The Prophecy

“Winter is coming…”

  It wasn’t just a “Game of Thrones” reference – not in the world that Ayesha lived. Ayesha wouldn’t care for the series, anyway. And she wasn’t a fan of reading books in general, let alone try and get through 9000 or so pages of a novel.

  To her, it was real life.

  “Winter is coming and one will die.”

  To Ayesha, it was a prophecy foretold by a royal seer the day she was born eighteen years ago. The seer had also predicted the exact date and time of when this would happen.

  She looked up at the huge grandfather clock, ticking away like it had no care in the world. Why would it? – it wasn’t alive, therefore, it actually had nothing to care about. She gulped—it was half past eleven. Half an hour more and the prophecy would come true.

  Ayesha Sinhala was a young princess of the Sofia Dynasty, which ruled the northern part of Silone in the land of Normania. Silone was the only country she knew, but now, she had resolved that if she had to, she would leave all that she knew behind and start afresh, so everybody she loved would be saved.

  They said babies often never remembered their childhoods, but she could remember the scene clearly. The seer, an aged woman with sparkling white, neatly-combed hair, and clothes of a pauper, pointing to her with her gnarled pointing finger, and saying, “Winter is coming and one will die. A royal blood’s decision will seal the fate of the world or doom it for eternity. Only the Door of Andrios will save this day, eighteen years hence!”

  Now, Ayesha gulped. That was about the only clear memory she had of her infanthood.

  Once the seer had made her proclamation, Ayesha didn’t remember what happened, but her mother, the Queen of Silone, told her years later that the woman had dropped unconscious to the floor. She had been taken to the infirmary, where she had slipped into a coma. After three days, upon examination, the head physician who had attended to her declared her dead.

  ‘It was my doing,’ the young girl thought now. ‘I was born and that’s why the poor woman saw such a dreadful prophecy and died. I should… I should open the Door and go away, so everything and everybody I love would be better off and their fate will no longer be doomed for eternity.’

  Ayesha swallowed the lump that was forming in her throat as her gaze went back to the Door of Andrios that stood tall and looming before her in the cave she tracked it down.

  ‘The sun wouldn’t be up for another three hours. No one will find me gone until then.’

  She took a deep breath and let it out. It was quarter to midnight. The Door wouldn’t open until the exact hour of midnight, when night began to turn to day.

  The words of the prophecy spoken in the old woman’s frail voice went over and over in her mind as she waited: “Winter is coming and one will die. A royal blood’s decision will seal the fate of the world or doom it for eternity. Only the Door of Andrios will save this day, eighteen years hence!”

  She gulped, pushing down the fear that was rising from her stomach. She had waited eighteen years for this; she wasn’t going to back out now. It was the perfect chance—she could do this.

  She closed her eyes to focus better on her determined thoughts.

  All buzzing and fidgeting outside the cave slowly dulled as her mind quietened. She swallowed slowly and deliberately.

  ‘It’s almost time. I can do this. I can save the whole world from being doomed if I can do this. And I will!’

  The loud gong of the clock striking midnight hit her eardrums and she snapped her eyes opened, a little startled. She blinked, but her focus returned almost immediately.

  Ayesha watched as the great Door of Andrios opened slowly, a bright white light spilling onto the floor, its beam widening as it got more room to flow.

  When the Door of Andrios opened completely to its extent, just as the gonging ceased, Ayesha stepped forward – one, two, three, four…

  And then, she stopped.

  The bright white light faded away and there, at the bottom of the Door on the other side, stood a young man.