Interesting.
With light of this wavelength,
there should be some observable thermal emanation.
Energy radiates from the stone, but not in any form I've encountered.
Hmm.
Tests are required.
Amazing. The energy seems to influence
the mental states of living beings.
Individually, the test subjects appear…
smarter.
They've spontaneously evolved into a superorganism.
They no longer seem to recognize unexposed members of their species
as anything other than food.
No.
Father, what a perfectly awful time for you to be away.
You're so slow!
-I'm gonna get you.
Ha!
-Hey!
-You're it!
What is that?
Race you there.
Can you see it?
By the Dawn Star.
I don't like it.
Hey! Come back!
The damn noise wakes the entire block.
Surely, His Excellency sees the value…
The copper ingots were counterfeit, and he was rude to my servant.
He must be punished.
…filled with villains and scum.
And I see guards there daily. The Shoehorn must be cleaned out.
The Imperium must not be sullied by poor policing.
I will speak with the captain of the guard.
-Your father would have already--
My father appreciates your concern.
That will be all for today.
Sherzi! Oh, gods, please! Where is my wife?
Sherzi?
I demand to see her.
Father?
Emperor Zal?
Go away.
It's me.
It's Sherzi. I'm here. Come open the door.
You're all right. I'm here.
Oh, Sherzi. My dear wife. I've been so worried.
Come sit. Here, you must be hungry.
What troubles you?
Our daughter. She is not prepared.
Mirana is stronger than you know.
There's more to taking the throne than strength.
Making decisions for which no one else can muster the courage.
Seeing where others are blind. Braving the darkness alone.
She will do everything she can to make you proud.
Every time I look upon her, I see our failure.
Enter!
Captain. I hope this is important.
I wouldn't have intruded otherwise, Highness.
Something happened. An incident in the Hinterlands.
You're needed in the throne room.
Mirana?
Where did your mother go?
Sherzi? Sherzi?
Tell us exactly what you saw.
Monsters.
I barely made it out alive.
You must go. Burn them out.
There's more you're not saying. Out with it.
It's not just what I saw.
It's what I felt, pushed through my skull.
The world spun, and my soul teetered on the edge of an abyss.
A red glow to swallow up all law and reason.
I felt the truth. We are nothing.
So, you had a bad dream.
Pardon her apprehension, but the claims you make are strange.
You want proof.
The proof is in the blood.
Alert the guard.
I ride to the Hinterlands myself.
-Three days' march for this. -Easy now.
Where in the Seven Hells is everyone?
Where could they have gone?
It's as though they all left at once in the night.
Your Highness.
Oh, I was beginning to fear you would never come.
More trouble with the Coriel'Tauvi?
Mene's Provincial Governor in the Scintillant Waste
thought that she might collect tribute from our border regions.
I relayed your father's objections.
I hope you were polite.
Hmm, things became heated.
Do you think the Coriel'Tauvi are responsible for this?
No.
The Principality of Shadow is not usually given to such subtlety.
It's the same around the perimeter.
Abandoned property. Empty silence.
Could you see anything from above?
Not through this fog.
So, we're marching blind, in the middle of the night,
into the arms of an adversary we cannot identify and do not understand?
Perfect.
Forward then.
-Halt!
By the Dawn Star. What was she?
Hold steady.
Shields! Form ranks!
The villagers.
It's all of them.
They're all…
-Burn it to the ground. -Done.
Remember.
Give it some room, Highness.
You saw what it did to these people.
Yes. You're wise, of course.
One damned rock did all this.
I'm more disquieted by a question.
What if there are more?
What if this is only the start of something else?
Something worse?
Princess, I hope the soldiers I lent the throne served you well.
They did. My father and the Empire thank you.
Oh, your father.
I have not seen your father in many suns.
The demands on his time and energy are difficult to overstate.
Hm. And the demands on you, Princess, what of them?
Spit it out. You want something.
Only the opportunity to serve the throne.
I see how restless you are, Princess.
Name me Regent.
Perhaps I can ease the demands on you both.
Your kind concern is always so appreciated, Legatus.
And thank you again for the troops.
Your Highness.
She's more snake than a woman.
Mirana, you have returned.
Father, you seem to be having a good day.
The days are always good under our unflagging sun.
In the night, though, I must admit, dark times do visit upon me.
How was your trip?
I encountered something.
Something awful and powerful.
A stone that glowed crimson.
-A stone? -What is it?
A half-remembered dream or a nightmare that came to me while you were gone.
I saw a red rock, in a cave…
in the snow.
You were lost in its song.
It was only a dream, Father.
Do not trust me. Do not rely on me.
Even sanity feels like madness now.
Oh.
Don't say that.
Death comes for me. Prepare for it.
When you were born, the Oracle offered you a gift of prophecy.
He told me I would know when the time had come for you to collect it.
Find him. Take the stone. Find your answers.
I don't want to leave you again.
You must.
Just remember,
the Oracle speaks truths that sound like lies
and lies that conceal the truth.
He foresaw this.
Or perhaps-- Or perhaps, I just imagined it.
Sherzi! There you are. Sing with me.
Of course.
You know that little voice in your head,
the one that chimes in when you're trying to decide something?
It always leaves me wondering,
is that the true me or is that the devil tempting me to error?
You're still thinking about those monsters in the village.
No, the Oracle.
What if he tells me things that wouldn't have come true
if he hadn't spoken?
Fate always seemed a noose to me.
Well, there's fate, and there's destiny.
Fate is for cowards and fools.
Destiny is what you make it.
Destiny.
