Elysia

This dawn brought more than a fiery sunrise.

A vivid orange sun crested the crystalline skyline. Willows turned amber in the courtyard so far below. Morning dew shimmered through crisp air. Young sunlight caught parks and meadows over the city’s beating heart. Towers of teal and chrome shot into the sky, grazing waterfalls all around. A scarlet dawn lit up the Western Sea across the horizon.

Anaia couldn’t remember the dream, but she felt a quiet dread in the back of her mind. She looked out from the tower across the city. The capital was coming to life. It was quiet. There was no reason to think anything was wrong. Still, Anaia couldn’t shake this feeling. And she had learned to trust her instincts.

She threw open the oak door of her room and took the marble steps outside two-by-two. In moments, she’d reached the top of the tallest spire in Elysia.

It wasn’t hard for Anaia to believe the children’s stories about this place. This was somewhere most people never saw with their own eyes. The tower’s apex gleamed with the light of the stained glass. Blue and silver sunlight carved the room into transfixing spiral arcs. Silver willows lined a dark-blue carpet to the center of the tower, and a solitary marble throne.

Anaia approached in silence. Attendants recognized her, offering solemn salutes and moving away.

The woman on the throne was a shadow. A husk. Wrinkled. Deformed. Her facial features bore a warped resemblance to Anaia’s charge. The piercing blue eyes were the same. But that was it.

Anaia’s heart skipped a beat. It was the Sovereign.

She looked so old. The Sovereign had three millennia behind her, but her physical form never changed. She should have looked younger than her guard. This woman could have passed for ninety, even a hundred.

The Sovereign was more than Anaia’s responsibility. She was her best friend. Her confidante. Her teacher. Her conversation partner. Her slice of history, passed down through time. Of all the guards in the ancient books, she was sure she’d come the closest to knowing who this mythical figure was. But right now, she wondered whether she might be the last of the guards, too.

Anaia hardly recognized the still figure hunched over the marble. This was a stranger.

“The Stone.” She called out quietly. “You’ve taken it off.”

The Sovereign nodded.

“As a good friend recently reminded me, change is the only constant.”

Anaia stared in disbelief. “I can’t do this alone.”

“We’ve done nothing for long enough.”

The Sovereign beckoned Anaia over to her, took her by the hand with a weak smile, and whispered a few quick words in her ear.

By the time Anaia stood, a hushed silence gripped the air. The Sovereign’s eyes were open, but she was gone.

The room was still.

“No one hears about this.” Anaia’s voice was thick as she started back. “I’ll have some answers in a few weeks. If we’re all still here.”