The silence in the courtyard was absolute. It was a heavy, suffocating blanket pressed down by the white-hot sun. The soldiers, the guards, the distant servants—all of them were statues, their collective gaze fixed on the woman kneeling in the dust.
Elara's heart was a frantic drum against her ribs. Her jeans were digging into her knees, and the sandstone was hot enough to blister. But the heat was nothing compared to the cold, gold-eyed stare of the man on the throne.
Emperor Kaelen had not moved. He simply watched her, his head tilted in a display of almost casual, predatory curiosity.
Then, he spoke.
His voice wasn't the roar of a tyrant she had expected. It was deep, smooth, and laced with a chilling lack of emotion. It cut through the silence like a bronze blade.
"Min k'hel-at?"
The words hung in the dry air.
Elara's world tilted for a second time. It wasn't just the shock of hearing him speak. It was the shock of understanding.
It was High Ashurian. The formal, courtly tongue she had spent the last five years of her life painstakingly translating from broken tablets and faded scrolls. The language that was, in her time, dead for two millennia. It was alive. And it was being used to ask her a simple, terrifying question.
What creature are you?
Her modern, 21st-century brain, trained in de-escalation and rational communication, took over. It was the worst possible thing it could have done.
"Wait!" she yelled, her voice cracking. She instinctively threw her hands up in the universal "don't shoot" gesture. "Please! I-I mean no harm! I don't know how I got here! My name is Elara Vance!"
It was a fatal mistake.
The English language, so normal to her, was a violent cascade of alien, sibilant sounds in this ancient place. The soldiers visibly recoiled, their hands tightening on their spears. The "surrender" gesture? It just exposed her palms, which they likely assumed were for casting spells.
"Sorcery!" a voice boomed from Kaelen's right.
A man stepped forward. He was older than Kaelen, his face a map of scars, his armor heavier. A general. He unsheathed a massive bronze sword, the shing of it splitting the air.
"She speaks in the serpent-tongue, Your Majesty!" the general spat, pointing the sword at her throat. "A witch sent by the Northern priests! Allow me to take her head. We will burn the body before her magic taints the air!"
The tip of the blade was now inches from her face. Elara could smell the coppery scent of old blood on the metal.
This was it. She was going to be murdered. Executed by a man who was supposed to be a museum exhibit.
Her panic was a physical thing, a scream trapped in her chest. But behind the panic, the academic part of her brain—the part that had earned her a doctorate—was screaming something else.
You know the language. Use it.
They value ritual. Show submission.
Stop being a 21st-century tourist and start being an ancient subject.
With a strangled sob, Elara did the last thing anyone expected. She slammed her forehead into the hot, dusty stone. The impact sent a jolt of pain up her skull, but it cleared her head.
She forced her body into a full kowtow, a position of total, abject submission she had only ever seen on temple carvings.
Then, she spoke.
Her voice was shaky, muffled by the ground, but she pitched it with the formal, archaic grammar she had memorized.
"A'vass, K'aelen-Vektar." (Mercy, Great Emperor.)
The courtyard went silent again. The general's sword didn't move, but she could feel the burning intensity of Kaelen's gaze.
She took a breath, forcing the academic words out.
"Na'kasha-im... an-ni." (A witch... I am not.)
She lifted her head, just slightly. Her hair was matted with sweat and dirt. She looked directly at the stone steps below the throne, careful not to meet his eyes.
"An-ni... as-sira." (I am... a scholar.)
The general let out a snort of disbelief. "A scholar? In... those strange clothes? Look at her! She wears the pants of a man, woven from spider-silk. She is a lie!"
"Silence, Vorak."
Kaelen's voice was quiet, but the command was absolute. The general—Vorak—snapped his mouth shut and stiffened, his face darkening. He sheathed his sword, the sound one of pure frustration.
Kaelen leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. He didn't look like a king on a throne. He looked like a predator crouching, studying a new, strange animal that had wandered into his territory.
"As-sira?" he repeated. The word sounded different in his mouth. Richer. More skeptical. "A scholar. Of what? And from where? No kingdom I know of clothes its women like... that."
His eyes raked over her, from her (now scuffed) leather ankle boots to her modern, fitted jeans and silk blouse. It wasn't a lustful look. It was the look of an appraiser. An anatomist.
