Prologue
A woman was falling to her death.
It wasn’t fair, really, that she should spend the last few moments of her life suffering as words painfully resonated within her head.
Gods. Mortals. War. Peace. Destruction. Creation. Ignorance. Knowledge. Death. Life.
Knowledge from a foreign land filled her brain to the brim, so much was stuffed in her head to the point where she was beginning to forget everything else.
First it was the arbitrary dates that she didn’t care all that much for, anyway. When the War of Aveian Succession began. The date the treaty of Maillon was signed. Then it was names- who led the movement that led to the legalization of Velkin immigration. The name of the first king of Aveia. She couldn’t quite remember the names of any other kingdoms in Aeylon. Everything she had studied her whole life, falling out of her head as she fell through the vast emptiness, all of it replaced with words that had no meaning.
The Artifact.
Freyjia. Preksak. Asymptonic.
The Artifact.
Vanir. Aesir. Cryptite.
The Artifact.
Sanya, Ak, Da, Taan, Char.
The Artifact. The Artifact. The Artifact.
Her mother’s name left her. She forgot her mentor’s voice. The name of her kingdom. Her city. Her guild. Her own name.
The Artifact. The Artifact. The Artifact.
She shut her eyes tightly, hoping it would be over soon, when she felt… something. She opened her eyes, and where there had only been black emptiness, there was a girl hovering in front of her. She seemed to be floating more than falling, and didn’t seem afraid at all. With an outstretched hand, she gave the woman a warm and comforting smile.
“This doesn’t have to be the end. If you want, you can come with me.”
The woman took the girl’s hand.