Corin stepped out of the dense forest and looked around. At least, he tried to. Out of exhaustion, he stumbled over his own feet. He was finally at the end of his tether.
'Damn, nothing's going right today.'
The ruins of the old temple lay before him, overgrown with ivy and moss. The stones were ancient and marked by time, the walls had partially collapsed, and the gates hung crookedly on their hinges. Although something had drawn him here, he felt like an intruder entering a forbidden land of sorts.
He had never heard of such ruins. But he had seen them.
'This is the temple from one of my dreams. What is it doing outside Veyna?'
Corin was confused. Ever since he had had the first dreams, dreams of a woman with long black hair and a red dress, dreams of fire and destruction, dreams of a ruined temple surrounded by ravens; he didn't know what they meant, but something inside him knew that this was the place for answers.
With every step Corin took closer to the temple, the tension grew. The ravens, which had previously been sitting quietly on the walls and roofs, began to stir. One by one, they burst into the air, their wings flapping loudly and violently as they took to the skies. First, it was just one, then two, then three, until finally, a whole cloud of ravens swirled around Corin. They flew in wild circles around him, their black silhouettes standing out against the sky.
The noise was deafening, a thunderous chorus of cawing and flapping wings that almost overwhelmed Corin. It was as if he was caught in a storm, surrounded by a whirlwind of feathers and beaks. The ravens formed a living cloak around him, their eyes boring into him as if searching for something inside him. Corin stood stock-still with his eyes closed, surrounded by this storm of birds, and felt the atmosphere around him grow denser and more threatening.
At that moment, anyone would have felt small and vulnerable, surrounded by a force of nature that could not be controlled. The ravens seemed to be demanding something from him, challenging him, and Corin knew he had to make a decision in order to survive. He took a deep breath and stepped forward, into the temple, into the uncertainty.
Corin opened his eyes, but all he saw was the temple. As if the ravens had never existed.
As he entered the temple, he felt a strange energy in the air. It was as if the stones themselves were watching him, beckoning him to go deeper into the temple. Corin felt uneasy, but he kept walking, his slow steps echoing off the walls.
Suddenly, he heard a voice in his head. It was quiet at first, but it grew louder as he got closer to the heart of the temple. It was as if it were saying: "Come and see." Corin felt drawn in, as if the voice was leading him to something he couldn't understand.
He walked on, the voice growing louder, until finally, he stood before a large monolith.
'Black as the ravens themselves.'
Corin felt like he was in a trance, pulled by an invisible force. The voice in his head was now a loud call, urging him to touch the stone.
And then, in a moment that seemed like an eternity, Corin touched the raven stone.
But when Corin's fingers touched the raven stone, the world shattered into silence. The noise of the voice fell away from him like dust. His skin burned. It was as if something was branding itself into his soul. Then—cold.
He stood barefoot on black ice.
Above him: a withered sky, devoid of stars.
In front of him: a crumbling castle, frozen in time, with battlements of broken glass and walls from which black plumes billowed like smoke.
And there, on a staircase of frozen obsidian, stood she.
Long black hair. A red dress that looked as if it had been sewn from blood.
She didn't look at him, yet he felt seen and finally found.
Then she said a single word:
"Witness."
The world itself shattered into feathers and frost.
They formed an image that was blurred at first, like a picture dipped in water, but then became clearer and clearer. Then he saw it:
Flames leaping from high, gold-framed windows,
cascading through empty, deserted halls.
A statue of a black snake, carved from stone, broken in two.
Dark blood seeped from its interior,
snaking through the streets,
crawling over cobblestones,
eating into facades.
And everywhere: whispering. A whisper that would drive anyone who heard it mad.
A balcony, above the burning city.
A man stood alone.
In his hand, a sword that changed, fluid, alive.
His gaze rested on the city,
Between guilt and determination.
He said nothing.
His cloak flapped in the wind.
Corin could not recognize the man.
But inside, he knew:
This is not the end.
It was the moment when it all began.
Corin opened his eyes, paralyzed by the vision. He couldn't breathe, couldn't think. His breath froze.
And in his fist:
a single black feather.
He didn't know what he had seen, only that it had to be stopped.