Elara's mind was racing. She needed a lie. A good lie. A lie that mixed truth and fiction.
"I come from a land... far from here," she whispered, her Ashurian growing stronger. "Beyond the Great Salt Sea. Beyond the World's Spine mountains."
"No such land exists," Vorak growled.
"A storm... a terrible, unnatural storm... it destroyed my ship," Elara continued, ignoring him, her words aimed only at Kaelen. "I... I was washed ashore. I... I don't know how I got here. I only know... I am alone. I am... a teller of histories. A keeper of records. A scholar. That is all I am."
Kaelen stared at her for a long, unbearable moment. She could see the gears turning in his sharp mind. He didn't believe her. Not for a second. But he was intrigued.
"A keeper of records," he mused. He motioned with one hand, and a scribe in a simple robe hurried forward, unfurling a large, brittle scroll of leather.
"A map of my domain," Kaelen said. "Show me. Show me where your... knowledge... is of any use."
Vorak looked pleased. The test. She would fail, and he would get his execution.
Elara was dragged to her feet by the two guards and pulled to the base of the throne. The map was spread on the steps. It was crude by her standards, the coastlines wrong, the mountains looking like jagged teeth. But she recognized it. It was the Ashurian Empire.
Kaelen descended one step, standing over her. He was impossibly tall. He pointed a single, bronze-ringed finger at a region in the northeast.
"The Sand Wolf tribes," he said. "They raid my northern caravans. They are rats. But they are clever rats. They hide in the canyons, where my legions cannot move. Your histories... your scholarship... what can you tell me about the Sand Wolves, little scholar?"
Elara stared at the map. Her blood went colder than the museum vault.
She knew this. She knew exactly this.
This was the "Miracle of the Kaelen Flood." It was one of the foundational myths of his reign. The history books (her history books) told the story: Kaelen, newly crowned, was plagued by the Sand Wolves. He supposedly went into the desert, meditated for a day, and returned, declaring that the gods had told him the river would flood. He used the flood to trap and annihilate the tribe, cementing his power as a divine-chosen ruler.
But looking at the cold, calculating eyes of the man in front of her... Elara knew he was no prophet. He was a strategist.
He hadn't predicted the flood. He... he knew about it.
How?
She looked at the map, at the river... and then at her own trembling hands. Oh god.
She was his source. She was the "divine message."
This was a temporal loop, a paradox that made her head spin. But she had no choice. It was her only card to play.
She swallowed, the dust in her throat making her voice raw.
"You... you do not need to move your legions, Your Majesty," she said, her voice barely audible.
"Speak up," he commanded.
She took a breath and met his gaze for the first time. The golden eyes were shocking up close.
"You do not need to attack them," she said, louder now. "They are camped in the dry bed of the Serqet River. They believe it is safe. They do not know the snows in the high mountains... they are melting faster than usual."
A flicker in his eyes. He knew. He had the same intelligence, but he didn't have her certainty.
She pointed a shaking finger at the map. "You must... wait. In three days. No more. A... a 'wave from the mountains,' the gods' anger... it will wash them away. The river will run red. Your enemies will be gone, and your soldiers will not have to lift a single sword."
The courtyard was so quiet, she could hear the hot wind whistling over the palace walls.
General Vorak's face was pale with shock. This was strategic intelligence of the highest order. How could this foreign witch know about the northern snow-melt?
Kaelen stared at her. His face was unreadable. The seconds stretched. Elara felt lightheaded, sure she was about to be executed for her arrogance.
Finally, Kaelen stood to his full height, a shadow falling over her.
He did not look at Vorak. He did not look at his soldiers. He looked only at Elara.
"Take her," he commanded.
The guards grabbed her arms. She flinched, expecting to be dragged to the dungeons, to a chopping block.
"Your Majesty?" Vorak asked, confused.
"Not to the dungeons," Kaelen said, turning his back and ascending his throne. "Take her to the Bronze Chamber. Post four guards. Give her food and water. No one is to enter. No one is to speak to her."
He sat down, his expression cold.
"She is no longer a prisoner," he declared, his voice echoing across the stone. "She is... an oracle. And she is mine."