopped up and fried in butter. For his drink, she bestowed the holy vice that she herself partook, distilled carefully on temple grounds with the purest of her homemade holy water. And for his bedding, she prepared the finest of down, sewn from her own feathers, and laced with a hundred layers of protective spells and charms.

It was a task that required a monumental effort in the moment; she spent what felt like hours toiling away, preparing for the unknown guest the best hospitality that could be offered, as was the Arviadian way. But by morning, it had already become a drunken escapade she hardly remembered.

When she woke, just before sunrise, she made herself presentable and checked on the traveler. But he was already gone, vanished as suddenly as he arrived. She was tempted to dismiss his presence as a figment of her imagination and the missing food and drink a product of her stress. But the objects he left atop his neatly folded sheets served as undeniable evidence to the contrary. She approached both items with her head filled with questions, many of them resolving as her mind was made subject to a sudden revelation. It was a vision of a happy future, her family still intact and her brother ascended to the protector’s throne as a strapping young drake, worthy of being revered as the man of the house.

Elated, she wrapped her tentacles around the stranger’s gifts and raised them to the light. One was a letter, a note promising his allegiance in the coming days.

And the other, a holy relic blessed with his power.

For his name was Glarchst.

And he was a deity even greater than she.