The woman sat with her back turned, her face hidden by the folds of the black hood on her cloak. She held a smooth wooden staff covered with strange designs, skillfully carved into the hard wood. The staff had an aura of power surrounding it, not the kind of power that was obviously tangent but the power that you sensed was there but did not acknowledge. That was the most dangerous kind of power; a person would never know what hit them.
Slowly she turned around, her hair a shimmering cascade of darkness as the hood fell from her head revealing the wrinkled face of an old woman on the brink of death a sharp contrast to her hands which were smooth and young. Her silver eyes shone in the candle light as she gazed upon the woman who knelt before her.
"You may rise."
The voice was like a frozen winter wind, it hinted at things that you would never see, the voice of eternity itself.
The young woman who had been kneeling a moment before now stood, tall before the ancient prophet who sat unmoving in the depths of her cloak.
Yes, she will do well.
"Girl, what is your name?" Now the voice was warmer.
"Kerowin" She answered.
"Kerowin" the prophet spoke the name easily rolling it around in her mouth. " You know why I have called you." It was a statement not a question and Kerowin nodded her head in acknowledgment.
"On your knees, Kerowin, it is almost time for you to go, but first, the sword."
The prophet picked up a bundle that lay at her feet and handed it to the woman. Holding it out she announced the words Kerowin had been waiting for. "The Dragon sword"
Kerowin accepted the bundle and without hesitating pulled back the cloth that hid the sword.
Sunlight coming from an open window hit the pure crystal blade, bouncing back, a million shafts of molten sunlight. As Kerowin uncovered more the radiance in the room grew until there was only her and the prophet in a world of white light.
The hilt was made of a strange black substance that seemed to pull in the light surrounding it causing the two rubies embedded in the hilt to stand out even more as if they burned with an inner fire. The blade of the sword was made of clear crystal, a strange contrast to the blackness of the hilt. It held the power of both light and dark, the power to heal but also the power to kill.
The prophet took the sword from Kerowin and held it in the air above her head.
"Swear on the blade!" Now the voice was filled with power matching that of the staff. It was not the voice of the old and frail woman she looked to be. Kerowin took the sword from the prophet once more and swore upon it.
"I swear upon the dragon sword that I will protect it and it's bearer with my life. If this sword should be destroyed my life will be forfeit."
It was with fluid grace that she pulled back a sleeve of her white robe and, brandishing the dagger she wore at her waist constantly, drew a sun , the symbol for prophecy, on both of her hands. She let the blood from the cuts drip onto the sword, each drop hissing as it fell. It glowed once with brilliant light and then subsided into darkness. The blood was gone from the sword and the cuts on her hands were healed leaving the sign of the sun forever etched into her skin.
When the light of magic faded from her eyes night was coming on and she was sitting on the hard earth of the hill that overlooked the ruined town of Hornfels. The tower and the prophet were gone but Kerowin's head rang with her last command. Go. She put the sword into its brown leather sheath, her hands tracing the twisting dragon forms expertly pressed into the leather. Kerowin buckled the sword on and leaped into the sky, wings already pushing from her back and claws growing from her feet. In a few seconds, there was nothing left of the former woman, the giant wings of a dragon already disappearing into the darkening twilight.
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This mod was created by Kalle Macklin