Katja moved closer, her hands folding over his where they rested on the ancient scroll. Her touch was cool—soothing to the fevered ache beneath his skin. She leaned in, her voice a gentle murmur, as if afraid to shatter the fragile truce holding his anger at bay.
“It is written,” she began, fingers tracing the glyphs, “that the Oracle can be found where the rivers of the world meet the rivers of the dead. The veil is thin there, Vladislaus. It is a place between memory and forgetting.”
He pictured such a crossing: grey mists clinging to damp earth, the hush of a world suspended. A place where even time dared not linger. The image left him uneasy, but a flicker of curiosity steadied his resolve.
“And the prophecy?” his voice was husky, haunted by centuries. “What does it demand of us?”
Katja’s eyes never left his. “It demands honesty. Sacrifice, perhaps. Courage, most of all. The journey must be yours, but I will walk beside you, as I always have.” For a moment, pain flickered in her gaze—pain for him, for herself, for all that was lost. “I would follow you into oblivion if you asked it.”
He pulled his hand free and cradled her cheek, letting his thumb brush the fine line of her jaw. There was a desperation in the gesture—something raw and pleading. “I do not want oblivion,” he confessed, voice trembling. “I want… I want to remember their laughter, Katja. Not just their dying.”
She pressed her lips to his palm, cold and sweet. “Then let us seek the Oracle. Let us find peace not only for ourselves, but for them.”
A knock shattered the moment, echoing through the somber halls. Gregor—his loyal steward for these long centuries—stepped hesitantly into the torchlight. “My king, my queen. There is activity at the border. Scouts report a breach—Ottoman banners. It is… it is not a raiding party. They bear an emissary’s flag.”
Vladislaus tensed, jaw clenching as old fury threatened to drown reason. He saw Katja’s fingers tighten on his. She shook her head, subtle but insistent—a silent plea to remember the vow he’d just made.
Gregor’s eyes darted between them, uncertain. “Shall I prepare the throne room for an audience, my lord? Or… shall I send them away?”
Out the tall window, the moon thickened behind clouds, casting the stone chamber into a chiaroscuro of hope and dread. The prophecy loomed, but so did a living enemy. The embers of vengeance flared. The promise of a different path shimmered, fragile as a reflection. Katja’s touch was the only constant, grounding him.
His next action would decide not only the fate of his heart, but perhaps the course of centuries yet to come.