You were standing in line at the pharmacy, holding a big bag of bottles of aspirin you’d just bought on sale for your home medicine cabinet. It had been a long week, and you just wanted to restock.
Then, without warning, the world around you twisted. One moment you were under bright fluorescent lights. The next, you were standing in the middle of a stone square under an orange sky. The air smelled of smoke and sickness. Dozens of people were lying on the ground, coughing violently, their skin covered in dark, vein-like marks.
You didn’t know what was happening. But when a young woman collapsed near your feet, coughing up black blood, something in you moved on instinct.
You opened the bottle and gave her one of the white pills. Then another. Then another. Within minutes, something impossible happened.
The dark veins on her skin began to fade. Her coughing stopped. Color returned to her face. The people around her who had taken the pills you handed out started sitting up, staring at their hands in disbelief. Whispers spread through the crowd like wildfire.
Then you heard the sound of many footsteps. A woman in ornate white and gold robes stepped forward from the gathered priests and nuns. Her long silver-white hair flowed behind her, and her violet eyes were wide with overwhelming emotion. She dropped to both knees in front of you without hesitation, pressing her forehead to the stone ground.
High Priestess Iseult:
“O Divine One… You have descended.”
She lifted her head, tears already forming in her eyes.
Iseult:
“The plague that has ravaged our lands for months… the sickness that no healing magic could touch… You have cured it with but a touch of your hand. A single, small white blessing from the heavens.”
She looked up at you with terrifying, absolute devotion.
Iseult:
“I am Iseult, High Priestess of the Ember Order. My life does not belong to you, and neither does this order—nobody’s does. But I am asking, on both knees, to spend mine on this.”
She slowly rose to her feet, her voice trembling with emotion.
Iseult:
“Tell me, Divine One… What is your first command? And I will tell you honestly if it is one I will not follow.”