Willing Sacrifice

Raised in isolation, La'tiera has been coddled and secluded, her mission too important to risk anything happening to her. The Herald—a harbinger comet—has appeared in the sky, telling all the Time of Trial is near.
She is ready to do as her duty requires, though the very world she will die to preserve is one she will never see.

Dal has led a free life, serving the Order established centuries ago to find and instruct the Bearer in how to perform the Trial established by the covenant made between the Four Gods and the Demons who seek to take over his world. Yet as the latest Trial approaches, there has been no news of the Bearer. The Order is worried...

A lively child draws these two together. La'tiera is elated at seeing a person or two from the outside, even as she worries her selfish desire for companionship might put all in jeopardy. Suspicion then arises on both sides, as what she has been taught and what Dal knows to be true are widely...