Mirana, daughter of Zal, Princess of the Sun…
come to say farewell.
You must know why I'm here.
Oh, not even you know why you're here,
because you have not yet arrived.
I don't understand.
Of course not. Not now.
Not yet.
I will make you some tea.
Under the shadow of this red rock,
you will see what blinds you.
Come in, under the shadow.
You will have your answers,
and you will wish you never sought them at all.
Do I have a choice?
You are free. You can leave my temple now, as you will.
But we both know, as much as it feels like a decision,
your path has been set since the moment you saw the Direstone.
Direstone?
Remember.
I remember.
I'm not me.
Not this me.
Hah. The hiss of fate.
He did this. The Invoker did this.
No. The Pillars of Creation did.
He used them, collapsing all realities into one.
This one.
He silenced infinite souls.
But your voice, a god's voice pierced the void.
The Pillars of Creation?
If they made this, then this can be unmade.
With more difficulty than you know.
I'm afraid your divinity has fled you.
What power you have is granted by your father and destiny.
Your Radiance, the prophecy you came for, I would speak it.
Thank you, no.
I've heard your prophecies before.
The Devil of the Moon would turn Selemene's lotuses against her,
heralding the return of Mene and the destruction of all things.
That came true, it seems.
Yes, it came true.
But tell me, was it fate, or was it destiny?
You'll forgive me if I leave that question to you.
You will travel into darkness, and save what you love
by allowing what you've loved to die.
Restoration requires destruction,
Princess of the Sun, Princess of the Moon,
Princess of nothing at all.
Marci?
Oh, gods, Marci.
Let me look at you.
The Oracle said something obnoxious.
I would have separated him from his tongue long ago.
But the bastard always saw me coming.
He was… obscure.
And why do you look like you just came from a funeral?
It's nothing.
It seems more than nothing.
Have you ever had a dream where someone you love wronged you?
You know they did nothing, yet, the sting remains.
I wronged you in a dream.
You were wronged more gravely.
My father, he is not well.
I know you will care for him and care for the people.
Princess?
I will not be returning to The Imperium.
Where you go, we follow.
Where I go now, the guard, their captain,
and The Slayer would be noticed, and quite unwelcome.
You're headed into Shadowlands.
I won't leave you unescorted to the tender mercies of the elves.
You can, and you will.
Please, stay by my father's side, both of you.
Do not trust Tihomir, and do not trust my uncle.
You're not making any sense.
Trust I am trying to set things right.
Lina.
You worry you are capable only of destruction.
I know better.
I'm not from this world.
I'm not the Mirana you grew up with, and loved, and served so selflessly.
And you're not my Marci, but I watched you…
watched her…
Gods, it's…
The Mirana you knew thought there was no greater pain
than looking into her father's eyes and seeing a stranger.
But in the other world, the one I come from,
Father was right. I failed.
I lost you. I lost-- I lost everything.
There are two paths before me.
Down the first, righting a wrong so perverse,
I can't even comprehend it completely.
Down the other, this life. This stranger's life.
I feel trapped in someone else's dream.
Where is it?
It's gone.
Well, how could it be gone?
There's only one moon.
The threat is unprecedented.
The stones have fallen all over the world, even here in the Nightsilver Woods.
Where they land, chaos follows.
And where are they falling from?
The moon, Highness.
Our moon is crumbling and raining this down upon our heads.
The moon.
Then they are gifts from Mene. This must be her will.
If they are gifts, they are strange and troubling gifts.
N-- Not every creature, so exposed, is reduced to a gibbering cannibal.
A few, a very few, seem able to resist the worst of the effects
and are visibly… empowered instead.
Just a handful of such beings could pose a threat to the Dark Moon Order
and our Lady's ability to maintain peace across her dominion.
The Helio Imperium and Zal's Praetorian Guard
have already been troublesome.
You're saying that those troubles would grow?
Perhaps exponentially, Highness.
I would request an audience with our Lady.
If she has some intent, I would like to divine it.
Impossible.
Forgive my daughter. She isn't usually given to overreaction.
Disturbing the goddess is quite unnecessary.
The stones can be collected, their effects contained.
I will personally see to it.
Overreaction?
These stones may be a conduit for an entity
whose power could surpass any of the gods.
Quite a conclusion.
I don't imagine you shared it with The Althing.
Of course, I didn't.
Something like that? They're not prepared.
Correct.
What are you…
Some mysteries are better left as mysteries.
That applies to them, not me.
Filomena, for once, when I tell you something, listen.
I always listen.
Listen and obey.
This is dangerous. This is death.
Leave this problem to me.
Trust that I know best.
Fine.
I am proud of you.
You're all that matters to me. Trust that, too.
You're wrong, Father. I listen.
It's the obey part I've never been very good at.
He said, "Tonight, we dine! Tonight, we drink!
The village is saved!"
-To Bram!
I'll return with fresh cups for everyone.
Barkeep, another round.
It's good to see some things haven't changed.
Sorry. What hasn't changed?
Your love of jumping in front of lines at bars, Davion.
Of course. It's you.
Took me a second in this dim light. Um, let me get you a drink.
Your favorite is… something strong.
Whiskey, right? We had a wild night after--
I'm not one of your nameless conquests.
They all have names, lovely.
But I'm in my cups, and my memory just isn't what it was when…
Yeah, I'm not here to share a drink or your bed.
I have a need of a Dragon Knight.
I have need of you.
This wyrmling you've slain.
I'm hunting something bigger.
-The Crimson Devil.
The Father of Fire.
I'm hunting Slyrak.