It was her.
An older version of herself.
"...You’re ," Cynthia whispered, her mind already in chaos, because of what she had witnessed previously.
The Older Cynthia gave a soft nod, her expression unreadable. "Yes. I’m the one who called you here using my remaining life for you to witness the real future instead of a prophecy."
"Wouldn’t that go against our rule, you would have to suffer unimaginable pain for even to show soone a second of future?" Cynthia said as if it wasn’t future her, but another person who she was talking to.
"What good rules and pain would do when our whole kind is on the line?"
The older Cynthia said, even though there was just a small difference of years between them. The older Cynthia seed way to mature.
As if she had witnessed the horrors again and again.
Cynthia didn’t say anything for a mont, just stared. The silence between them felt too loud.
Then the older Cynthia stepped closer.
Her eyes flicked to where Azhriel had been just monts ago, before the world had turned white.
"You saw it, didn’t you? That boy... He’s the one who doesn’t belong in the worlds."
Cynthia flinched. "What do you an?"
"I an," the older her said, voice calm but sharp, "he’s a disruption. He walks a path that was never written... and changes the paths of others just by breathing near them."
She paused, her gaze returning to Cynthia.
"Including us."
"...?"
The older Cynthia nodded. "Yes. You saw it, didn’t you? The way your heart stopped. The way your beast instincts scread—not in fear of death, but in fear of sothing greater. That boy... he will change everything."
Cynthia bit her lip, confused and overwheld. "But what does he want?"
The older her looked thoughtful for a mont, then smiled.
"He hasn’t decided yet."
"...What?"
"His fate. His truth. His path. He walks the edge, where gods fall and monsters are burnt. Whether he becos a savior or a destroyer... depends on what he chooses to be."
"...And what if he chooses wrong?"
The Older one didn’t answer imdiately.
She turned and looked at the white emptiness around them.
Then, in a quiet whisper, she said—
"Then everything will drown in cold, icy silence... and none of us will even rember what it sounded like to hope, if we exist that is."
Cynthia stood there frozen. A chill ran down her back. Tiny goosebumps rose on her arms.
She didn’t fully understand it yet.
But she felt it.
Sothing big—sothing terrifying—was coming.
And right at the center of it all... was Azhriel.
She swallowed. "But... wasn’t the Boy of Light supposed to be the savior?" she asked slowly, trying to make sense of it.
Her older self gave a soft nod. "He is. He will be. That’s his destiny, after all."
"Then how can Azhriel change it? No one can go against fate... right?" Cynthia asked.
The older her chuckled gently, as if rembering a distant mory. "That’s what I believed too," she said. "Until I t him."
She stepped forward, eyes shining faintly as she continued.
"That boy... he doesn’t need a destiny. He was never given a clear path like the others."
"He is the path."
Cynthia’s lips parted slightly, but no sound ca.
Her future self continued.
"The mont Azhriel was born... fate had already lost. That thing we call destiny—the one we thought was impossible to change—bends around him. Shifts. Breaks."
"It doesn’t lead him. He leads it, however and whenever we want."
Cynthia went quiet.
Completely quiet.
Her thoughts were tangled, her breath held. It was too much to take in all at once.
Soone like that... soone who could change fate just by being alive... how could the world handle soone like him?
How did her older self know so much about that boy?
And just how far ahead had she seen into the future?
But more than anything else...
What would happen if soone like him ever turned against the world?
That thought alone made Cynthia’s blood run cold.
"Ah," the older Cynthia said gently, her voice sounding distant now. "It seems our ti here is up."
Her body had begun to crack like thin glass. Lines ran across her arms, her shoulders, her neck—spreading fast.
"W-wait!" the younger Cynthia shouted, panic rising in her chest. "You know so much about that boy... What is he? Where does he co from?!"
The older Cynthia only gave her a small smile, a teasing glint in her glowing eyes. "Hehe... oh, we know the answer quite well."
She leaned forward a little.
"You’ll learn everything... when you wake up."
