Harrogath, 1800 AD - 1900 AD
A hundred years passed after Astrid the Seer's warning.
Kaelan felt every one of them.
The child grew into a woman, then into an elder, then passed into the spirit realm like all the others. But her warning lingered, passed down through generations of seers who followed her. She's coming. Be ready.
The words became a prophecy, then a legend, then a hope that refused to die.
Kaelan held onto it with both hands.
---
The first sign came in 1850.
A dimensional rift opened in the southern plains—not large, not threatening, but different. The energy that flowed from it was unlike anything Kaelan had felt before. Warm. Familiar. Human.
He flew to the rift immediately, his heart pounding.
But when he arrived, it was already closing. He caught only a glimpse of the other side—a flash of green fields, a blue sky, a world that looked like Earth but wasn't. And for just a moment, he thought he saw a figure standing there.
A woman. Dark hair. Watching him.
Then the rift closed.
Kaelan stood alone in the plains, breathing hard, his hands shaking.
"Sigrid," he whispered.
No answer came.
---
He returned to the library and searched through every record of dimensional activity for the past thousand years. He found nothing like this. No rifts that opened and closed so quickly. No energy signatures that felt so personal.
The seers gathered around him, their silver eyes troubled.
"It was her," the eldest said. "We felt it too. A soul returning. A path being walked."
"When will she come fully?"
"We don't know. The threads are tangled. She is fighting something—time, fate, perhaps her own memories." The seer paused. "But she is coming. Closer with each attempt."
Kaelan nodded slowly. "Then we wait. And we watch."
---
The second sign came in 1875.
A child was born in the city—a girl with no remarkable gifts, no silver eyes, no signs of special destiny. But when the midwife placed her in her mother's arms, the child opened her eyes and spoke one word.
"Kaelan."
The mother fainted. The midwife ran for the elders.
Kaelan arrived within the hour. He knelt by the cradle, staring at the infant. She looked back at him with eyes that were far too old, far too knowing.
"Say it again," he whispered.
The child smiled—a smile he had not seen for two thousand years.
"Kaelan," she said clearly. "I'm coming."
Then her eyes fluttered closed, and she was just a baby again, sleeping peacefully.
Kaelan stayed by her cradle for three days, waiting for her to wake, to speak again. She never did. She grew into a normal child, with no memory of the words she had spoken.
But Kaelan remembered. He would always remember.
---
The third sign came in 1890.
A storm swept across Harrogath—not a natural storm, but something else. Lightning that danced in patterns too deliberate to be random. Thunder that spoke in rhythms almost like words. Rain that fell in warm, gentle sheets, soaking the earth, bringing life.
Kaelan stood on his hilltop and let it wash over him.
He felt her in it. Not physically—she wasn't there. But her presence, her essence, her love. It wrapped around him like an embrace, warm and familiar.
"I'm here," he whispered to the wind. "I'm waiting."
The storm answered with a gentle rumble, almost like a voice.
Soon.
---
The fourth sign came in 1901.
A traveler arrived in Harrogath through a rift in the northern wastes. He was human—fully human—and he carried news from Earth. News of a world changing faster than ever before. Machines that moved without horses. Lights that burned without fire. Ships that flew through the air.
And something else.
"There are heroes," the traveler said. "New kinds of heroes. People with powers, like your bloodline. They're starting to appear."
Kaelan listened intently. "What kind of powers?"
"All kinds. Strength. Speed. The ability to fly." The traveler paused. "And a woman. They say she appeared in a place called Themyscira. An Amazon. A princess."
Kaelan's heart stopped.
"What is her name?"
"Diana." The traveler frowned. "Princess Diana of Themyscira."
Not Sigrid. Not yet. But close. So close.
The Amazons lived. His wife's people endured. And if the Amazons endured, then perhaps—
He didn't finish the thought. He couldn't. It was too much hope to hold.
---
That night, Kaelan dreamed of Sigrid for the first time in centuries.
She stood in a garden of impossible beauty, surrounded by flowers that glowed with soft light. She looked exactly as she had on the day they met—young, fierce, beautiful.
"Kaelan," she said. "I'm almost there."
He reached for her, but his hands passed through empty air.
"The path is hard," she continued. "Reincarnation is not like dying. It's... complicated. I have to fight every step of the way."
"Fight what?"
"Time. Fate. The memory of who I was." She smiled—that sharp, wonderful smile. "But I'm winning. I'm close now. Closer than I've ever been."
"When?"
"Soon. In your time, soon." She began to fade. "Wait for me, Kaelan. Just a little longer."
He woke with tears on his face and hope burning in his chest.
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END OF CHAPTER 43
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