Then her smile faded. Her expression shifted—suddenly serious, even grim. The cracks reached her face now, pieces of her beginning to fall away into the white void.
"Listen closely, my younger self," she said, voice harder now, commanding. "There are three things you must rember. Etch them into your soul."
Cynthia stared, breath caught in her throat.
"One: He will not co back. Accept it."
"Two: Never provoke the Three Calamities. Not even by accident."
"And three... trust the ice. It is the only thing that will save Noarsis."
Then—
Shatter.
The glowing world cracked apart like broken glass, each piece falling into the darkness below.
"Aaaah!"
Cynthia’s scream echoed through her chambers as she jolted upright from her bed, drenched in cold sweat.
Her breath ca in quick, harsh gasps. "Haa... Haa..."
But the mont she opened her eyes—
Pain.
A sharp, mind-breaking pain stabbed into her skull like knives digging through her brain.
"AAAHHH!" she cried, clutching her head with both hands, her nails digging into her scalp as if trying to stop the agony.
It was unbearable.
Like her mind was being split open.
Her legs kicked at the bed covers as she thrashed.
Then the guards burst into the room, swords drawn.
"Lady Prophet!"
"Great Prophet, are you alright?!"
But she didn’t hear them.
She couldn’t.
"She’s not responding!"
"Get a healer! And inform Her Majesty! Now!"
One of the guards turned and bolted down the hallway.
Inside her head—chaos.
The mories weren’t fading like dreams.
They were flooding in—everything her older self had seen.
Death. Fire. Screams.
Cities burning.
Children crying.
Demons rising.
Blood. So much blood.
And through it all...
A boy. Standing alone in a sea of corpses. His eyes cold. His body still.
Azhriel.
Just standing there... surrounded by death.
And the world changing around him.
"AAAAAHHHH!!" Cynthia scread again as the vision twisted harder in her mind.
More images. Too many.
Like a thousand plays unfolding at once.
And Cynthia—helpless—was forced to watch every single one.
And then—
A glowing sun clashed with a storm of darkness.
The Boy of Light, and the Heir of Ice.
The final image burned into her mind like fire:
Azhriel standing alone in a white void, with his sword plunged into the chest of sothing... divine.
The vision ended.
Cynthia collapsed on the bed again, her breaths shaky, her eyes full of tears she didn’t even notice.
"...Just what does that bloody witch had given birth to, dammit. " she whispered through trembling lips.
No one could answer.
Because no one truly knew.
With that exhaustion settled in and she lost consciousness.
*****
In the Present—
"Right? Prophet Cynthia."
Azhriel turned calmly to his right, his tone as casual as ever.
There stood Cynthia, watching him with a quiet yet intense gaze. Her expression unreadable, her white eyes sharp.
The Queen, who stood beside Azhriel, tilted her head slightly, impressed even though she was angered by the boy.
To sense the Prophet camouflage, that alone was a great feat.
But Azhriel... had sensed her without even looking.
’He’s more sensitive to mana than I expected,’ the Queen thought, her gaze softening just a bit with curiosity.
"Hm, oh you caught ," Cynthia said, stepping out from the shadows, a gentle smile on her lips.
"Well," Azhriel replied, "with how much you were staring, it would’ve been weirder if I didn’t sense you."
He didn’t sound annoyed, just matter-of-fact—like he’d simply pointed out the obvious.
Cynthia’s smile grew slightly, amused by his tone.
"Well, it’s not every day we see a human summoning our Queen, you know," Cynthia said with a small smile. "So, it caught my curiosity a bit."
At the sa ti, she sent a quiet ssage into the Queen’s mind.
’Please, calm down, Your Majesty.’
The Queen, hearing her sister’s voice, stayed still—though her sharp gaze never left Azhriel.
"But I am curious, Azhriel," Cynthia continued, folding her arms. "How do you know about him? That’s a secret even the prince doesn’t know."
"Huh? What information?" Azhriel tilted his head slightly, as if confused.
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